I do contract growing.
Simply put, without you signing a contract saying you are going to buy X amount of plants by a certain date I cannot promise that I'll have them. I offer a 5% discount for nursery pickup/contract growing so there is some incentive on the retail nurseries part too.

rule #1, first one to my farm with cash wins.

I have a few established customers for whom I know the mix, and amount pretty well. I consider us a symbiotic arrangement. We have contact several times through the year, and not just when the selling season hits. We touch bases in the fall before I order my plugs and liners, and then again before the season hits. I do not have written contracts with them, but by now I know them well enough not to feel it is required. When I grow for them, I grow enough to have available for speculation for other g'houses/sales events/landscapers/businesses. Unless they tell me ahead of time what they want and how much.......they get offered what I have already grown for the others. It gets sold.

Tred carefully if you are just starting out. You have reason to be wary. Many potential customers talk big ,tell you if you grow such and such they'll buy yadayadayada. I am like Deep Roots on that one. I'll believe it when the register goes ka-ching. I don't do a contract per se, but take an official "order", and send them confirmations. It doesn't hurt to add a penalty "back-out and restock" fee clause in there somewhere.

Now, here is the thing about firm contracts. The river can run both ways. Suppose you have a crop failure. Suppose you run into unexpected problems with suppliers. Suppose you didn't figure up your overhead correctly. Suppose YOU can't deliver. Poop does indeed happen. You may have to go somewhere else to buy an order to wholesale and it may cost you more than you get in recompense.

If you get a firm order, with a back out clause, and then cover your own bases as far as unexpected ability to deliver. Then treat each other like professionals.......it should fly. Good luck.

Thanks for the replies. Any other business would require a purchase order or some other signed document. You both have good points and we'll create an order form with customer signature and of course any clauses too.
As for the river running my way I'm well aware and I'm sure I'll be spending lots of cold nights next year hoping the heaters stay on.

I haven't had any one promise us the goldmine of orders as of yet. Just that they are very interested in placing an order.

I guess my next step is to just keep in contact with them, keep reminding them.

When would you think the best time to stop in and ask them what they would like to order?

Funny how I'm on the sales end now...

Mylu........my biggest problem with inability to deliver with firm orders has been a failure with my vendors. Choose them carefully and don't ever expect them to contact you if they can't deliver. I've found it to be the case that they put it on "backorder" with no intention to ship. Cultivate several brokers. I had a really good one, but he tends to be off fighting windmills lately and left the flock with some newbie shepards. One little gal send my order for plugs into the producer, failed to get a confirmation, but took it on herself to not only send me the acknowledgement for the order but a confirmation. When I called the producer to schedule the pick/up they didn't ever get the order. It was my main run for bedding plants. They came through for me, but only out of the goodness of their hearts and with some extra trouble.

Calliope, We grow all from seed. We don't use brokers and we don't use plugs (actually we grow our own plugs). Granted seed orders can be late too but we buy enough to make it through the next season.

One concern is how do I know when I'm bugging a customer too much? I don't want to put them off because I show up/call to often. (A sales background would be great at this point but that's not the case)
Take Care

I have found it to be "out of sight, out of mind". A flyer is cheap/easy and it has happened more than once in a busy day I've just picked it up when having my tea break and got on the horn and ordered. Making frequent contact is a good thing.

yeah, Calliope, I have several customers like that too.
I often get them calling and ordering X amount of dollars worth :-) It always ends up that I know their inventory and whats been selling better than they do...

Contact is important but I try not to overdue it.
After the main season I try not to stop by for a few months... kinda the cooling off period. Fall contact and than pre-spring chat is good. I've often debated the idea of having a spring wholesale customer luncheon. One day for lunch (provided by me and the mrs) I'd give a nursery tour and show off all the new stuff I acquired.

We are a retail nursery, but I just wanted to say, I have never signed a contract with any of my suppliers. Sometimes they require 25% deposit. Usually it is just net 30 days. I want to say I have never ordered any stock, and then reniged. I have also never had a supplier renig. They will often be out of something, but I always get the majority of my order just fine. This is not contract growing however, just purchasing from their inventory. Thought you might like to hear a retailers side. Polly

Thanks Polly,
So you never order your stock in the Fall for the next year? You just pick from the inventory? Translate that to the wholesale side I guess what your want to sell next year?

I need better grammar...
I meant... I guess what you want to sell next year?

Hi Mylu, yes I do order my stock in the fall. Almost everyone I deal with has a catalogue/ price sheet out by early fall. Mostly what I deal in is shrubs and perennials. We are a very small nursery. When I get the shrub catalogues in the fall, I order then for the spring. When I get the perennials catalogues in early fall I order immediately for delivery right then, and also for the spring. The plants I get in the fall I pot up and overwinter for spring sales. The ones I get in the spring, are for fall sales. When the catalogues come out, or price sheets they usually tell you when the item is available, and I order it right away and it is held for me until the requested date. I hope I have answered your question, and if I have confused you at all, please let me know. Polly

No confusion here. Just getting a better understanding of the wholesale side. I'll send you a price list this fall :)

Mylu, hope you didn't think I was suggesting you were easily confused, I'm easily confusing. I was wondering what you were going to sell, are you selling plugs or finished product? This is just a suggestion, and I'm not knowledgeable on the wholesale end, but I was wondering why you would not want to buy plugs, in addition to what you start from seeds. Of course many things can be started from seed, but some cannot. And if you are selling to local nurseries wouldn't a finished product of the unusual that cannot be started from seed be profitable? Don't hesitate to shoot me down if I'm wrong, but if you would consider that how about getting a Walters Gardens catalogue, and maybe trying some of their plugs. They are good, reasonable, and some are quite unique, and the minimum is only one flat of 20-25 plugs, divisions etc. I would love to hear how your business progresses. Best of luck. Polly

We start 95% of what we sell from seed. Around here allot of what we grow is unusual for this market. We live a rural area and have access to three small cities with in 20 minutes and 2 large cities within a 2 hour drive. You could call starting from seed as our niche. Granted some things we don't start from seeds like clematis. Just takes to long. Those we will buy plugs. We also have a smaller selection on trees and shrubs that we purchase from a couple of wholesalers.

People around here just seem to like the fact that our product is grown here. Not sure why but the do. Maybe it's the small town mentality.

We also feel that we can better control flower dates ect.
We don't have everything blooming at the beginning of April like the box stores. We stager our flowering dates over two months so our customers will see something new every time they visit.

We sell finished product. That is a big plus to the nurseries that I have visited with. Our plants are twice the size of what they are currently purchasing. It saves them the labor of potting up. It also save us labor by only moving the plant once until it's ready to sell.
Bottom line is we sell bigger containers.

We do have plans down the road for using our own cuttings and we do have a few varieties ready for next year. As you could imagine building your own stock takes a lot longer then starting from seeds.

It's just the way we do it. And no I didn't think you thought that. List your email on your page and we can talk farther. I would love to here more on what retailer expects.
Thanks for the catalog source.

Take Care