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Shane's Daily Picks of Domains at Auction for Saturday October 17th

Shane's Daily Picks of Domains at Auction for Saturday October 17th

Shane Cultra
October 18, 2025

One of the best ways to truly understand consumer behavior is to put it to the test and see the results. Getting consumers to opt in to things is a difficult proposition. Any amount of work involved in opting in causes friction. People don’t like taking action, even if it means getting free money. It’s even worse if it means saving money.

At our nursery, I was looking for ways to get people to buy more trees. So I tried to find out why people don’t plant more of them. It turned out the reasons were three things: 1) cost, 2) the large size of the trees, and 3) fear of spending a lot of money and having the tree die.

So I built a program to try to remove some of those barriers. I started by giving a big discount if you purchased more than two trees, and an even larger discount if you had three or more planted. Our biggest cost was loading up the trees and bringing them to the yard. There are large economies of scale when bringing multiple plants, and I passed those savings along. This was received very well.

To tackle the large size issue, we offered to deliver the tree and drop it right in your yard next to a flag we provided—if you lived within 20 miles. This took all the work out of figuring out how to get it home. We handled that part, and again, it was very well received.

The last part was the hardest. How could I take away the fear of losing the tree and eating the cost? The easiest answer was to guarantee it. The problem with a straight guarantee is that it puts all the risk on the nursery, even though the homeowner controls the watering and care. If it’s guaranteed with no questions asked, many won’t make an effort to keep it alive.

So I added an “insurance fee” to guarantee the tree. That didn’t work. The people who bought it were usually the ones most likely to kill the tree. The buyers who knew they’d care for it tended not to purchase it.

One day, a large company that sold mycorrhiza came to talk about their product and how it improved tree survival rates in the first few years. I asked, “Can you guarantee that?” Long story short, we worked out a deal. They said if we bought $5,000 or more of their product and verified that it was used at planting, they would guarantee the tree from year two to year three. We’d cover the first year, and they’d cover the next two.

I took this and created a program called “Get Your Tree Guaranteed for 3 Years” for only $20. It was a great deal, but the same issue came up, no buy-ins. So I changed it. I raised the planting cost by $30 and included the product in the price. Then I changed the marketing to “We Guarantee Our Tree Plantings for 3 Years for FREE.” No opt-in. No choice. You got it automatically when you bought from us.

I don’t remember the exact numbers, but plantings went up at least 100–200%. It was a huge hit. Over ten years, we had about the same percentage of losses after year one, but since we were planting so many more trees, the total replacements increased. Still, the tradeoff was worth it. We built an entire planting division with two full crews working year-round. That came from one crew that wasn’t even full during the summer before.

That program did millions in sales over the years. Eventually, the company providing the insurance ended the program after a bad Midwest winter when our refunds were five times what we were spending with them. We eventually had to drop it down to a one-year warranty, but the gains had already been made. Losses after the first year were due to weather, not plant quality or maintenance, so without insurance, it made no sense to cover them.

This taught me a lot about opt-ins, tackling customer fears and needs, and using those lessons to build sales and programs. There’s no better way to understand customer behavior than to test it.

Quote of the Day:“The best way to find out if your idea works is to put it in front of people and see what happens.” — Eric Ries

Domain of the Day: Cho.co Hack and a 3L

Please Note: The list below contains affiliate links and/or names that have been posted for a fee. It is how we pay for our time since it is a free site. More details at bottom of page. Can go to any of the auctions by adding the names at the end like this one

Shane's Daily Picks of Domains at Auction for Saturday October 17th

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