An order for six salvias
A customer orders six salvias, a clematis and two bags of compost for click and collect on Saturday morning. The website said you had plenty. When the picker goes out on Friday afternoon, there are two salvias left, both looking sorry, and the clematis bench is empty. The EPOS still shows stock, because the rest were sold on a generic key last weekend or thrown away without a write-off.
The picker phones the customer, who is disappointed and asks for a refund on those lines. The order that should have been simple now involves a partial refund, a customer who may not order again and a picker who spent twenty minutes searching the plant area.
Why online plant stock is so unreliable
Selling live plants online exposes every weakness in plant stock recording. Houseplants and hard goods are usually fine. Outdoor plants are where it breaks.
- Plant losses are not always written off, so stock stays on the system.
- Sales on generic keys do not reduce the right product.
- Plants move between benches and zones, so pickers cannot find them.
- Quality varies, and a plant that is technically in stock may not be fit to send.
- The website pulls stock from the EPOS without any judgement about how reliable it is.
What phantom stock costs
Every substitution or refund reduces trust in your online shop, and customers who order plants online are often the ones you most want to keep, because they come back each season. Pickers waste time hunting. Customer service spends time on partial refunds and apologies.
Timing makes it harder to recover. A click and collect order for Saturday is usually picked on Friday afternoon, when the plant team is also preparing for the weekend, so there is little time to find a substitute or reach the customer before they set off.
The alternative some centres choose is to list very few plants online, which avoids the problem but gives away the online plant trade to larger retailers.
Showing only the plants you can trust
- We add a layer between your EPOS and your website that decides which plants to show, rather than passing stock straight through.
- Each plant line gets a confidence rating based on how recently it was counted or checked, its sales pattern and any losses recorded.
- Only lines above a threshold you set are shown as available, and quantities shown online are held back by a buffer you choose.
- Plant staff do a quick bench check on a phone for high selling lines, confirming stock and quality, which lifts confidence for those lines.
- Orders go to a picking app that shows the bench location, a photo of the plant and a place to mark any line short.
- When a line is short at picking, the app suggests a substitute your team has approved, and customers are messaged with the choice.
| Plant line | Stock signal | Shown online? |
|---|---|---|
| Checked on the bench this week | High confidence | Yes, with small buffer |
| Selling on generic keys | Low confidence | Only after a check |
| Recent losses recorded | Medium | Yes, with larger buffer |
| Not counted for weeks | Low | Hidden until checked |
Hard goods such as compost, tools and pots can stay on straight EPOS stock. The confidence layer is only needed where stock is genuinely uncertain.
Online plant orders that arrive complete
Customers see fewer plants online, but the ones they see are there. Picking is quicker because the app shows where each line lives and what it looks like. Shortages still happen occasionally, but they are caught at picking with a sensible substitute rather than a phone call.
Over time, the bench checks improve your EPOS stock as well, which helps the buyer and the tills, not only the website.
Is your website selling plants that are gone?
- Click and collect orders often have plant lines missing.
- Pickers spend a long time finding plants.
- Customers are refunded for plants that were out of stock.
- You list very few outdoor plants online to avoid problems.
- Website stock comes straight from the EPOS without checks.