Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, believe it or not!
Instagram has been a big driver of houseplant sales; people see other people showing off their plants and their “shelfies” (plant shelf selfies), in gorgeous glamour photos, and it drives demand of the plants and discussion in the comments. Instagram is also a direct sales channel for Indonesian, Thai, and Sri Lankan growers, who often don’t speak English well but know how to tag the photos of their crops in English, so you can search the hashtags and get daily photos of ready stock. And buyers and sellers then use Google Translate to complete the sales in Instagram messages. I usually reach out to multiple growers in Instagram messages to get their latest price lists, compare them to the latest photos in the feeds, and then do a little arbitrage.
Facebook groups are huge for houseplant geeks. And while FB may have a reputation for older folks, the people in these groups trend much younger, many in their twenties. There are groups divvied up by care tips per specific species, and “BST” (Buy, Sell, Trade) groups that are for commerce but not really discussion, and even regional groups that build up local communities. For example, the Bay Area has BART: Bay Area Rare Tropicals, but also Bay Area Hoya. People post what they’re looking for, and do sales and swaps and even arrange transportation for newly purchased plants (i.e. if you’re going from Livermore to Palo Alto mid-week, can you bring my philodendron). These groups tend to have large and active administrator teams, and tracking reputation within the communities/groups helps cut way down on scammers. If you sell someone a crappy plant, or conversely if you waste a seller’s time and flake out on your purchase, word will get around.
Finally, there is some seriously great plant content on YouTube. Detailed how-to videos, propagation experiments, tours of rare plant nurseries and stores, and many people use that content to drive traffic to their own store or to promote their favorite stores. Rare plant unboxing videos are a whole genre! And they’re extra suspenseful because a decent number of wholesale deliveries from overseas do arrive dead.
Outside of those three, Etsy has become a major sales channel for rare houseplant sales. And just so we’re clear, rare houseplants can go for hundreds of dollars. Price inflation isn’t just for lumber, it’s philodendrons, too.
Instagram has been a big driver of houseplant sales; people see other people showing off their plants and their “shelfies” (plant shelf selfies), in gorgeous glamour photos, and it drives demand of the plants and discussion in the comments. Instagram is also a direct sales channel for Indonesian, Thai, and Sri Lankan growers, who often don’t speak English well but know how to tag the photos of their crops in English, so you can search the hashtags and get daily photos of ready stock. And buyers and sellers then use Google Translate to complete the sales in Instagram messages. I usually reach out to multiple growers in Instagram messages to get their latest price lists, compare them to the latest photos in the feeds, and then do a little arbitrage.
Facebook groups are huge for houseplant geeks. And while FB may have a reputation for older folks, the people in these groups trend much younger, many in their twenties. There are groups divvied up by care tips per specific species, and “BST” (Buy, Sell, Trade) groups that are for commerce but not really discussion, and even regional groups that build up local communities. For example, the Bay Area has BART: Bay Area Rare Tropicals, but also Bay Area Hoya. People post what they’re looking for, and do sales and swaps and even arrange transportation for newly purchased plants (i.e. if you’re going from Livermore to Palo Alto mid-week, can you bring my philodendron). These groups tend to have large and active administrator teams, and tracking reputation within the communities/groups helps cut way down on scammers. If you sell someone a crappy plant, or conversely if you waste a seller’s time and flake out on your purchase, word will get around.
Finally, there is some seriously great plant content on YouTube. Detailed how-to videos, propagation experiments, tours of rare plant nurseries and stores, and many people use that content to drive traffic to their own store or to promote their favorite stores. Rare plant unboxing videos are a whole genre! And they’re extra suspenseful because a decent number of wholesale deliveries from overseas do arrive dead.
Outside of those three, Etsy has become a major sales channel for rare houseplant sales. And just so we’re clear, rare houseplants can go for hundreds of dollars. Price inflation isn’t just for lumber, it’s philodendrons, too.