Leveraging The Web

When DoLeaf cofounder Micah Wedemeyer started digging beds in his back yard to plant the garden he'd always wanted, he quickly realized garden centers at the big box stores didn't carry the types of plants he was looking for. He had a hard time finding heirloom vegetables and even some perennials. "Since we buy everything else online, we started looking around to see if we could find a greater variety on the Web," Wedemeyer says.

The results were a mixed bag. Although he found hundreds of independent nurseries around the U.S., most of them had rudimentary websites with no way of ordering other than by phone. "Realizing that there were probably other gardeners out there like us, we decided we wanted to make it easier for nurseries to put their plants up for sale, while likewise providing one central place where gardeners can go to find and buy plants from the thousands of growers around the nation," Wedemeyer says. To fill this void, he created DoLeaf (www.doleaf.com).

How It Works

Benefits Of Getting Involved

Interested in finding out some of the advantages offered by DoLeaf? Here is a list of some of the benefits.
- Growers get a free, easy-to-update website that displays contact information for their nursery.
- Get access to a younger generation that makes a large number of their purchases online.
- Easily list plants for sale online without the investment of creating and maintaining a traditional e-commerce website.
- The DoLeaf team vets each seller to determine their level of knowledge and professionalism, preventing quality control problems.
- DoLeaf listings are automatically syndicated into a variety of alternate sales channels, like Google Product Search.
- The DoLeaf team is experienced with search engine optimization, and its seller and listings pages are optimized to rank very high on Google.

Wedemeyer describes DoLeaf as an online marketplace for people to find and buy plants from independent garden centers and specialty nurseries. DoLeaf has two main goals to best serve its two customer classes: growers and gardeners. "First we want to revolutionize gardening, particularly among the younger generation of gardeners, by giving them a way to access a world of plants they have probably never heard of," Wedemeyer says. "Our goal is to make it easy for them to search and find plants that are perfect for a particular spot or purpose, and have that plant delivered right to their door, backed by the knowledge and professionalism of an experienced grower."

"Second, for the growers, we want to help them better promote their business online, but without requiring a huge investment up front, either timewise or financially. There are millions of people who love to buy everything online, and our goal is to make it easy for growers to get their plants in front of them."

Wedemeyer adds that no special technical knowledge is required to become involved with the program. "DoLeaf is made to be very easy to use, and the only special knowledge anyone needs is how to grow plants and provide great customers service," he says.

DoLeaf helps small growers and gardeners find and buy fruit, vegetable, and specialty plants from independent growers.