Home gardening and working in allotments is a popular British past-time. Many people have allotments or grow fruit and vegetables in their gardens. As such, you can find a wave of online stores and blogs dedicated to these subjects. One popular website was Myallotpmentplot.co.uk. This website seemed to be flourishing, and it had a well-liked online shop. However, it no longer exists! This article looks at what happened to Myallotmentplot.co.uk and what the company did.
Myallotmentplot.co.uk – Who Were They?
My Allotment Plot was founded by Ray Richardson. This businessman from the UK appears to have had knowledge of gardening and running an allotment and professional experience creating online stores and marketing. You can read his full story via the Myallotmentplot.co.uk’s About page.
The first iteration of the online store was created in 2008, and since then, My Allotment Plot has appeared to experience steady growth. The online store specialised in gardening tools and equipment – specifically for creating and maintaining an allotment. This differentiates it from most generic gardening stores as it has a marketing niche.
The website is also operated as a subsidiary, part of Neobium Limited, which appears to be a marketing and consultancy firm operated by Ray Richardson himself. Neobium is registered to the same person and business address in Peterborough.
What Could You Find on the Myallotmentplot.co.uk Website?
The Myallotmentplot.co.uk website looked fantastic and was well-maintained. It had a simple but effective green and white colour scheme to give it an outdoor feel. The website’s main purpose was the online store, where allotment enthusiasts could purchase equipment for their outdoor endeavours. In the below sections, we look at what you could find on this website.
Online Store
As mentioned above, the online store was the main component of the website. Customers could create an account, browse products, and add items to their shopping cart. The eCommerce store also supported various payment methods, including Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, and WorldPay. It also had payment protection via the Trustwave program.
The following are some of the main categories of products you could find on the Myallotmentplot.co.uk store:
- Footwear & Safety
- Cutting and Cleaning
- Preparing the Ground
- Compost & Mulch
- Propagation
- Weed Control
- Crop Protection
- Gift Ideas
- Books & eBooks
As you can see, the store was extensive, and you could easily navigate the products using the category buttons on the homepage. The store’s product listings no longer work. However, you can still see some items for sale. It appeared to be a professionally designed store with great gardening tools and equipment selection.
Account Management
The website also had a dedicated section for account management. This is typical of online stores, and here, users could manage everything relating to their Myallotmentplot.co.uk account. This included changing your delivery address, viewing your order history, and adding different payment methods.
The store was relatively old, but it certainly had some great features and accessibility for its customers.
Shipping
Myallotmentplot.co.uk only delivered to UK customers but did provide international quotes on request. You could see their complete delivery information via the shipping page. This page contained information about non-standard items that could be restricted by UK countries – such as items that were longer than 1.5m.
It also included information about the accepted payments, like GBP and EUR.
What’s New
There is also a dedicated section on the website called “What’s New”, which is essentially an update section that shows what changes have been made to the website. This page gives some insight. For example, we can see that the most recent post points towards the website and online store being revamped.
It appears that the company did indeed invest money into maintaining the site and making it usable for mobile devices. We can therefore assume that, at some point, it must have been successful.
Ask Ted – My Allotment Plot Blog
There was also an “Ask Ted” section on the website. This appears to have served as a customer support portal and a blog containing useful gardening and allotment tips. The following are examples of some of the article categories available:
- Pest Control
- Preparing an Allotment
- Season Articles
- Starting an Allotment
- Useful Things to Know
- Weed Control
The articles were all written by the owner and some keen gardeners who liked to share their knowledge.
The ‘Ask Ted’ section was run by a virtually created gardener – Ted. They have used a generic farmer photo to give Ted a personality, and it is a fun part of the website. Ted also ran the live chat in this section, but in reality, the owner and other helping gardeners answered questions and offered support.
Why Did This Website Stop Operating?
We have trawled the web and tried to find information on what happened to Myallotmentplot.co.uk. However, there is very little to be found!
If you try to access the website now, you’ll see the default “Just another WordPress site” page. You can only view the website using URL archiving tools. Also, if you check their Facebook page, the last post was made in 2016.
The company also has various business listings on different directories like Yell.com. However, they are generally outdated and do not have recent customer reviews. If you check the web archive database, you can see that the website had a revamp around 2019, including an altered homepage and template. However, there is no indication that the company was active after 2016.
We can simply assume that the business became unprofitable and saw a decline in activity and sales, which often happens with niche eCommerce stores that rely on a dedicated, consistent customer base.
