If I received less seeds than stated when I added to my shopping cart, I'd complain too. But so far, that hasn't happened. Here's the breakdown:

T's Flowers and Things:
Always at or higher than # indicated on the site

JLHudson, Seedsman
Always at or higher than # indicated on the site

Seeds Now:
Ditto.

Sheffield's Seed:
When you order seed, # of seed usually has a ~ in front of it. I counted the number of seeds received for the more expensive items like Jack In The Pulpit. It was always over the # ordered.

Even though I've made dozens of purchases on Amazon and EBay, I've only been shorted on seeds maybe once. Most seed companies will throw in extra seeds when they can in order to keep customers happy.

good to know that you had a good experience.

I'm glad my experience is not typical.

I have had that happen to me - being shorted, that is. I believe the few times it happened was with seeds from ValueSeeds and possibly T&M. I have to admit, though, the last two years I haven't really noticed if I've been shortchanged. I don't usually sow a full packet of anything, so I don't notice if there are fewer seeds than advertised. I suppose I should start keeping track again.

I did indeed call the companies when I was shortchanged. It may have only been a few seeds, but if it happens to every customer it adds up to a lot of seeds - and a lot of extra profit for the seed company. Not saying they do it on purpose or anything like that.... :)

Dee

I have not noticed because by the time I am ready to put the seeds in the containers, I am tired from cutting jugs and mixing soil. However, the thought did cross my mind on a pack of Coleus seeds, but I did not count it to be sure.

I don't generally count seeds - but in some cases it is such an egregious shorting, that I count to be sure - if it is under 50 - and let the company know.
Swallowtail did send me replacement packets, but I do not buy their "we're shocked that you were short". When 4 out of 7 packets are hugely short - as in 1/2 of the promised number, I do not think that is an accident.

I normally do count seeds, but this year I forgot. I have ordered from FEDCO before and counted and I was getting what I should get. Sometimes it might be off by one, but then the next packet would have two extra, etc. This is a good reminder, I have a lot of packets left that haven't been opened yet. I'll check them out.

That does sound hard to believe that Swallowtail didn't realize, especially when they were off by so much.

To your question of why people don't complain, I'll bet they don't count them.

I'm kind of surprised this happened with Swallowtail. I haven't ordered from them in a few years, but I remember their seed packets having an enormous amount of seeds - waaaayyyy more than I would ever sow in a few years, never mind one season, even with annuals. Perhaps their seed counts have gotten smaller and their customer service is shrinking as well? :)

I do now recall one year I ordered some Zowie Yellow Flame zinnias (or whatever their name is, lol). These are still expensive seeds, even after being introduced a few years back. But I always bought some because they are very nice and big sellers at the market. But they are something like 10 seeds for almost 4 or 5 dollars. And I did get shortchanged by ONE seed. I did call! Hey, when you are paying that much for 10 seeds and you get 9, you want that tenth seed, lol. Can't remember who I bought them from that year....

Dee

I still purchase from Swallowtail because they have a good selection esp. when it comes to a new flower. They provide prompt service and the dropped S&H'ling fee if you purchase a certain amount is a good deal. I believe in supporting small businesses. I am pretty sure the mass amount of personal seed trades effect Seed Companies. They have good Customer Service, maybe they will make good on your purchases.

I ordered from Swallowtail this year as well.

I ordered Hollyhocks, Impatiens, Marigolds, Pansies, Violas, Parsley and Peony Poppies.

The Hollyhocks germinated at about 50%, the poppies and the parsley are doing well, but the other four are doing terribly. I sowed the Pansies and Voilas February 22nd and the Marigolds and Impatiens March 29th. I have 1 (ONE!) Impatiens, no Marigolds, and only a couple pansies and voilas. I understand that we had a horrible, cold miserable winter in Massachusetts, but I was still anticipating a better germination rate than that!

I was debating contacting them, but thought maybe I'd try traditional planting instead first. Perhaps the horrible winter affected my winter sown annuals.

I personally don't call seed companies regarding germination rates - I always tend to think that one is on me, lol, even though I guess rationally it might not be. I would only call a company if the seed count was shortchanged, and even then only consistently so and by goodly amounts.

BTW, to clarify my above post, the Zowie zinnia seeds I purchased were not from Swallowtail. I just wanted to clarify that - I see in rereading this thread that my post might be misleading. The last thing I want to do is bash Swallowtail seeds - especially for something they didn't even do, lol!

:)
Dee

I would assume that most of the seed packets are filled by machine, so any miscount was not conscious. Though, most companies should have a quality control system in place to catch mistakes like that. But, sometimes those control measures are random spot checks which can still allow for problems to occur. And for one person to be shorted multiple times in the same order seems unlikely to be a random mistake. I've had mistakes happen in my favor, too. I have had doubles of each seed pack I ordered sent to me on two different occasions. And these were orders of ten or more packs of seeds. I think it was Prairiemoon Nursery, since they were native plants. And it may have been that they were overstocked and would have to discard them anyway, since I was ordering more unusual varieties. I've been shorted rarely, but gotten far more than was expected on most occasions.

Martha