The Journey

The biggest challenge they face is a garden industry that has difficulty embracing new technology and can be stuck in their ways. However, to incentivize adoption, Scotts is doing things like offering free gift certificates to clients who place their first order via OrderEase.

When asked what were the deciding factors in Scotts bringing OrderEase into their day-to-day operations, Lester Barnes, Senior Sales Director, said he had two main reasons. The first was, “I looked at getting on the ground floor with OrderEase. I wanted to be a pioneer with them.”

The second reason was because of OrderEase CEO, Warren Patterson. “The Founder of OrderEase, Warren, has a history in owning his own garden centre, he already knew my product well. He knew how I did business already and he understood Scotts. And he understood the B2B ordering system and his team made the software and transition so simple and frictionless, that we adopted it right away. It already has a measured ROI the first year.” 

Today, Scotts has the right software in place to handle complex pricing, with private labels and different catalogs.

They also have better management over sales rep activities, with more control over shipping units on orders, which helps to speed up order processing and reduce customizations on orders. They’re also positioned to make more informed decisions with faster reporting of sales activities on more current data

OrderEase has also helped Scotts control the direction of orders in regions directly to 3rd party fulfillment. This has completely removed the need for any involvement of Scotts staff for all orders for Quebec and the Maritimes.

Scotts also leverages OrderEase to market their products to retailers, based on product purchase history, pricing groups, and other factors.