From seeing an advert for eBay in 2006 and starting their online venture by selling a single place, Direct Plants has grown massively over the past two decades. In 2019 they won The Specialist Seller eBay for Business Award and so it’s somewhat fitting that in their 20th year I made the trip to Norfolk to see how their operations have grown.
They still have their original 2 Poly Tunnels from when the business started, but today they have 30 spread over five acres and the business is still expanding – I spotted a couple of new Poly Tunnels that have just started to be erected.
Today they’ve expanded beyond just eBay and Shaun tells me that eBay as the OG still holds a special place in the business, but they’ve naturally adopted many more marketplaces as new channels have emerged.
In this video you will find:
- 00:00 Introducing Shaun O’Brien, Director at Direct Plants
- 00:38 How Direct Plants started selling online in 2006
- 01:53 The size of Direct Plants in 2026
- 03:09 Creating custom packaging for plants and trees
- 04:26 The Channels Direct Plants trade on today
- 06:23 Managing stock that won’t be sold until 12 months into the future
- 08:12 Which channels should a new business adopt first today?
- 09:47 Whats next for Direct Plants?
