Generally to wash the stress, i’m launching seeds and i overload my veg’ space to the point to totally screw the planning set at the start of the season. I like to do plannings, it’s like a compass to have in mind if anything go wrong, or if anything take too long. But also a good stress to stay on the track, compare rounds efficiency etc …
But this time my god, I’ve totally underestimated the side effect of the minimalist approach. Even if I don’t have any space and time, i’m generally building a all-in-one temporary cabinet with at least three spaces. This actual time of adaptation help me to realize more some aspects i wasn’t even considering for others growers; it will help me i think to put some water in my wine on some subjects also.
The Spanish journey
To make it fast, i bought one pack of Jack Herer to a retailer A and one pack of Big Bud and one pack of Ed Rosenthal Super Bud to a retailer B. Not shops from nowhere, pretty known. Bad luck, their big promotions was in fact hiding problem of stock.
None of these seeds was in good shape, so worth the price. Too old, and most of them was eaten by mold since a while. Blank operation.
After one month of useless battle, I’ve just decided to give up and to take my lesson on regs. They are no longer “fluid products” for retailers, because the lack of customers, and they are aging in pretty bad condition.
The sherry on the cake is that both asked me to do exactly what i wasn’t supposed to do to can count on the Sensi Seed “after sales service”. I’ve learned it afterward in contacting Sensi.
So i’ve ordered directly, and I got decent seeds. Simply. Don’t dream, no gift or extras. Just a tap on the shoulder to try again.
The problematic of the packaging
Actually it’s in surfing in OG that something come in my mind, three letters : WTF.
Most of packaging i’m seeing are pretty op, and a lot more compliant with a decent storage that the expensive Sensi Seeds. And the seed’s pucks printed by members … damn, close to perfection lol One day someone will have the idea to include an o-ring on the side to make it hermetic, and maybe better.
First point : the card. I personally like it in term of design, it’s something i will like to pin on my grow desktop. But that i’m hating as a customer potentially interested to throw three digits in ten seeds, now more than ever.
To be fair, i known the machine used. It’s pretty simple, fast and effiscient. You have twos long bands for each face, calibrated to throw a number of seeds from a big bowl and the machine is joining the twos faces in a few seconds.
But the card was obviously designed with the feets by a team external to the industry. And it lasted way too much damn.
First, the window. Multiple errors with it. And even Dutch Passion is falling in the trap now. “People have to see the seeds” and the look is better in the stand of conventions/cups. “Show the product” school. With the firepower of Sensi Seeds, it exist so many way to do it right. Ask our OGers.
The main problem is the sound of “maracas”, maybe the most loud of the industry. Even Soma have barely understood the deal with his weird “rolling tray packaging”, a format for pills is used and far more discreet.
But it’s also for the seeds. They are brushed but it’s not specially a good thing for longevity. And the remaining produce dust and chunks of the coat that stay in the “bubble window”. Which increase the problems of the other side.
Here you have a “quality seal”, it have a nice look (for my taste) but nothing is right in the strategy. Strictly nothing.
- First : the cardboard is thick and you have to push it with the seeds just under.
- Second : when opened, you have to remove the operculum from inside and to chuck the card to get the seeds.
Seriously ?
But that’s not the worst :
When opened you realize that the mention “seal” is just psychological. Your seeds have to be the freshest batch of the year, because they are not protected at all.
Now think about the reality of the fridge of retailers, and remember that everything is cut in a cardboard except the “commercial window”. You have literally a RH sponge aging in a fridge constantly opened and closed, no matter if they are in a plastic container or not.
In the imagination of most of customers, a seed’s fridge is like that :
But what i saw in the backstage of a few retailers and even wholesalers back in the days was more close to that :
I don’t even push ^^ The seeds have to be prepared for the war.
When you have entire shelves of nonfunctional packaging bought by 50K units, i can clearly understand that it’s not a breeze. But wrapping the cards in a true sealed vacuum pack can solve that without any rocket science, and not even the use of any designers.
Now the box but it’s more a question of … i don’t known of image.
On the left, the Sensi box, on the right a cheap Chinese box bought for less than a buck per unit (with foam) . The sensation of gap in quality only work for the finition of the cutting, of the sticker wrapping the box. Not even the sticker ^^
That too, the logic is beyond my understanding. Cutting a sticker that barely fit with the design, just to … i don’t know actually.
For the white stamp with the barcod in the other side, i’m all in. It look like “taxes stamp” of cigarette packaging, it’s fun. Just put twos, i don’t know lol. Better : wrap it with a vaccum pack, so the box is not acting like a sponge also in fridges.
It was my light rant on it, and i think it’s legit after have invested barely 250€ to get 10 Big Bud at the end of my journey, total dry cost reduced to the cost per seed.