A nursery store with pre-orders and a fruiting calendar built in

The situation

Fruit Tree Cottage is a family-run nursery in Forest Glen growing avocados, citrus, finger limes, dragon fruit, figs, mangoes, lychees and dozens of other varieties. They needed to sell online for click-and-collect and for shipping through Australia Post to five states, with a catalogue where availability changes week to week and some varieties are only ever sold as pre-orders.

What we did

• Set up a Shopify store on a heavily customised theme, structured around collections for fruit type, in-stock now, and the popular Chilli Club
• Built a pre-order system that tracks inventory separately and handles split orders, with the same messaging from product page to confirmation email
• Added a fruiting calendar linked directly to products, so customers can find what fruits in a given month and the owner can update it without a developer
• Configured shipping rules for live plants by state, plus click-and-collect for nursery opening days
• Designed the brand identity: a three-colour palette of earthy green, timber red and ripe mango yellow with a modern serif, carried through to business cards and flyers

The result

An online store that does the awkward parts of selling living plants for the owner: pre-orders, seasonal availability and interstate shipping. The site is supported on an ongoing basis, with the calendar and catalogue managed in-house.