I want to talk about tomato seedling sales. I've been volunteered to choose tomatoes for the local master gardener sale. My role has been to choose and describe the varieties. My collaborator will manage the volunteers who grow them.

In past years, there has been a printed list of 20 varieties, and the actual plants on sale day had simply a photo of the ripe tomato variety and the name. I don't think that's enough (or the best presentation of) information. Maybe it's just me, but when I used to shop at good nurseries for tomatoes, the sign accompanying the varieties led to quite a few impulse buys that turned into wonderful finds. To boost sales of unfamiliar varieties (I've kept about 10 previous varieties and added 25 more), I was thinking of having an 8.5x11 (more or less) sign with more information about the tomato. I think this is especially important because the sale is only 2 Saturdays. There will be an article describing all the tomatoes a week in advance, but I don't think many people will see it.

So I'm looking for good examples of informational placards you've seen or created. How much information is too much? I like the handwritten style/font of the older ones at Annie's Annuals (plants are sold to other nurseries and also online); the new ones online are different. The content can be a little too chatty, though.
https://www.anniesannuals.com/plants/view/?id=3417

Good pics make sales. My tip would be to laminate your placards for durability. The canva phone app is free and they have templates that make it easy. I also use the web site picmonkey.com for my graphic design. It's I think 8 bucks a month with no contract.

This is what I made for my last sale. It was on regular letter paper, then laminated. I had a few of them, people would carry them around while choosing plants.

Dawn wrote: ↑Thu Jan 05, 2023 4:50 pm FB_IMG_1672958759022.jpg

This is what I made for my last sale. It was on regular letter paper, then laminated. I had a few of them, people would carry them around while choosing plants.

This is a lot like what I used to make for my driveway plant sales. A pic and the basic information. Anyone who wants to know more can ask or Google

I think you nailed it, Dawn. That's about the amount of information that most shoppers will take in. Concise, and a good picture.

I remember doing a simple table for my peppers, with a pic in the left column and a few lines of description taking a wider column on the right. That was on the table for customers to read, but it got mostly a quick look now and then. Rare customer would pick it up and read for more than about 30 seconds before looking at the plants instead.

OTOH a lot of customers signed up their email for further information about growing peppers, future sales etc.
@habitat-gardener , if the article is online, you could print the link for people to take away.
Of course neither of those things actually does what you wanted to do, to give more enticing info about the rare varieties to make the sale.
You could write a bit more than Dawn has on hers, but I'd keep it to a couple of sentences per tomato for best effect. JMO.

A picture with a size (cherry, saladette, slicer, beefsteak) and also something to indicate what the tomato is best used for (canner, sauce, paste, fresh) as many people had different needs for their tomatoes.

Possibly include the time factors, such as early, mid season and late too. Dawn and MissS nailed it.

I use 8.5 x 11 sheets of either poster board with thinner laminate or regular paper with thicker laminate, depending on which is cheaper (it seems to change from year to year). They're modeled off the entries in seed catalogs. I put the variety name in big letters on the top with a large-ish picture below it. Then a brief description including days to maturity and growth type. Often there is space left at the bottom, which I use when I clothes pin the price sign onto it. We secure these in front of each variety of tomato, pepper and eggplant with clothes pins to the table cloth. They work great.

Here's what they look like in use.

I prefer Dawn's design, to see everything available at the fingertip. One change I would suggest is to bold "CHERRY" to draw the eye to the possible choices in that popular category.

- Lisa