I agree with you, much better to pick and choose.

I would rather just pick and choose also---I would not mind the Collections were three or four are offered--

I have not been collecting that long. Where Collections always SO LARGE?--Is there not one out there with more than 20???

cole

Rita,

I can understand the concept of hybridizers offering a price break to a customer who likes their intros enough to purchase the entire collection, but I am not sure I undersand a hybridizer listing their new intros available in an entire collection only--especially if the collection is as large as Gossen's is. I do understand the "mini" collections of similar intros, as it is a way to promote a larger sale of flowers with a like theme, but most hybridizers are working on more than one "type" of daylily, so it doesn't work the same way for their whole group of intros... at least in my mind.

Assume for a minute that I had all the money I wanted to spend on daylilies. I would still look for a bargain, because that is my nature. Although I have seen some wonderful intros this fall, there are only two hybridizers that I would even consider buying the entire collection... even if it meant that I would get the plants at half price. Frank Smith and Gerda Brooker would have tempted me this year, but all of the other hybridizer intro groupings that I have seen have had some that appealed to me and some that just didn't. So in short--- if I was buying all of the new intros that I wanted this year, and everyone was selling their intros as the entire collection only, those are the only two that would get my money...regardless of how wonderful I though some of the other hybridizers' individual intros were.

And it's not only the money issue... some people are very limited on space as well. They only have limited room (if any at all) to add new DL's. In that situation, it is essential for the buyer to be able to pick and choose which are important enough to add to their garden.

I am sure that there is a reason that some only sell their intros that way, but I think that it must be to target other hybridizers rather than individual collectors.

Long winded, but that's my opinion.

Julie

Well, I have a space issue too. I will fill up all the space I have with whatever I buy this winter. That means if I want more after that (and I always do) I have to fit in another daylily bed in the general area that the stocktank pond, now inground, used to be at. But I intend to look at my daylilies next bloom season and start to do some weeding out of the non openers and six budcount clunkers. Also anything that I just plain do not like. At least you do have the room to add as much as you like.

The only two collections that have nearly caught me are Karol Emmerick's with her northern hardy rebloomers and Pat Stamile's 'Butterfly Collection' but alas, I have no space and choke at the cost of the new releases so I'll just have to be happy with my onesie, twosie purchases.

I prefer to add as I go along so I can pick and choose based on branching/bud count/foliage and if the daylily could be used for hybridizing at some future point.
I don't discard any first or second year plants. I think any plant needs a couple of growing seasons to see the potential it may have. I have a great deal of patience. ;-).

Julia

I've been trying to come up with some logical explanation as to why a hybridizer would limit his sales by only making his best intros available througn collection purchase only. I can only come up with a couple possible reasons. One would be due to limited space in which to grow the daylilies. That would mean there would only be a very finite number of plants to sell. If buyers only want to buy the finest offerings, the hybridizer would be left with those plants that may well be good plants, but aren't his most sought after ones. To keep that from happening he might have to dramatically increase the price of his best intros, but how much more than $250 - $300 per plant is the average customer willing to pay?
Last year I talked to Jamie Gossard's wife Dianna on the phone regarding his 08 intros. She told me he had tried to grow Venus Fly Trap in the greenhouse in an effort to increase his stock of the plant. I was told that he wasn't too happy with the results. Apparently the plants that were grown in the greenhouse resented a lack of dormancy time, and didn't get very big. Jamie was concerned that there would be a number of unhappy customers when they got their shipment of plants. I was among the last group of customers to receive my collection which arrived in early June. I was glad that I had been made aware that some of the plants would be on the small side, and Venus Fly Trap was the smallest plant I received.

The 2nd thought I had on this collection thing kind of goes hand in hand with my first. If you don't have adequate stock it's probably best to limit the number of customers you have to deal with by only offering plants in a large collection. I would bet that most of the people who buy are hybridizing to some degree. Then if you have a few plants left over after the sale of your collections, you could post them on your website as available on a first come first serve basis.

As for me I prefer to pick and choose, and with each passing year I seem to be getting pickier and pickier about what I buy. So it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to buy an entire collection of plants when there are only 2 or 3 that would fit into my hybridizing program.

Just my two cents worth.

Linda

The only collection that I have ever bought is the Stamile's 2009 butterfly collection. Other then that I pick and choose.
I really really have no room for more daylilies. I wish I could keep off the LA; but it's like a magnet to me......keeps pulling me in.

I see these collections in two different lights. For the mini collections such as Stamile's butterflies, etc., there is no restriction on buying them individually, so I just see it as good marketing -- especially when there is a discount offered for the group. It's a way to increase sales through the offering of incentives, and I doubt anybody would object to such a practice.

When hybridizers such as Smith, Rice, Gossard and others limit certain plants to collection purchases, I see them as taking a bit of a calculated gamble that folks will want the one plant (or now several) so much that they will then pony up for the entire group. There is a coercive element to this sales strategy because they are saying "you can't have this unless you purchase that". The risk involved in such strategy is that potential buyers might be alienated by such practices.

I would say to each their own, but I think the market will end up determining whether or not this practice spreads. If hybridizers find their sales increase by such practices, more might start doing so. If they experience a backlash, I imagine the practice will end.

trager- Well said. I have to agree with you. Personally the you have to buy this to get that plant strategy has never and will never work with me. I don't have endless space nor money to burn and certainly have no use for plants I did not really want in the first place.

just thinking out loud here

assuming that a hybridizer needs X amount of money to stay in business...

would it be better for them politically, to offer fewer introductions, allow them to be bought individually, and charge two or three times the price for those he/she is selling?

how best for them to make the money they need to continue?

fewer intros, higher individual prices, no restrictions

or

collection only options

which would be better?

just wondering here...not answering

steve

I personally do not think that the market would be there for intros costing 2 to 3 times what they cost now. And it really does not matter how much money a hybridizer needs if no one is willing to pay. That's the bottom line anyway, how many people are out there that will buy up those collections? If there are enough then the hybridizer does not need to be concerned with potential customers like myself who pass on plants because of the collection only factor.

I keep asking myself just what is the point of having to sell a big package of plants. I've seen some of Gossards 08 intros being offered on the Lily Auction and some sellers who made their opening bid at $50.00, didn't get a single bid on their auction.....well so much for much if any demand for a number of plants offered in a collection. Meanwhile the most wanteds are still commanding fairly high prices ie. Venus Fly Trap, Puffer Fish and several others. I think it would work in a hybridizers favor to offer his best intros at a price that would be viewed as being high $400- $500 (Bass Gibson still sells in the $400 price range), and then still offer the option of buying the collection. Most of us who have been doing any amount of hybridizing would not go into sticker shock over an intro priced at $400-$500. Many of us have bid that much and more on some of Mary Gaskin's seedlings. I paid more than $450 for a single fan of Bass Gibson last year. If your target customers are mostly other hybridizers....I think you'd generate a lot more business by offering both options.

Linda

Linda,

I think I would be in favor of such a deal!

I remember one year when Daylily World offered 2 sets of prices...one for getting it early, and a lower one for waiting until fall, or something like that.

Not that any major hybridizer is reading this most likely..lol...but, personally, I would love a dual system. It would allow me, a seed selling cherry picker, to continue to pick, but it would still be a saving for me in the long run. The hybridizer wouldn't be left with huge holes in their collection offers, or if they did, at least they would have realized some extra compensation for it.

I know some folks who can take an entire collection, increase it, and resell most of it on the LA. But, residing in frigid northern Illinois without a greenhouse, I'm certainly not one of them. Both options could be workable I would think.

I suppose there might be some confusion of what the actual selling price of some plants might be down the line...but I'm sure those matters could be worked out...

Interesting stuff!

Steve

This has been an wonderfully interesting discussion. I have been following it both here and on another forum that I have recently joined and to this point just lurk at. There are a lot of comments that really make you think... why do those who sell this way do it, and how successful are the intro collection sales really?

If there is a limited supply and enough demand, it makes the sellers happy as they can sell out (or close), it makes the buyers happy as they have unique plants that very few others have (and maybe as one on the other forum said something that they can turn into a profit to support their DL habit), and it makes those of us who won't go for the whole collection happy to buy another intro that we just can't live without and add the ones in the collection to our never ending lists that will be filled somewhere down the line at hopefully less than intro prices.

If you consider the amount of DL addicts that there are out there, it could easily take only one out of 500? 1000? more???? addicts per state to order a collection and the grower might very well be sold out.

I would love to be a mouse in the corner at the end of spring sales and see how many "collection only" sales are actually made.

And finally, as someone said in one of the posts... I have totally lost track of who or where... if it's not successful, the method will be discontinued, and if it successful, we may see more and more intros offered only this way.

Thanks Rita and everyone else for giving my mind something to ponder!

Julie

I wonder what will happen with the economy the way it is--HOW many will be able to buy WHOLE COLLECTIONS?????

People are losing their JOBS and homes--

I do Marketing for NASCAR and when they start cutting back....worry!!

It's not cheap to run a greenhouse or in some parts of the county people have to buy water. It costs breeders money to grow out their plants into INTROs---

It's a strange time we live in.

As a breeder friend told me People are still buying for now--but like anything else we will have to see.

cole

My bet is that the vast majority of collection sales is not to hybridizers but to growers, clubs, & display gardens, and then a few backyard collectors. There could be several motivators behind this.

1) if you want your plant to get widely distributed so that it can win awards you need to get it first into the hands of growers who will distribute it broadly in the secondary market and display gardens who will give many people, including garden judges, the opportunity to appreciate the flower.

2) volume sales are more efficient in labor costs, packaging, and shipping costs. Going out into the garden to dig 10 plants at a time is more efficient than going out for 1 at a time. Putting together 15 boxes of the same set of cultivars is labor saving.

3) if the plants are limitted supply, then not only do you help customer satisfaction by telling fewer people "no" but selling them to repeat buyers (more likely the ones who are buying full collections) will help cement the loyalty of those customers. They feel priviledged to receive a rare plant.

lefox, that's no joking about this economy. I'm worried we'll see many small businesses fold before this is done. We're in for a tough ride I'm afraid. Already my employer is cutting back tremendously on all kinds of spend in anticipation of further market errosion. All business travel has been suspended, mandatory vacation usage policies, mandatory plant shut downs for several weeks over the holidays, halt to all purchasing...most people I know are looking at how to cut unnecessary personal spending too.

Still, those daylilies call us like a siren singing.