Name for a new specialist plant nursery business

What sort of name or phrase would you put into a search engine if you were looking for a specialist or tropical plant nursery?

I ask as I know someone starting a nursery and they want to use a name which I think will be detrimental. They think horticulture has a bad image so want to be different and think a different name will help.

They are very well qualified both on an experience and theoretical level having just finished uni and exhibited at Chelsea. The name they are thinking of calling their business is Incendium They don't want to add anything about plants, unusual, specialist nursery or mention tropical.

Comments please.

So they're aiming to sell plants to people who are put off by the idea of buying plants? It could work, but they'd better have a really good plan of who to market to. You could for example sell it as an exterior design thing, big plants at high prices and a really good customer support system, might work. As someone who has no problems at all with the words 'specialist plant nursery' I might well find their website if I was looking for a particular plant that they had, but I'd be put off by that name and lack of information that they were a nursery. It'd make me think they were just importing plants (which means questionable quality) and probably charging way too much for them. Give me an old fashioned nursery which clearly spends more time on its plants than its website anyday.

So they're aiming to sell plants to people who are put off by the idea of buying plants? It could work' date=' but they'd better have a really good plan of who to market to. You could for example sell it as an exterior design thing, big plants at high prices and a really good customer support system, might work. As someone who has no problems at all with the words 'specialist plant nursery' I might well find their website if I was looking for a particular plant that they had, but I'd be put off by that name and lack of information that they were a nursery. It'd make me think they were just importing plants (which means questionable quality) and probably charging way too much for them. Give me an old fashioned nursery which clearly spends more time on its plants than its website anyday.[/quote']

 

I don't understand the sentence I have put in bold, can you explain please? They said they thought the image of horticulture is dated. I personally don't think an avid gardener, their target market looking for good quality plants would have that opinion.

 

I think some of their comments and thoughts are because they are a very young person straight from Uni so most of their peers will not have settled down with their own house and garden yet. I know more mature people are not all into gardening but I think age does change your perspective of life and priorities.

 

They haven't got a website yet. I am an avid gardener so regularly look for and buy plants from specialist suppliers of a particular plant on line, hence my comment about the name not helping with potential search engines. Some specialist nurseries don't allow visitors and some only do on certain dates or by appointment.

 

I do wish they would teach more about business and running a business in Schools, Collages and Universities.

 

Bold hasn't show up. Its the first sentence between the two Bs showing where the text should be bold.

They need to understand their target market (and a lot more besides) before they settle on a name/brand style i.e age, gender bias if any, socio-economic group, how their customers view themselves, the sort of language they would use, their other favourite brands etc etc.

Are they based in Sheffield, because if they are I run a workshop on branding as part of the free help available from Business Sheffield (see the sticky at the top for full details) which I think would be very useful for them at this stage.

As for the suggested name, without looking it up I have no idea what it means, but I don't particularly like it. The final thing to bear in mind is that they need to be able to buy the domain name for whatever they end up calling themselves.

They need to understand their target market (and a lot more besides) before they settle on a name/brand style i.e age, gender bias if any, socio-economic group, how their customers view themselves, the sort of language they would use, their other favourite brands etc etc.

 

Are they based in Sheffield, because if they are I run a workshop on branding as part of the free help available from business Sheffield (see the sticky at the top for full details) which I think would be very useful for them at this stage.

 

As for the suggested name, without looking it up I have no idea what it means, but I don't particularly like it. The final thing to bear in mind is that they need to be able to buy the domain name for whatever they end up calling themselves.

Its going to be a partnership of three people. Two are in Rotherham, I don't know who the third person is or where they live. I don't know where the business will be based. I presume Rotherham as one party already has a traditional nursery in Rotherham.

The problem is, in my opinion, these are horticultural people not business people. People think if you are good at something you will be good at running a business but I know from experience that is not necessarily the case.

You are mentioning the things I have already mentioned. I want them to do well which is why I started this thread.

Its going to be a partnership of three people. Two are in Rotherham, I don't know who the third person is or where they live. I don't know where the business will be based. I presume Rotherham as one party already has a traditional nursery in Rotherham.

 

The problem is, in my opinion, these are horticultural people not business people. People think if you are good at something you will be good at running a business but I know from experience that is not necessarily the case.

 

You are mentioning the things I have already mentioned. I want them to do well which is why I started this thread.

If any of them either pay council tax or business rates to SCC then they can access the help. You're right about being good at something having no bearing on how well you'll run a business. A nursery is going to require a large amount of investment to set up so you're also right they need to take advice now, not when the bank are threatening to foreclose!

I hope they take heed.

I don't think it needs a lot of financial investment as one party already has land and glass houses / poly tunnels. Its a traditional nursery not a chain garden centre.

They do need to invest in a website, a decent ecommerce one, leaflets, decent business cards / logo, accounting software etc.

What sort of name or phrase would you put into a search engine if you were looking for a specialist or tropical plant nursery?

 

I ask as I know someone starting a nursery and they want to use a name which I think will be detrimental. They think horticulture has a bad image so want to be different and think a different name will help.

 

They are very well qualified both on an experience and theoretical level having just finished uni and exhibited at Chelsea. The name they are thinking of calling their business is Incendium They don't want to add anything about plants, unusual, specialist nursery or mention tropical.

 

Comments please.

Having looked up the meaning of Incendium, it wouldn't be my choice for a name to reflect plant/ horticulture/ gardening.

I suppose if I were searching the the given criteria, I would look at words like plants/ cultivation/ cultivar/ flora/ floriculture/ agriculture/ groundskeeping, along with the ones already mentioned (bold).

"Plant Higher" probably get some business from the building sector.

So they're aiming to sell plants to people who are put off by the idea of buying plants?

 

I don't understand the sentence I have put in bold, can you explain please?

You said that they were considering a name which doesn't exactly evoke plants or nurseries, and that they don't want to add anything about plants, unusual, specialist nursery or mention tropical. Obviously doing it this way will lose a lot of potential customers who are keen on gardening and would be using search terms including those words. Presumably they think that there is some big untapped market out there who would actively be put off by those words? I can't think of any other reason they wouldn't include them.

I don't think it's impossible. Maybe gardening is due some naff new rebranding like 'upcycling'. Call it Exterior Design instead or some such. Maybe it could work, but they'd be lucky to get it to stick all by themselves. I don't know how they expect their potential customers to find them otherwise.

---------- Post added 08-06-2016 at 23:37 ----------

What sort of name or phrase would you put into a search engine if you were looking for a specialist or tropical plant nursery?

If I was looking for tropical plants, I'd search 'tropical plant nursery' or 'tropical plant nursery UK'. If I was looking for somewhere to visit locally and didn't mind what plants it sold I'd search 'specialist plant nursery sheffield' or 'plant nursery sheffield'. I might also be looking for a particular plant, in which case I'd search by Latin name or try the RHS plantfinder if the damn thing is working.

What sort of name or phrase would you put into a search engine if you were looking for a specialist or tropical plant nursery?

 

I ask as I know someone starting a nursery and they want to use a name which I think will be detrimental. They think horticulture has a bad image so want to be different and think a different name will help.

 

They are very well qualified both on an experience and theoretical level having just finished uni and exhibited at Chelsea. The name they are thinking of calling their business is Incendium They don't want to add anything about plants, unusual, specialist nursery or mention tropical.

 

Comments please.

I daresay people put into search engines what goods/services they are looking for, rather than who they are looking to source them from (at least until enough brand recognition has been achieved).

For a website, that's what metadata and keywords are for, irrespective of the business (and the domain-) name.

Think about it like this: if you're looking for new sports shoes, do you put in "sports shoes" or "trainers" or "athletic equipment" into Google? Or do you put in "Reebok", or "Nike", or "Adidas"?

Re. second bit in bold. [and this is from a trade mark practitioner ]

The more 'out there' and meaningless the name/brand, and the less it says or suggests what the goods/services are, the stronger its distinctive character, the stronger its identifying and differentiating function in the market place.

A business always sells itself on its offer/capacity first and foremost, not on its name (again, at least not until it has achieved enough success, and therefore goodwill).

Now, what is going to identify these people uniquely in the local (and eventually/hopefully not-so-local) gardening scene?

"Exotic Plants R Us"?

"Jack and Jill's plant nursery"?

"South Yorkshire exotic plants"?

...or "Incendium"? (which, without even looking up its meaning, sound fairly aspirational/high value market to me already )

It's no wonder the strongest brands have always been the most meaningless/unassociative ones. Google (not 'Internet Services, Inc.'). Apple (not 'Personal Electronics, Inc.'). Nike (not 'Athletic Apparel, Inc.'). <etc>.

Interesting comments. I can see your points for the goods you mentioned for that specific target market but not really for the scenario we are looking at.

Perhaps my friends and I are not typical of most people then L00b. I will tell him he has at least one person who thinks its a good idea. None of his target market who regularly buy these type of goods agree with the two of you though.

The word doesn't sound aspirational to me due to the reasons I have explained. Its to do with other words derived from the same latin word that are used on a daily basis in my industry.

I wouldn't look for a brand either as I think brands are for chavs who try to copy or keep up with the Jonses ....If I do happen to buy a brand it would only be something specific like a cosmetic or a bag from that particular manufacturer, nowhere else and there are no other brands I would look for.

Having said that to do with this scenario I would look for a plant name or type of plants as I have already explained. I understand your comments about website key words etc but this person doesn't want to use any of those words....he thinks he can get sales just from the name without needing to explain anything about what they specialise in. I would search a company name if I heard of a good supplier. It has to be something you can easily remember unless I remember to make a note of it somewhere. I know people who have tried to search for a specialist supplier (not just gardening) with a silly name and been unable to find them again to buy from them a second time.

Are his target market aspirational? Perhaps some untapped could be but what about people already clamouring for these type of goods? Avid gardeners are looking for a specific plant, quality and price....they already have clear ideas about what they want. Sometimes we wish we didn't. On a specialist forum where we discuss growing and sourcing these plants every single person has been turned off by the name. Perhaps we aren't shallow enough to desire 'designer' goods?

We suggested he needed to add a few words if he intended on using the name Incendium eg Incendium.....adding wording in leaflets or website such as tropical or unusual plants. He doesn't want anything other than incendium. I'm not even sure hes intending to have an e commerce website. He was dead set against mail order until all the gardening forum told him how many of their plants are bought from distant specialist suppliers, sometimes even abroad.

Edit - how can blaze or fire sound aspirational? Blaze also sounds horsey - the white pattern down the front of their face is a blaze. Incendium...incendiary...Aspirational? Really?!!!