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The New York Botanical Garden is a 135-year-old institution in the Bronx: A 250-acre museum of life—home to over one million plants from around the world, with sprawling gardens and forest greenhouses. When you visit NYBG, you’ll be struck by just how much there is to do and see. It is the largest botanical garden on the East Coast, after all. No matter the season, you’ll find remarkable things to discover and explore, from immersive floral installations to panels with experts and even wine tastings.
But there’s also the NYBG shop—a can’t-miss stop on your visit. This 7,000-square-foot space is a true ode to both the natural world and the Bronx itself. Peruse the shelves for everything from charming kids’ crafting kits and seed savers to gorgeous planters and The Bronx Greenmarket Hot Sauce. What’s more: The shop is a nonprofit. Every dollar it makes goes back to serving the Bronx community and the garden’s scientists who are actively pursuing breakthroughs in plant diversity, plant science, and climate change.
So when VP of retail Christa Boeke wanted to grow the e-commerce store and more easily discover and diversify its offerings, she turned to Faire. Read on to see how Faire has helped Boeke and her team curate an exceptional product selection that reflects their mission—on a nonprofit budget too.
NYBG’s thorny challenges
When Christa started at NYBG almost a year ago, the team had just relaunched the e-commerce business. Unfortunately, the way they had been buying things to that point had been fairly inefficient. “Our head buyer was handwriting purchase orders and doing all of this data entry,” Christa says. “Any time we wanted to bring on a new vendor, it was copious amounts of paperwork.”
What’s more, the NYBG shop could only accept net-30 payment terms. “The amount of uncertainty for small businesses had been tremendous, and we could no longer take a risk on bringing on a new shop and trust that they were going to pay us.” This was extremely limiting when it came to taking on new small brands, even if they aligned with the shop’s mission and vision.
Because of Christa’s previous work experience, she was already familiar with Faire and tapped us to help modernize and streamline the shop’s backend, while also hopefully making discovery more accessible.
Growing with Faire Insider
The first thing that Christa’s team recognized when they adopted Faire was the inherent value for their limited nonprofit budget. “Being on Faire has completely changed the landscape for us,” Christa says. “Our retail division is one of the few areas of our nonprofit where we’re able to generate revenue, and having the ability to tap into Faire to really broaden our product horizons without leaving the Bronx has had a real positive impact on our bottom line.” Now, Christa can discover cool global brands without having to spend money on travel.
Another way the team is driving revenue and minding their budget is by taking advantage of Faire Insider, which offers expanded free shipping, direct access to Faire support, and early access to new products and virtual trade shows for $20 per month. Says Christa, “Faire Insider has paid for itself a thousand times over.”
Before Faire, so much of the shop’s expenses came from shipping. Since the shop is big and has so many visitors, its orders can be large. Faire Insider’s free shipping allows it to place large orders and try out new products without having to worry about fees.
“It’s $20 per month,” Christa says, “so why not do it?”
Jumping on customer demand and microtrends
Before Faire, one thing that was tricky for the NYBG Shop team was discovering new products—and then bringing those items on board. If Christa wanted to create a collection based on a marketing moment or event, she and the team would have to set up an account and do a lot of paperwork, meaning they could miss out on the opportunity all together. Now, things are much quicker and streamlined.
For example, the store’s head buyer mentioned that they had sold 300 tomato plants in the month of April. Christa seized on the mini-trend and decided to plan a marketing moment for it. Instead of having to do a generic Google search of tomato products, she typed “tomato candle” into the Faire app and filled up her cart. “Now I can go on a tomato whim, and we can have a whole tomato collection by next week,” says Christa. It’s that easy.
Then there are the Faire Markets, which not only create a sense of urgency and virtual togetherness for Christa and her team but also provide them a way to discover new products for new seasons without having to leave the office.
“We are incredibly busy and are pulled in so many different directions, so when it comes time for Faire Market, we are literally forcing ourselves to get our carts ready so that we can take advantage of it—and that in and of itself is worth it, even more than the actual 10% discount. It really forces you to get yourself sorted and think about what you’re doing for the next season,” says Christa.
Faire: A priceless integration
Unlike before, when the shop’s buyer had to handwrite POs, Faire has truly simplified and streamlined NYBG Shop’s order processes. “We are a small business. I’m the e-commerce department of one,” says Christa. “And we’ve got this amazing, beautiful website and this wonderful array of products to offer to our members and visitors—really with two clicks of a button and some copy editing, thanks to Faire. That integration is priceless.”
The bigger picture beyond profit
With all this hard work, Christa hopes that people will come for the awesome assortment and then stay to learn more about the NYBG mission and what its team of scientists is doing for the world. “People in business talk about the triple bottom line, where it’s people, product, planet—and a lot of times that’s hollow,” says Christa. “For us, we have a quadruple bottom line: our people, our place, our product, and our plants (and plant science). So our retail division is striving to become a messenger of all the great work that’s happening here and what has happened here over the past 130 years.”
