How do big box stores sell certain palms so cheap?

[Gottagrowemall]

I’ve always wondered this but never asked anyone who could really answer it. How is it that in central florida, Home Depot or Lowe’s or sometimes Walmart can have 7 foot tall queens or 5 foot tall majesty’s for 25$? Walmart sells Christmas palms and arecas in 2-3 gallon pots for under 20$z It seems like certain palms are INCREDIBLY cheap here. Why is that?

in my head I figure, the pot has a cost, the soil has a cost, it’s usually fertilized that has a cost, and the plant at the youngest has to be 2 years old? I’ve grown some myself so I can’t see it being much younger than that. 

Bizmarks, sylvesters, some other palms seem to always be a bit more expensive. Is it just based off growth rate?

Edited December 18, 2021 by Gottagrowemall

[Darold Petty]

Faster growing palms will always be cheaper,  that's OK.   I am not certain about this, but I believe that 'big box' stores don't actually purchase the inventory, and that the financial risk remains with the grower.  That's not OK.

If the palms don't sell, it is the grower. not L or HD that suffers the loss.  Can anyone confirm this ??  This is just an additional reason why I do not patronize these stores.

[Johnny Palmseed]

1 minute ago, Darold Petty said:

Faster growing palms will always be cheaper,  that's OK.   I am not certain about this, but I believe that 'big box' stores don't actually purchase the inventory, and that the financial risk remains with the grower.  That's not OK.

If the palms don't sell, it is the grower. not L or HD that suffers the loss.  Can anyone confirm this ??  This is just an additional reason why I do not patronize these stores.

Yes I was told exactly that by the supervisor at my local HD last week. That’s why they can never mark stuff down like when a plant gets damaged or doesn’t look great. They just leave it for the grower to take back.

[Palmarum]

Darold is correct.

When I was at Lowes, the plants were 'pay per scan' meaning the store took their share and the supplier gets the rest the moment the plant is bought in store. Not every plant may be supplied in this way, as a minority are sometimes bought outright and sold. So as for the large nursery suppliers, if a plant dies, the loss is on them and not the store. The system can be equated to being 'on consignment'.

Prices can be low due to competition between chains. Each store can and may be run slightly different in the Lowes world, as the plants vary so much based on location, climate, season, etc. We had the option of buying plants directly if it was a good idea, involving local growers for a local plant that was a good buy at the time. We had a bit of independence in selecting the plants, as the regional suppliers for the store often had no clue as to what to send us in S. Florida. (We got Apple Trees, Fir Trees, temperate stuff, etc. now and then) not to mention the occasional snow blower and box of ice scrapers.

Ryan

[Gottagrowemall]

11 minutes ago, Palmarum said:

Darold is correct.

When I was at Lowes, the plants were 'pay per scan' meaning the store took their share and the supplier gets the rest the moment the plant is bought in store. Not every plant may be supplied in this way, as a minority are sometimes bought outright and sold. So as for the large nursery suppliers, if a plant dies, the loss is on them and not the store. The system can be equated to being 'on consignment'.

Prices can be low due to competition between chains. Each store can and may be run slightly different in the Lowes world, as the plants vary so much based on location, climate, season, etc. We had the option of buying plants directly if it was a good idea, involving local growers for a local plant that was a good buy at the time. We had a bit of independence in selecting the plants, as the regional suppliers for the store often had no clue as to what to send us in S. Florida. (We got Apple Trees, Fir Trees, temperate stuff, etc. now and then) not to mention the occasional snow blower and box of ice scrapers.

Ryan

Ok and then is the business model or idea that even though Lowe’s or HD does not make major profit from these plants they attract customers to there store? I appreciate everyone clearing this up. From what I can tell one of the major suppliers in Florida is Palmco

[oasis371]

My question is why, in the past, I USED to be able to buy a variety. of palms from big box stores in the North (NJ), fishtails,  foxtails, Cocos, Meds, Christmas, Dates, Hyophorbes, Dypsis, Livistona (other than chinensis), Trachys, Sabals, Needles, Queens, and such..., and now it is exclusively freakin' Majesty palms from sea to shinning sea?! What happened?!

Edited December 19, 2021 by oasis371

[Gottagrowemall]

2 minutes ago, oasis371 said:

My question is why, in the past, I USED to be able to buy a variety. of palms from big box stores in the North (NJ), fishtails,  foxtails, Meds, Christmas, Dates, Hyophorbes, Dypsis, Livistona (other than chinensis), Trachys, Sabals, Needles, Queens, and such..., and now it is exclusively freakin' Majesty palms from sea to shiny sea?! What happened?!

My locals still have quite a bit of variety but yeah I mean the majesty palms are LOADED. They have their own section of the garden department like all year lol. I guess they’re very popular indoors

[oasis371]

Gotta, they SUC! indoors, they just grow fast so are cheap to sell. Glad my acquisition stage is over (as if), but I already have more plants than g'd, LOL. My local big boxes used to basically carry the same palm inventory you'd find in MIAMI. I guess it's all SHIPPING costs that have skyrocketed so only Majesty palms are profitable?

 

Edited December 19, 2021 by oasis371

[Gottagrowemall]

1 hour ago, oasis371 said:

Gotta, they SUC! indoors, they just grow fast so are cheap to sell. Glad my acquisition stage is over (as if), but I already have more plants than g'd, LOL. My local big boxes used to basically carry the same palm inventory you'd find in MIAMI. I guess it's all SHIPPING costs that have skyrocketed so only Majesty palms are profitable?

 

That makes sense. I haven’t frequented mine as much lately because I have a lot of plants to unload. Maybe mine has lost some variety too, wouldn’t be surprised 

[DoomsDave]

Hmmm

Back in ancient times when I managed that garden shop, I managed to sell it, with straight talk and integrity and photos from the hood.

Send back to seller? Laughing.

[Palmarum]

2 hours ago, Gottagrowemall said:

Ok and then is the business model or idea that even though Lowe’s or HD does not make major profit from these plants they attract customers to there store? ....

A short answer, yes.

The Outside Garden section of the store does function as a draw to get customers in the store, but depending on the time of the year it may also be the most profitable department. Different plants and items had different profit margins. Some of the palms and other foliage plants near the back of the department may not have as much profit as compared to the 6-inch flowering orchid that is priced up a lot and placed right near the entrance. The fertilizer and associated items, sprinklers, hoses, rock, stones, etc. have some of the bigger margins. One could look at it as... the plants are priced the leave the store, but customers buy the higher profit associated items 'they need' to go with the plants.

At different times of the year, my OG department would crush sales, so much so we would get a visit from the district manager. Then during heavy rainy periods and hurricane threats, the department becomes a big void of just cleaning, inventory and chasing smokers away from the pool chemicals before they blew up the store.

Ryan

[The7thLegend]

What's also interesting is Lowe's and Wal-Mart will reduce the price of ANY palm/plant and drastically mark them down if damagaed/dsitressed (clearence section) but not at the Home Depot.  At least not in north or central Florida from what I've seen.

[Fusca]

2 hours ago, The7thLegend said:

What's also interesting is Lowe's and Wal-Mart will reduce the price of ANY palm/plant and drastically mark them down if damagaed/dsitressed (clearence section) but not at the Home Depot.  At least not in north or central Florida from what I've seen.

Same thing here in Texas - I've asked about plants being tossed in the dumpster at a couple of local HD garden centers but they won't save the plants by either marking down or giving away!  Seems to depend on the region.  Once in southeast FL I bought a palm at a HD that they marked down for me at the register.  Another item that seems to depend on the area is the ability to special order palms.  Can't be done here but I see folks in CA and FL that are able to do it all the time.

[WaianaeCrider]

On 12/18/2021 at 1:44 PM, Johnny Palmseed said:

Yes I was told exactly that by the supervisor at my local HD last week. That’s why they can never mark stuff down like when a plant gets damaged or doesn’t look great. They just leave it for the grower to take back.

One lowes here discounts orchids by 50% when finished flowering.  That's when I buy and move them to my green houses and wait for them to flower again.

[Silas_Sancona]

10 minutes ago, Fusca said:

Same thing here in Texas - I've asked about plants being tossed in the dumpster at a couple of local HD garden centers but they won't save the plants by either marking down or giving away!  Seems to depend on the region.  Once in southeast FL I bought a palm at a HD that they marked down for me at the register.  Another item that seems to depend on the area is the ability to special order palms.  Can't be done here but I see folks in CA and FL that are able to do it all the time.

Many Lowe's / some HDs here will have a mark downs cart somewhere in the garden section as well. Usually just annual  stuff, but occasionally see other stuff as well.

[Palmarum]

28 minutes ago, WaianaeCrider said:

One lowes here discounts orchids by 50% when finished flowering.  That's when I buy and move them to my green houses and wait for them to flower again.

Did the same thing myself, plus tacked on my employee discount as well...

24 minutes ago, Silas_Sancona said:

Many Lowe's / some HDs here will have a mark downs cart somewhere in the garden section as well. Usually just annual  stuff, but occasionally see other stuff as well.

Managing that cart was one of the things I did and regular customers began to expect it. I would have to carry around yellow clearance tags with me as they would not only ask me all the time to discount stuff -- but would wait for days when I started early to come in and browse the 'cart of sorrows'.

Ryan

[Silas_Sancona]

1 minute ago, Palmarum said:

Did the same thing myself, plus tacked on my employee discount as well...

Managing that cart was one of the things I did and regular customers began to expect it. I would have to carry around yellow clearance tags with me as they would not only ask me all the time to discount stuff -- but would wait for days when I started early to come in and browse the 'cart of sorrows'.

Ryan

= " Cart of Sorrows " ..I'll have to remember that one

[miamicuse]

One thing I am amazed is how generous the big box stores are with returns.

I have seen people return plants with nothing in the pot but a short broken bamboo stake.  I have seen totally dead plants that were obviously dead due to neglect and abuse.  I wonder what happened to those, does HD/Lowes/Menards take the hit or their suppliers take the hit?

[oasis371]

Miami, and I think that ridiculously STUPID return policy is directly responsible for the fact my local big box stores sell almost NOTHING but freakin' Majesty palms.  I remember when my local NJ big boxes sold all of what I could also basically buy in MIAMI! P.S., I have NEVER returned any purchased plant, if it dies it was MY FAULT. People are ridiculous and getting freakin' ridiculouser (my word contribution for 2022)! Have a Happy btw...

 

Edited January 2, 2022 by oasis371

[D Palm]

Most Lowe’s and Walmart have an “almost dead” section and/or out of season. HD does not minus the occasional discounting palms in fall weather. I’m sure they work out a deal with suppliers.

[Palmarum]

16 hours ago, miamicuse said:

One thing I am amazed is how generous the big box stores are with returns.

I have seen people return plants with nothing in the pot but a short broken bamboo stake.  I have seen totally dead plants that were obviously dead due to neglect and abuse.  I wonder what happened to those, does HD/Lowes/Menards take the hit or their suppliers take the hit?

The store takes the hit, as the plant was originally sold and the return policy is that of the store's. The promise of the return is mostly there for non-living items, to give customers assurance they can always bring stuff back. It is almost competitive between chains to whom can do returns better. My store had a direct exchange and price match policy. If someone brought in a dead identifiable plant in a pot, we would swap it for a live one on the spot (if we had it) and that was it.

Now, having said that, I have seen every measure of plant-related return fallacy you can imagine. The returns for plants worked kinda the same way as for everything else, they still needed to match the 'plant' (or whatever it was at that point) with an item number on the receipt to get money back. Often the customer didn't remember the name of the plant and the return associate couldn't tell which item on the receipt was the would-be returned item; so I would be called up front to sort it out. In the beginning they would page the department to come to returns, then they would start paging me by name. The booming page of my name resulted in an "Oh, crap." expression shared by us Outside Garden peeps as I knew I was going to a fight. But, I was always ready.

Minus the legit returns, people tried everything to scam. With no receipt, they tried to get store credit, which became an issue when it was done to move things along and placate the customers. It was then a money loss problem. When I was involved, If I couldn't identify the plant or I could tell it was a scam, I would deny the return. This of course created conflict and then the customer wanted to run up the chain of command to get their way, paging asst. managers, etc. This became common enough for management to give me 'last word' authority on a return, as they got tired of dealing with it.

My favorites include: - a handful of crappy topsoil, thrown in an ancient clay pot that hadn't been sold in decades, being described as a 'recently bought $65.00 plant'. This was almost going to be credited, but I just happen to be walking by checking on returns. - a plastic bag full of pulled up grass, weeds and crab grass trying to be returned as 'three pieces of $1.00 sod'. - a plain, clean empty plastic pot.. no receipt, no name, nothing, just a loud rant of expletives. - a hand-written receipt saying 'plant $50.00' on a pot of dirt... et. al.

The best scam attempts involved stolen, recently installed landscape plants that were thrown in similar store-type plastic pots and they had a legit receipt for the same species of plant. These were tricky to spot, more so if it was a busy day.

Ryan

[Jim in Los Altos]

On 12/18/2021 at 3:44 PM, Johnny Palmseed said:

Yes I was told exactly that by the supervisor at my local HD last week. That’s why they can never mark stuff down like when a plant gets damaged or doesn’t look great. They just leave it for the grower to take back.

However, Lowe’s routinely marks down plants that have been on the shelves too long. Half price and sometimes even less. 

[miamicuse]

4 hours ago, Palmarum said:

Minus the legit returns, people tried everything to scam. With no receipt, they tried to get store credit, which became an issue when it was done to move things along and placate the customers. It was then a money loss problem. When I was involved, If I couldn't identify the plant or I could tell it was a scam, I would deny the return. This of course created conflict and then the customer wanted to run up the chain of command to get their way, paging asst. managers, etc. This became common enough for management to give me 'last word' authority on a return, as they got tired of dealing with it.

My favorites include: - a handful of crappy topsoil, thrown in an ancient clay pot that hadn't been sold in decades, being described as a 'recently bought $65.00 plant'. This was almost going to be credited, but I just happen to be walking by checking on returns. - a plastic bag full of pulled up grass, weeds and crab grass trying to be returned as 'three pieces of $1.00 sod'. - a plain, clean empty plastic pot.. no receipt, no name, nothing, just a loud rant of expletives. - a hand-written receipt saying 'plant $50.00' on a pot of dirt... et. al.

The best scam attempts involved stolen, recently installed landscape plants that were thrown in similar store-type plastic pots and they had a legit receipt for the same species of plant. These were tricky to spot, more so if it was a busy day.

Ryan

I was returning stuff to a Home Depot the other day, and while I waited in line, I saw on a cart three pots of soil, each with a dead plant in it, with the plant cut/broken at the stem and there was only like 2 inches of stem above the soil.  Can't even tell what plant they were.  I was thinking...were people really returning this to the store?  and did the store really taken them back?

If it's an obvious scam, do you call them out on it or you have to smile and politely decline the return?

[bar]

21 hours ago, D Palm said:

Most Lowe’s and Walmart have an “almost dead” section and/or out of season. HD does not minus the occasional discounting palms in fall weather. I’m sure they work out a deal with suppliers.

Isn't the "almost dead" section the main section where they sell all of their plants?  I never cease to be amazed by the total lack of quality of plants at Home Depot.  And yet, people buy them.  Once in a while, there will be a healthy plant that I may buy, but generally HD's lack of quality is only exceeded by their lack of variety. Lowe's is slightly better.

 

Bruce

[Palmarum]

21 minutes ago, miamicuse said:

I was returning stuff to a Home Depot the other day, and while I waited in line, I saw on a cart three pots of soil, each with a dead plant in it, with the plant cut/broken at the stem and there was only like 2 inches of stem above the soil.  Can't even tell what plant they were.  I was thinking...were people really returning this to the store?  and did the store really taken them back?

If it's an obvious scam, do you call them out on it or you have to smile and politely decline the return?

They might have taken them back, depends on if they have a receipt, etc. Each store out there runs things slightly different at the returns counter; depending on the time of day, how busy it is, etc. I would have followed and watched to see how it unfolded. If they are trying to scam or skim a buck, they will try it at each store they can get to. I would see 'regulars' who try similar scams over and over again. Another group are the 'pro's' who try similar scams at multiple stores, each chain type, etc. They like to work in two's or more, often with kids with them. If caught or denied, I would get the feeling as they turned to leave the store, they were heading off to the next place to try again.

With responding to a scam, it's always what the flow of the day is like. Usually, I would say something like 'this item isn't returnable' and state a reason, while being as polite as possible. Then we would see how it would go from there. Occasionally, if it was obvious and I was in the right mood I might have been a little sarcastic, more so if I had an audience that knew what was going on as well. Sometimes they would mess up the scam themselves, making it obvious right away...

"Uh sir, this is a Home Depot receipt, you are at Lowe's... and neither receipt matches the item, what ever it was."

Another popular type of scam would be someone returning a dead plant for a different size/type/species that is on a legit receipt. Returning a dead 1 gallon plant for a 3 gallon price, 3 gallon for a 7 gallon price and so on. A 1 gallon dead Liriope for a 1 gal orchid price, etc. Often the dead plant is loose in a bag with no pot.

Ryan

 

[D Palm]

You need to have receipt, plant in original pot, and within a certain date from purchase. 

@bar I travel a lot for work and visit big box retailers for other reasons. I do swing by and check the inventory out of curiosity. Varies greatly by location on quality of plants/palms regardless of brand. I notice HD does not have a “hospital” section most of the time.

[sonoranfans]

It might be end of the year trying to clear out stock.  Big box stores make more money on general landscaping materials I think.  They will sell you lots of other stuff with higher margins.  If they just sold palms they couldn't survive.  20 years ago I used to look at palms in the big box stores, but the selection was very limited and often not approriate for the local climate, annuals.  In florida I have had good prices from small nurseries, most recently I paid $35 each for 7 gallon chambeyronia Macrocarpa Hookeri, not sure why I would even look for cheap palms at a big box store.  I also find the palms are much healthier at the small nurseries.

[meridannight]

18 hours ago, Palmarum said:

My favorites include: - a handful of crappy topsoil, thrown in an ancient clay pot that hadn't been sold in decades, being described as a 'recently bought $65.00 plant'. This was almost going to be credited, but I just happen to be walking by checking on returns. - a plastic bag full of pulled up grass, weeds and crab grass trying to be returned as 'three pieces of $1.00 sod'. - a plain, clean empty plastic pot.. no receipt, no name, nothing, just a loud rant of expletives. - a hand-written receipt saying 'plant $50.00' on a pot of dirt... et. al.

The best scam attempts involved stolen, recently installed landscape plants that were thrown in similar store-type plastic pots and they had a legit receipt for the same species of plant. These were tricky to spot, more so if it was a busy day.

Ryan

 

What the hell is wrong with people? I had no idea people even tried these types of things. Plants don't deteriorate that fast anyway, unless they are truly abused in their new home. That's the thing with legit problems originating with the store itself -- you can buy a plant, but if it has suffered long-term neglect and abuse at the store (low light, overwatering, what not) -- you're not gonna see it when buying the plant, and it might take a few months till the plant actually dies due to that stress. By that time you won't be able to return it to the store anymore. But you lost it and it may actually have been store's fault.

But that's the risk. And it's usually a low risk.  
 

[Silas_Sancona]

18 hours ago, Palmarum said:

The store takes the hit, as the plant was originally sold and the return policy is that of the store's. The promise of the return is mostly there for non-living items, to give customers assurance they can always bring stuff back. It is almost competitive between chains to whom can do returns better. My store had a direct exchange and price match policy. If someone brought in a dead identifiable plant in a pot, we would swap it for a live one on the spot (if we had it) and that was it.

Now, having said that, I have seen every measure of plant-related return fallacy you can imagine. The returns for plants worked kinda the same way as for everything else, they still needed to match the 'plant' (or whatever it was at that point) with an item number on the receipt to get money back. Often the customer didn't remember the name of the plant and the return associate couldn't tell which item on the receipt was the would-be returned item; so I would be called up front to sort it out. In the beginning they would page the department to come to returns, then they would start paging me by name. The booming page of my name resulted in an "Oh, crap." expression shared by us Outside Garden peeps as I knew I was going to a fight. But, I was always ready.

Minus the legit returns, people tried everything to scam. With no receipt, they tried to get store credit, which became an issue when it was done to move things along and placate the customers. It was then a money loss problem. When I was involved, If I couldn't identify the plant or I could tell it was a scam, I would deny the return. This of course created conflict and then the customer wanted to run up the chain of command to get their way, paging asst. managers, etc. This became common enough for management to give me 'last word' authority on a return, as they got tired of dealing with it.

My favorites include: - a handful of crappy topsoil, thrown in an ancient clay pot that hadn't been sold in decades, being described as a 'recently bought $65.00 plant'. This was almost going to be credited, but I just happen to be walking by checking on returns. - a plastic bag full of pulled up grass, weeds and crab grass trying to be returned as 'three pieces of $1.00 sod'. - a plain, clean empty plastic pot.. no receipt, no name, nothing, just a loud rant of expletives. - a hand-written receipt saying 'plant $50.00' on a pot of dirt... et. al.

The best scam attempts involved stolen, recently installed landscape plants that were thrown in similar store-type plastic pots and they had a legit receipt for the same species of plant. These were tricky to spot, more so if it was a busy day.

Ryan

Ryan, lol..  Been in this same boat, seen the same scams... 

Curious if you ever encountered the " Buys hundreds of dollars worth of plants at one time / returns them in a week "... most are dead ...as in they look like they were torched by fire / had bleach dumped on them, etc..... " Wash, rinse, repeat, several more times before store management finally shuts down the " scammer "  Said she was a designer too,   Think she'd hit up every one of our locations before she was permanently banned.


In general,  " store guarantees "  ..on plants?  are the biggest " lazy person's " scam ever    ..Can't guarantee perfect health of living things..   If my dog got sick  2 years after i acquired him from the breeder,  should i be able to return him for a refund?  ..because of my neglect / bad choices &/or  wilful ignorance / lack of self- education? 

Only nurseries i trust  ..let alone buy from have strict " all purchases are final / no returns " policies, and stick to them..  And they're all doing fine.  Love " being in the room " when the HD return everything types walk in w/ a dead plant and immediately get shut down, hard..  Then complain as everyone dealing w/ the situation gets back to more important things / people .. after saying " Have a nice day .." 

[Palmarum]

Just now, Silas_Sancona said:

... Curious if you ever encountered the " Buys hundreds of dollars worth of plants at one time / returns them in a week "... most are dead ...as in they look like they were torched by fire / had bleach dumped on them, etc..... " ...

I did see similar returns. It would be a large group of plants bought at the store then returned all as the same group, looking burnt, dried up. Sometimes I would recognize the group as one I put together and sold. I remember reaching the returns counter and recognizing the casualties and thinking, "What happened?".

Nine times out of ten, they were bought and transported to a location and left on a driveway, patio, etc. with no water or irrigation in full sun at the height of summer heat. A week goes by and oops. A common case of neglect in most plant purchase situations. Seen it with rare and exotic material as well, that hurts. I did see the occasional 'battle damage' where plants had been sprayed with weed killer or bleach as you mentioned. These returns came with the explanations of bad neighbors, evil ex's, divorce proceedings, etc.

Not return related, but when the store first opened we used to sell a heavy duty vegetation killer as a concentrated liquid. I don't know why we carried it, but it was lethal stuff. It killed any plant life on contact and sterilized the soil so nothing would grow. People began to buy it and use it to obliterate plants in neighbors' yards. All you needed was a pump sprayer. Conflicts and investigations tracked the chemical back to the store and we had to stop selling it.

Ryan

[Silas_Sancona]

2 minutes ago, Palmarum said:

I did see similar returns. It would be a large group of plants bought at the store then returned all as the same group, looking burnt, dried up. Sometimes I would recognize the group as one I put together and sold. I remember reaching the returns counter and recognizing the casualties and thinking, "What happened?".

Nine times out of ten, they were bought and transported to a location and left on a driveway, patio, etc. with no water or irrigation in full sun at the height of summer heat. A week goes by and oops. A common case of neglect in most plant purchase situations. Seen it with rare and exotic material as well, that hurts. I did see the occasional 'battle damage' where plants had been sprayed with weed killer or bleach as you mentioned. These returns came with the explanations of bad neighbors, evil ex's, divorce proceedings, etc.

Not return related, but when the store first opened we used to sell a heavy duty vegetation killer as a concentrated liquid. I don't know why we carried it, but it was lethal stuff. It killed any plant life on contact and sterilized the soil so nothing would grow. People began to buy it and use it to obliterate plants in neighbors' yards. All you needed was a pump sprayer. Conflicts and investigations tracked the chemical back to the store and we had to stop selling it.

Ryan

Yep, lol ..would hear similar stories.. ( Divorce , ex.. bad neighbor, etc ) 

We might have sold something similar at one time, think it was banned pretty quickly once similar stories started flooding our nursery / every other place it was sold in CA. Wouldn't doubt there were people out there using it for the same reason(s)..

The example i mentioned, the lady doing the scamming.. would spend 2-4 hours looking over plants ( everything from annuals to 25gal trees )and asking millions of easy to research questions ..purchase,  them return w/ dead / half dead stuff ..or stuff you knew had been planted saying " I just don't like the look of X "  Remember my supervisor and i would hide / go to lunch or a call going out over the walkies whenever her car pulled into our parking lot ..until our boss finally sent her packing..  Him and i had a few somewhat lively conversations about sending her elsewhere.. He wanted to almost from the start but corporate dragged their heals.. Came pretty close to heading to their office to have an in person chat w/ them before they finally said " enough ".

 

[miamicuse]

On 1/2/2022 at 9:41 PM, Palmarum said:

They might have taken them back, depends on if they have a receipt, etc. Each store out there runs things slightly different at the returns counter; depending on the time of day, how busy it is, etc. I would have followed and watched to see how it unfolded. If they are trying to scam or skim a buck, they will try it at each store they can get to. I would see 'regulars' who try similar scams over and over again. Another group are the 'pro's' who try similar scams at multiple stores, each chain type, etc. They like to work in two's or more, often with kids with them. If caught or denied, I would get the feeling as they turned to leave the store, they were heading off to the next place to try again.

Well, I wasn't clear in my post, but by the time I saw them in a cart, these pots were already processed.  My local Home Depot tends to let the items sit around in the return area, drywall and plywood leaning here, another cart with a ceiling fan sitting over there, and these pots were in a cart by the wall, so someone returned them and succeeded in doing so, I didn't even see a sticker on the pots (but they could have been on the back side of the pots).

I can see how this can be frustrating, especially in dealing with people who are actually trying to scam.

[miamicuse]

In those cases where someone bought a large order of plants, only to return them days or weeks later.  I guess it is possible they were delivered and sat in the sun taking abuse.

I had a renovation project once where the contractor was trying to "hurry" the job along by doing stuff out of order.  Every time he tried to jump ahead I had to slow him down, this one time he had to demolish two 8x8 gazebos sitting on two 10x10 concrete slabs (illegal structures within utility easements) and landscape the area.  He had two pallets of sod delivered before he started the demolition.  Meanwhile the sod sat in the driveway, day after day, blocking traffic, and wilting, and ten days later when he was ready to sod, there was no living grass left.

I wonder if it may be possible, for someone to buy lots of plants for a weeding, to use for decoration, then return them after the wedding?  What about real estate brokers to get plants to stage a house, then return them after the house got sold?  Cannot imagine people doing that but after reading some of the posts in this thread, anything is possible!

[Silas_Sancona]

1 minute ago, miamicuse said:

 

I wonder if it may be possible, for someone to buy lots of plants for a weeding, to use for decoration, then return them after the wedding?  What about real estate brokers to get plants to stage a house, then return them after the house got sold?  Cannot imagine people doing that but after reading some of the posts in this thread, anything is possible!

That has happened, and, aside from any annual stuff,  the plants would always come back un- abused.  Think we had a specific form that was filled out before allowing such..  Never heard of a real estate broker doing something like this, The one we rent from never has..  Can't think of other realtors i have known doing something like this / having such requests made at any nursery i have worked for..  I certainly wouldn't allow it... 

[Palmarum]

I would see returns of temporarily-used plants used for a wedding/party, etc. We had plants returned with confetti, popped-balloon shrapnel, etc. They were usually in good shape, as whoever bought them/planned the event knew they had to be (or should be) in order to get a trouble-free return. I remember returned plants in their original pots, while stuck in decorative containers. Either they couldn't get them out or didn't bother to try.

Ryan

[banthony720]

To answer part of the original question, they can sell them cheap because the large nurseries have the capacity to do so & its only the easy ones (for them) From what I understand Kentias (HF) used to be available at the big box stores like Majestys (RR) are now.  The later seem much easier in terms of germination time & long-term care (from what I've read I have not done either one) especially when they sell/market them as "indoor plants".  I've never had any luck with indoor plants.  Remember most people that buy them obviously don't come to "PalmTalk" and have no intentions of putting 10-20 (or 200...) palms in their yard. (I'm only at 18 in the ground but atleast 10 more this spring) you know how it goes.