By Nicola Gammon, Founder of Shoot
David Edelman’s article Give Me My Data has inspired me to open a conversation with my members and plant retailers about getting more seamless access to our own plant buying history.
One of the key differentiators for brands in the future will be how they make the data they have gathered about us more accessible and usable … and then turned into a service of itself
Shoot provides over 60,000 gardeners with a ‘my plant list’ and ‘my plant care advice’ service as well as detailed information on 15,000 (and growing) plants. If you tell us which plants are in your garden we send you pro-active, personalised plant care reminders each month. Shoot was born out of my own frustrations with plant buying and care. It has now gone on to win awards awards including Website of the Year 2012 from the Garden Media Guild and a Which? Best Buy. Some members love our service so much they are now Lifetime Members. I am thrilled to see how well Shoot is received.
I find Shoot invaluable for the jobs to do every month, for knowing what plants I have where, when I put them in, where I bought them
However, I am also aware that our service could be easier to use. It is a time consuming and boring task to gather all your plant labels before you throw them away, search through our 15,000 plants to find each one you just bought and then to add each plant to your own plant list.
An easier way could be so beautifully simple – I am calling it Shoot +. When you shop at your favourite garden centre or plant nursery, simply hand over your club loyalty card at check-out and Shoot will take a feed from their till systems to update your plants list for you with a note of when and where you bought them … automatically on your behalf.
Shoot is looking for one plant retailer to conduct a trial of Shoot +
How can you help? If you are a club member of a Garden Centre please suggest they trial Shoot + If you are willing to wear a badge or hand over a Shoot + leaflet please contact us. Or if you are visionary plant retailer and want to trial the Shoot + service for your own customers please get in touch with us. We’d love to hear from you.