Greenfingered Online Shopping. (bakker.co.uk)

Member Name: lel1969

Product:	bakker.co.uk
Date:	31/10/08 (257 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to navigate website with great customer service

Disadvantages: None

Back in early May of this year my daughter, Erin, was just recovering from major surgery and a hospital stay and I was still having time off my work to care for her. Having some spare time on our hands, with the weather getting slightly warmer and Erin desperate to get out into the fresh air again we decided to do some gentle pottering about in the garden, just to try and get it looking a bit more respectable for the summer (although the summer never really seemed to appear!). We already grow blueberries, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers in our garden but Erin wanted a couple of fruit trees. Although we have a good sized garden, the way it is laid out and the fact it is packed with swings, seesaws, trampolines etc. planting and growing trees in the ground was not really an option so we decided to opt for dwarf trees, which could be grown in tubs on our patio. We had a good look round all our local garden centres but all the varieties we looked at were well out of my price range so I decided to scour the internet to see what I could find. There were many different websites offering different deals on a variety of plants but the one which caught my eye and seemed to offer a good service at a good price was www.bakker.co.uk.

~How The Bakker Company Started~

The Bakker Company was established by Piet Bakker in 1945 just after World War 2. After the war ended there was a terrible winter, which killed off many crops leaving many Dutch families with little or nothing to eat. Generosity prevailed though and it was thanks to the many food parcels sent from kind people overseas that the Dutch families pulled through and lived to see another day. Desperate to return the goodwill the Dutch, who were already very famous worldwide for their beautiful flowering bulbs decided to send parcels of bulbs back to the countries who had kindly helped them out, by way of a thank you. This led to the Bakker Company being formed with the gardening market "blooming" across" Europe. In 1998 the company, still a leading company in the gardening market, started trading over the internet and is still going strong to this day with Piet Bakker's sons now running the business.

~A Bit About The Website~

The website is brightly coloured and very welcoming with a great presentation. They have a really great, huge selection of plants to choose from. It is easy to navigate your way around the site and very easy to find the plants you need to brighten your garden, patio or balcony, they even stock indoor plants. In fact, they seem to cater for all your gardening needs as they stock garden sheds, accessories and statues!

If you have any problems or questions the Customer Services page is top notch giving a huge variety of FAQ and all the contact details you may need.

Delivery is £4.85 for all deliveries with an extra charge of 60p for insurance if required. One draw back is they cannot guarantee when delivery will be made. They try to deliver within 2 weeks but depending on stock and the season this cannot always be followed through. If you order a plant, tree or shrub that is perhaps out of season it will be delivered as soon as available but you can check on your order online or alternatively phone Customer Services for an update.

A bright colourful brochure illustrating their range of products can be ordered online or alternatively downloaded. You can also subscribe to their monthly newsletter, which I find really useful as it gives you lots of great seasonal gardening tips, some of which I'd never heard of. It also gives you lots of ideas for keeping your garden looking colourful and alive all year round.

They also have a service on their website called "Virtual Garden", which is basically a bit like a shopping list. When browsing through all the plants you can add the ones you like to your virtual garden and you can either buy them there and then or you can store them there until they are perhaps in season or when you are ready for them or can afford them. I liked this service as I saw many plants and shrubs, which I would like for my garden, but I know I would forget their names! It was good being able to look them up again in my virtual garden.

~My Order~

My first order was placed in early May. Erin and I decided to opt for a dwarf cherry tree and a dwarf apple tree, both could be grown in large tubs and we thought would look great on our patio. I happily placed the order with ease with each tree being guaranteed to be of a height of between 80cm and 100cm, to be well established and at only £10.99 each I couldn't wait for them to arrive. I was quite pleased with the description of the tree and the photographs provided and, with the ones we'd seen in our local garden centres being approximately the same size but about 3 or 4 times more expensive, I was very pleased with the price as well. I must admit I was a bit wary about ordering plants from Holland but at these prices I thought I would just give it a try and I am so glad I did.

The trees arrived 2 weeks later and were very well packaged in clear plastic bags and then a box, with the root ball being well protected with thin cardboard. You are warned when ordering and also on the paperwork with your plants not to be shocked or disappointed if the plants don't look quite as you had hoped. I was a little disappointed I have to admit, as it did look like I had just been sent 2 long sticks with a root ball on the end! But I thoroughly read through the paperwork I received with the trees and followed the instructions down to the last word and, sure enough, within a week my apple tree had started to sprout new shoots and buds were forming. Within 4 weeks my apple tree looked wonderfully healthy and was covered in leaves and all through the summer continued to grow and flourish. My cherry tree however continued to be a bit of an embarrassment, still looking like a large stick planted in a tub.

One of the reasons I was attracted to www.bakker.co.uk was the fact that they offered a 5 year guarantee with most of their plants. I decided to give them a phone and test out their promise. After all, I had cared for the cherry tree in the same manner as I had the apple tree.

When I phoned their customer services they could not have been more helpful and apologised for my inconvenience. I was asked a bit about the tree and what I had done with it and they explained that although I had had the tree for a couple of months now, the tree could still be dormant and the best way to test this was to scrape a small bit of the bark away at the top of the plant and at the bottom of the plant, if the flesh underneath was creamy or green in colour then the tree was still alive. I was then told that if the tree had remained the same by August to give them a call back. I did as I was told and tested the bark but the flesh was just dark brown and did look dead. I called back again in August and again they could not have been more helpful and arranged to send me a replacement tree by the end of September, beginning of October when the tree crop would be in season again. I had no problems whatsoever obtaining a replacement tree and the customer services staff could not have been friendlier or more helpful.

My new cherry tree arrived 2 weeks ago and looks very healthy, although both my pretty trees have now lost all their leaves for this year.

~Would I Recommend~

Yes! I would definitely recommend. I can find no faults at all with their website or service. A definite 10/10 from me.

Many thanks for reading. Also posted elsewhere.

© lel1969

Summary: Great online shopping for all your gardening needs!