Some twelve years ago Grant Muller was looking online for chilli seeds in pursuit of his gardening hobby and found the prices so high that it only took a few basic calculations for him to realise that he could make a decent profit if he bought seeds in bulk and sold them online himself. The business that germinated at that very moment has never stopped growing, and today Seeds For Africa is the leading online seed retailer in South Africa.
The figures show just how fertile the soil was in which Grant planted that idea. In his first month of sales – back in 2011 when he just sold on the general online marketplace Bidorbuy (also known as Bobshop) – he broke even. In the second month he was already profitable and since then Seeds for Africa has grown an average of 30% per year. During Covid-19, when home gardening exploded, it grew no less than 100%.
Not that it was easy. Grant says that he had to put in countless 16-hour working days to move the business out of his kitchen where he started it and beyond the Bidorbuy platform onto its own stand-alone ecommerce site, www.seedsforafrica.co.za In the process he has had to teach himself how to build websites and he has had to gain an intimate knowledge of courier logistics throughout South Africa.
Today the site lists no fewer than 4 500 different types of seeds – for flowers, vegetables, trees, indigenous flora as well as rare and exotic plants. It also lists a full range of hydroponic equipment and consumables for home growers. Seeds for Africa operates from Table View, Cape Town, where it has opened a bricks-and-mortar store to add to its monthly sales of up to R1,5 million.
Grant was born and raised in Zimbabwe where he qualified as an accountant and worked throughout Africa on various agriculture-related projects, often as a partner in different ventures. When the economy of Zimbabwe collapsed, Grant moved to South Africa and joined a large supermarket chain where he worked his way up to managing one of its provincial meat divisions.
Corporate life does not suit Grant, who prefers working on his own projects even if it means having to work much longer days. When he therefore saw the opportunity in selling seeds he jumped at it, trading online for only a month before he resigned his job to start doing it full time.
Today Grant has a team of 14 staff members, most of whom work in the company’s “seed room”, where seeds are sorted, counted and packaged. Two members of his team are qualified horticulturalists and a further two are hydroponic experts so that the company can field nearly every question from its growing customer base.
The focus on customer service is one of the reasons for its success, says Grant. Much of it revolves around not only sourcing the highest quality seeds, but making sure that the shipping of the packages happens quickly and accurately. “For many online businesses the order ends when the payment is made and the package is handed over to the courier, but for us the order is not complete until the package is in the hands of the customer and they are absolutely delighted with it,” says Grant.
A lot of work has gone into learning which courier services are strongest in which parts of the country and building relationships with them. Even though shipping is outsourced, Seeds for Africa will fix an order if anything goes wrong with the delivery. And the customer has a right to return any order within fourteen days, no questions asked, says Grant, who believes this guarantee was important in establishing trust in a country where only about 4% of retail happens online, compared to 25% in many other countries.
Grant has always kept Seeds for Africa’s growth steady by ploughing profits back into the business, but recently he started looking around for working capital to grow faster. He came across Business Partners Limited, and quickly became more interested in Business Partners Ltd’s Energy Fund, through which businesses can get finance for alternative electricity solutions to counter the disruptions of load shedding.
Business Partners Ltd provided finance of R500 000 to Seeds for Africa for a substantial solar system at their premises, in what Grant describes as “a good deal”. Not only does it solve their load-shedding headaches, but soon Seeds for Africa will be selling power back to the grid.
Further growth prospects are looking good for Seeds for Africa. The public’s interest in the mental and physical advantages of gardening and growing your own vegetables is increasing, and so is online retail in South Africa.
As Grant’s business grows from seedling to sapling to deep-rooted tree, he also looks forward to spending more time gardening himself, the hobby that set him off on the Seeds for Africa journey.
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