Your Lot
The most important part of our business is the success and satisfaction of our customers. Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed. We cannot guarantee your success, but this page is our best effort to help you accomplish that goal.
Before you get started
Before you get started you will need to make several decisions.
Select your Location.
As in real estate, your success greatly depends on your exposure. Location will be the biggest factor affecting your sales. Busy street corners away from the competition make the best locations.
Secure the necessary permits.
These permits are easily acquired and can be obtained at city hall, 
or the clerk there will know where to get them.
Get liability insurance.
Check with your insurance broker.
Can your location be secured?
If no one will be on your site at night, you will need lighting and fencing. Many customers pull a small trailer onto the lot and live there to prevent theft.
Do you have the help you need?
You will need a plan organizer. This will be someone in charge of keeping the books and making all of the decisions regarding purchases, layouts and day to day business. You will also need a sufficient crew to man your lot. A busy lot might require 2 or 3 sales people to be present. You will lose sales if your customers can not get the help they need in selecting and purchasing a tree. When the truck arrives with your trees, you will need between 5 & 10 men, depending on the size of your order, to unload and stack your trees.
Are you able to finance the project?
All growers require payment in full before trees are cut. A typical order of 300 trees of mixed size and variety will require and initial outlay of between $4,000 & $5000. You will also need to pay in advance for trucking which runs around $2.50/mile at this time of year. From Wonser Woods to Los Angeles this comes to about $2,750. Keep in mind that a truck holds 700-800 trees and truck sharing can help tremendously with costs.
Go to Work
If you have identified your lot, have the finances, and have your security in place and help you need, you are ready to go to work.
Start by securing your lot and the necessary permits.
Place your order with a 25% deposit for your trees.
See our wholesale page for a good description of what mix of trees to order. Order early as we are often sold out of popular varieties and sizes by late summer.
Begin laying out your tree lot.
You will need water, electricity and a shade cover. You will also need a system for displaying your trees.
Arrange for trucking.
Call a transportation broker to arrange for truck to haul your trees. Most of the time local brokers serve you best and can be found in your yellow pages. You can also call us for a list of brokers that we have been happy with in the past. If you are not taking a full semi-load of trees, around 700-800, let us help you find transportation. We can often pair up customers on the same trucking route.
Make the final payment for your trees by November 1.
Helpful Hints
Save with Transportation costs. Transportation is an area where you might be able to save a great deal of money if you have a couple of volunteers willing to do some driving. We frequently load pickup trucks with trailers. A sturdy 16’-18’ trailer with good sideboards will hold about 150 trees. If the pickup also has sideboards, we can get 175-200 trees on board. If you are able to pick up your own trees, you might also think about multiple deliveries. It is extremely difficult trying to keep trees fresh for close to month in the hot California sun.
Trees are displayed in many different ways. With out a doubt, the best way is to display each tree in a stand. You will find that you often sell the stand and the tree together. However, this is not always practical, and many customers use a large fence system to display their trees. Trees are leaned against outside fences, and inside fences are created with a long board running parallel to the ground about 4’ high and a "A" frame support system. Saw dust or bark dust is often spread on the floor and kept moist and this allows the trees to drink while on display.
Water your trees frequently.
If your are able to display your trees in stands make a fresh cut on the butt and place it immediately in the stand with water when it arrives. Your tree could drink up to a gallon of water the first day. If displaying your trees in stands is not practical, you will want to wet the outside foliage a couple times a day.
Keep your trees in the shade.
Trees will be kept best in a cool garage or shed, ideally located on your lot. If this is not practical, a tent can be used. Finally, if none of the above will work, you can throw a tarp over the trees. Make sure there is plenty of circulation under the tarp to avoid composting.
Do not lay your trees directly on a hard flat surface.
They will become flat sided and have a hard time recovering when they are unbundled. If you can, put pallets down to stack trees on, or stand your trees up to store them.
Many fundraising groups are able to do pre-sales to help with finances.
You might consider sending out brochures that point to our "wholesale only" web site so that your customers can see and even choose the tree they will be getting ahead of time. We have great pictures on the web.
Make your tree lot fun.
Offer hot chocolate, tea, coffee & ???. You want lots of bells and whistles. Remember, you are competing with the big box store down the street. What you can offer that they can’t is personalized service. If you have the help, make delivery an option. Whatever you can do to distinguish yourself from the crowd will be to your advantage.
Advertise.
Big signs in as many places as possible. Send out fliers. Put the sale in your church bulletin. If you are a fund raising group make sure to make your customers aware of that and how much they are helping with their support.
Take your first delivery so that you are ready to sell trees the day after Thanksgiving.
This is the traditional start up day for tree sales. Your strongest sales will be between about December 4-December 18 depending on how the weekends fall.
What price should I charge?
Every neighborhood is different. Trees in San Francisco seem to bring more money than the same trees in Los Angeles, while trees in Portland sell for just a few bucks over wholesale. As a rule of thumb, it is common to add the cost of shipping to the cost of the tree and multiply by 2. In other words, you should plan on doubling your money, and if you can not do that, selling Christmas trees is probably not worth your effort.
A word of caution
Have plenty of strong twine or rope on hand but allow the customer to tie his own tree to his or her car. In some states you could be liable for damages if the tree comes lose from the car on the road and you are the one that did the tying.
