How a garden centre employee brought ecommerce to the gardening world

Ten years ago, garden centre employee Andy Baxter took a risk and brought the gardening industry online.

Internet Gardener is a family-run gardening ecommerce store which has been running for over a decade.The company, founded by Andy Baxter, has risen from grassroots beginnings to becoming a much-loved and trusted supplier of garden furniture.

After a rapid climb through the industry, Baxter has a number of impressive achievements to his name, including an award at the Online Retail Awards 2016.

Business Advice caught up with Baxter to find why he’salways managed to maintain family-focused roots throughout his business.

Where did the concept come from?

I was working in a garden centre back in 2006, and I noticed there was a huge gap in online shopping for gardening products.

At this point, the industry was just not catered for online and the only way to purchase gardening products was through visiting a gardening centre.

This seemed madness to me, as increasingly at this point shopping was turning towards ecommerce, and I didnt see why the gardening industry should be an exception.

How did you fund your business?

Internet Gardener was self-funded at first. More recently, we have used platforms such as Funding Circle, as we find them to be both more efficient and convenient than bank lending.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced when launching?

The biggest thing was convincing big companies to dropship for us, which at the time was unheard of in the UK for garden products. In fact, back at the beginning we were pioneers in this, despite it now being the norm.

What’s your biggest achievement to date?

We have just completed our biggest year of sales to date, which is a huge achievement for us.

This is reflective of a lot of wider achievements as well though, such as witnessing the team grow, both personally within their roles, and alongside the growth of the business.

Weve evolved from a purely family business, to a varied and strong team of experts who are absolutely vital to our growth, which I would consider both our biggest and continuous achievement.

What marketing strategies have you used?

We work on a variety of marketing strategies, but focus mainly on our digital side seeing as online is core to our business model. This incorporates a mix of paid advertising online, plus SEO tactics and digital PR.

In five years? time, Ill be…

In five years time Ill still be working on growing and developing the team here at Internet Gardener as I love my job, and am committed to the long term growth. Hopefully, however, Ill be able to take a few more days off work every now and then!

Who are your business heroes and why?

It might sound a bit standard, but Richard Branson is a business hero of mine. I like that he says: “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and by falling over.”

This advice really rings true for me because as a business owner, you have to try, try and try again to find the thing that works. Many mistakes are made along the way but you must stick at it.

Additionally Jake Kassan and Kramer LaPlante, founders of MVMT, have really inspired me over the years. They built a watch company from nothing in 2013 to $60m turnover in less than four years.