How Thai plant-seller Plantspath branched out from local roots to global routes

At the height of the pandemic in 2020, gardening became one of many hobbies that sprouted as people were stuck at home during lockdown.

What was a soothing pastime for many bloomed into the perfect business opportunity for one savvy businesswoman in Thailand. Originally an e-commerce online sales instructor for sellers on eBay, Amazon and Etsy, Kalyarat Sasanatayat chanced upon news of high demand for plants, and sensed a gap in the market for shipping plants from Thailand around the world.

“Thailand is lucky. It’s a beautiful country where we can grow many plants,” said Kalyarat Sasanatayat, co-founder of Plantspath. “In the area where I live, there are many gardens and it is very convenient for us to contact them and buy plants. Not many countries can say the same.”

Riding on the Covid gardening bloom

Sasanatayat’s business journey began when she met Rungroj Ruenjaichon, who specialized in variegated plants at The Bigman Variegated Farm. Despite their difference in expertise, the two had many interests in common, bonding particularly over their common love for plants.

Quickly, they struck up a partnership, forming a formidable business duo: Ruenjaichon with his green fingers, and Sasanatayat, with her ecommerce know-how. Together, they started Plantspath, a plant-selling business specializing in variegated plants, such as Monstera, on online platforms like eBay. After chalking up impressive sales, the duo took the plunge and pursued plant-selling full-time.

Thorny challenges

Shipping plants worldwide, however, has not been a bed of roses.

In Plantspath’s early days, the plants did not always arrive in tip-top condition during deliveries. Their previous delivery company was not equipped with the right resources and logistics network to deliver the plants in good condition. As a result, some plants would arrive late, while others went missing during transit, resulting in Plantspath shipments missing their crucial lead time of less than seven days.

“Plants are delicate products with different requirements for care,” said Sasanatayat. “So we needed to consider many things, from delivery time, prices, how to pack plants safely, to the customs and regulations of the destination country and ensuring that the shipments pass inspection standards both domestically and internationally.”

Depending on the climate of the destination country, overseas deliveries come with different challenges. Sasanatayat recalled that on some occasions, when delivery dates overlapped on Saturdays and Sundays in the summer, plants left in storage over the weekend would easily dry up. There were also disruptions during the winter, where transportation became more difficult when the temperature fell below 10 degrees.

Then there was the cumbersome matter of regulations further complicating the shipment process. A country’s customs authority may require phytosanitary certificates for each plant issued by the exporting country, along with licenses, import permits, or other legal documents from the relevant ministries or agencies.

Different countries also required various paperwork.  For instance, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations include specific rules such as capping the number of plants in each shipment at 12, while larger shipments require import permits.

“We had to educate our customers, to help them understand that import taxes are not included in the product price and shipping costs, and are borne by the customer. We also learned to plan for buffer time, because some documents can take weeks to process,” noted Sasanatayat.

Planting new routes

As demand for their plants grew, the Plantspath founders turned to DHL Express to ensure that they could reach their main target customers, primarily gardening hobbyists in the U.S.

“We don’t ship perishable products like food and plants in our network, but we researched sources of growth, and found that the shipping of plants was very much in demand, and had potential,” explained Herbert Vongpusanachai, DHL Express, Head of Indochina, and Managing Director, DHL Express Thailand.

To better serve Thailand’s plants market, DHL Express sent a project team to visit local plant-seller customers and conduct market research, and the project team identified a list of plants that would fit the criteria of non-perishable plants—resilient plants that do not need too much watering.

From there, the DHL Express team leveraged regional and international flights to map out the best possible routes to the U.S. The result was a new DHL Express export service for non-perishable plants from Thailand to the United States.

Following a trial run with Plantspath and other customers, DHL officially launched the service in June 2023. Through the expansion of this service, non-perishable plants can now be shipped to the U.S. within three to five working days, complete with full tracking visibility throughout the supply chain. This allows Thai plant sellers to capitalize on the high demand for non-perishable plants in the U.S. market.

“We’re constantly exploring new alternatives to help our customers meet their evolving needs. To support plant-sellers like Plantspath, we worked closely with the operations teams in the respective countries and our partner carriers to establish compliant processes that steer clear of the restrictions for shipping non-perishable plants,” shared Vongpusanachai.

Since the launch of the service, Plantspath has started shipping 100 percent of its shipments to the U.S. with DHL Express Thailand. The Plantspath team has worked with DHL Express Thailand to familiarize themselves with packaging practices for plants and the accompanying paperwork to ship them.

To ensure that plants survive the transit, the DHL operations team picks the parcels up on Monday and delivers them by Thursday to avoid the plants being held in storage over the weekend. DHL team took note of special requirements for each plant, such as the need to cover roots with sphagnum moss to retain moisture. They also instructed the Plantspath founders on how to pack their plants by wrapping roots in a paper towel and foam net to protect them from water loss during transit.

Sowing new seeds of success

The gardening boom has gradually subsided as we enter the endemic stage and people return to offices.

But business is still going strong for Plantspath. Having established a strong international online customer base, the brand has regular customers from all over the world, including Australia, Britain, Germany, Japan, the Middle East and Scandinavia.

The plant breeding and production company recently expanded its line of products to plant tissue cultures – small pieces of plant tissue grown in a jelly-like medium, which cost less than fully-grown plants.

“Customers like rare species of trees, but often, those come at a high price,” explained Sasanatayat. “When we sell plant tissues, the prices are much cheaper. Customers can easily order as many as a thousand tissues in one box at a fraction of the price of full-grown plants. With tissues, it is also easier to detect plant parasites such as nematodes (roundworms).”

In their ongoing journey, Plantspath remains committed to continuously improving their business, ensuring that the joy of plant breeding is shared with enthusiasts around the globe, one shipment at a time.