The Plant Friends Journal 002
Hey plant friends,
As I sit down to write this week's newsletter, it’s just hit me—I now have to sound interesting every week. If you asked my wife, she’d say that’s a serious problem. Luckily, picking a topic this week took about 10 seconds, so I don’t think I’ll be running out of things to say anytime soon. Like I said last week, you’re all plant people, so a weekly update on the chaos of running a small-time plant business is probably right up your street.
Looking back on last week, one thing is clear; I need to get back to plants. When you start a business like this, it’s because you love them, you picture yourself spending your days pottering about, like some kind of human Miracle-Gro, with everything thriving and looking perfect. The reality? The only plant-related task I managed last week was keeping everything watered in the polytunnel (and only because I still haven’t set up my automatic watering system). The rest of my time? Packing, posting, and dealing with a few serious headaches.
Let’s rewind a second, how I’ve built this business so far is by leveraging online sales platforms. If you’re reading this, you probably know the website, but that’s just one piece of the puzzle. We’ve got a strong presence on eBay, a store on Amazon (trust me, one is enough), and TikTok Shop, which has been a bit of a phenomenon lately. There’s also an Etsy store, though I stopped selling there when they changed their payment terms, I’ll probably pick it back up eventually, but for now, there’s more than enough to juggle. I’m not exactly tech-minded, but I did manage to set everything up so that when a sale happens on Amazon, eBay, or TikTok, it automatically syncs to my Shopify dashboard. The idea was to keep things simple, one place to track revenue, costs, and fees, so I could focus on growing plants and making content. Well, that was the plan…
TikTok Drama 🎭
Last Monday, I noticed something weird, no sales coming through from TikTok. I checked the Plant Friends profile, and the shop was just… gone. Cue panic. Logged in, and boom—big red banner: "Your shop has been deactivated." No reason given. TikTok doesn’t have a call centre (of course), so I had to rely on their online ticket system. I filed over 40tickets trying to get an answer. If you’ve ever seen that episode of Friends where Phoebe is on hold for hours, yeah, that was me last week, stuck in a customer service loop with no real explanation.
I had every reason to be stressed. Nearly £1,900 in sales was still sitting in my TikTok balance, and from what I’d read online, they could just keep it. (Turns out they don’t, but they do hold it for 90 days.) Eventually, I got an answer: the system had flagged my account for fraud because I’d been running competitions to win plants. (RIP, TikTok giveaways 😭).
To get my account back, they needed proof I was a legit business—fair enough. Then they hit me with another hurdle. Since I sell plants, I have to comply with government regulations, meaning I need a plant passport. I’d already submitted this over a year ago, but apparently, since the shop was shut they needed it again to reboot everything. Last time, the process took two weeks! Completely unnecessary and a massive headache, all because I ran a few competitions. I knew that would come back to bite me someday!
Amazon Wants Answers 📞
Just when I thought I was done, I got a call on Thursday from a Pontefract number.
"Hi, this is your Amazon account manager. We’ve noticed some changes to your account and need to go over some details."
Some details? Understatement of the year.
Now, I had no issue providing what they needed—proof of invoices, tracking numbers, utility bills, etc. However, what was this suspicious change in my account? An increase in sales. Yep, that’s it. It’s March, people are buying more plants, and somehow, that triggered a review. Thankfully, Amazon didn’t freeze my money like TikTok, but they did want a mountain of paperwork from the past three months. Let’s just say I’m not the best at keeping records, and I ended up searching both my and my wife’s cars for invoices.
So yeah, two of my biggest sales platforms both threw roadblocks at me in the same week. My plan had been to ramp up content and sow more seeds, but instead, I spent my time drowning in support tickets and admin work.
A Bit of a Win 🌻
It wasn’t all bad, though! My eldest daughter’s nursery asked me to come in and talk about plants since they’re covering spring. I kept it super simple—explaining how the ground warms up and plants start growing. Then we made grass heads(you know, the ones with tights and googly eyes?) and handed out sunflower seeds in windowsill grow kits. I told them those tiny seeds would grow into plants taller than their school. No joke seeing their excitement was a great reminder of why I love plants in the first place.
Keeping It Simple 🌿
Weeks like this make me realise just how much time I spend on everything except plants—paperwork, problem-solving, and endless admin. At the heart of it all, I just want to grow and sell plants, sharing that love with people who appreciate them as much as I do.
Despite all the hurdles, it’s the plants—and that sense of wonder—that make it worth it. Seeing kids get excited over a sunflower seed or a customer at a local market light up when they find the perfect houseplant reminds me why I started this in the first place. It’s easy to get caught up in the chaos, but at the end of the day, I’m lucky to do something I genuinely love. That’s what keeps me going.
Hopefully, this week will be different, though with Friday, Saturday, and Sunday market days coming up, I might just be swapping one kind of chaos for another. That being said there is something about talking to people in person about plants that makes it all worthwhile—after a winter of online sales, seeing someone’s face light up when they pick out the perfect plant is a great feeling.
I’m sure you’ve got your fair share of complications and setbacks too, but my unsolicited advice? Try not to mix the two, keep the plants simple.
Wishing you a great week.