Purchasing French Christmas Tree

Last year, more than 400,000 fresh Christmas trees were purchased on-line. While still a minor segment of the real Christmas tree market which has sales of more than 28 million trees annually, the online market for real Christmas trees is growing at a rapid rate of between 30 to 50% annually.

There are many factors that contribute to this growing market trend, not least of which is the convenience of purchasing a fresh Christmas tree from the convenience of your home computer. Many consumers do not find much Christmas joy in trudging through snow, slush and mud to find a tree at the local Christmas tree lot. They do not like haggling over prices for a Christmas tree of uncertain freshness -- trees on Christmas tree lots or at big-box retailers may have been cut anywhere from 4-6 weeks earlier. They do not relish the hassle of hauling a Christmas tree home on the top of their car and spending the rest of the season cleaning up the trail of needles leading from the garage to the house.

This miserable ritual is avoided with the click of a mouse. A fresh Christmas tree purchased online will be delivered to your home straight from the Christmas tree farm within days of the purchase. Open the shipping box, unwrap the binding, and place in your Christmas tree stand. Voila! With minimal hassle and fuss, you have a fresh Christmas tree that will last and be enjoyed throughout the season.

In addition to the convenience of buying a Christmas tree online, a consumer is better able to be assured of both freshness and quality. Most online retailers will cut and ship a purchased tree within 2-3 days of the order with the resulting assurance that the tree is "fresh from the farm to your door". The trees are cut, shaked, baled (wrapped to prevent broken branches during shipment), boxed in waxed-line cartons to further maintain freshness and then shipped straight to your door via DHL, FedX or UPS.

An added advantage to the freshness of trees purchased online is safety. A fresh Christmas tree is much safer than the more brittle trees found at big box retailers or Christmas tree lots.

A real Christmas tree purchased online is a good decision for consumers wanting to make environmentally friendly purchases. Real Christmas trees are renewable and recyclable. Christmas tree growers plant 2 or 3 new seedlings for every cut tree. During their growth phase, an acre of real Christmas trees will produce enough oxygen for the daily needs of 18 people. Because real Christmas trees are biodegradable, they can be recycled without cluttering and polluting land fills. "One might think that fake trees are the better choice, but the opposite is true, since Christmas tree farms provide substantial benefits to the environment," says Jenna Rose, managing editor of AFreshSqueeze.com. "While it may seem environmentally insensitive to chop down a tree and decorate it, real trees are actually more eco-friendly."

When Christmas is over, your online-purchased tree can be inserted back into its shipping box to be taken to the curb or to a recycle center. This reduces greatly the mess caused by needles falling off the tree during its removal. A good way to identify a convenient recycle center is to check the website of Earth 911, an Arizona-based conservation group that helps purchasers dispose of their real Christmas trees in an eco-friendly manner. Earth 911’s website, which identifies more than 3,800 places for recycling real Christmas trees, is http://earth911.org.

One obvious disadvantage of buying a Christmas tree online is the inability to personally preview the trees before purchase. For this reason, online purchasers should take extra care that the online retailer guarantees the quality of its Christmas trees. The most widely observed quality standards in the Christmas tree industry are those published by the US Department of Agriculture. Online buyers should buy only those trees which are USDA premium or number one grade. These standards can be found at ww.ams.usda.gov/standards/christtr.pdf

Buyers will be pleasantly surprised to find that real Christmas trees purchased online are usually comparable in price or slightly lower than tree lot prices. The differential is the shipping cost which can vary greatly depending on the size of the tree and the shipping distances. One newcomer this year to the online sale of real Christmas trees, Tannenbaums, tries to minimize the shipping costs for buyers by using suppliers located nearest to the customer.

The following are a few tips that will positively enhance your experience in buying a real Christmas tree online:

• Measure in advance the space where you would like to locate your real Christmas tree

• Go to your favorite Internet search engine (Google, Yahoo) and search the following key words: "buy real Christmas tree online", "online Christmas tree", "real Christmas tree", "fresh Christmas tree", and "premium Christmas tree". By narrowing your search terms, you will more quickly find an internet retailer of real Christmas trees and avoid sorting through the 100s of online retailers of artificial Christmas trees.

• Look for online retailers that provide the following: a variety of tree choices, guarantee freshness and quality (USDA premium or grade 1 Christmas trees), cut and ship within 2-3 days of purchase, provide online security for credit card purchases, provide online shipment tracking and provide customer support and service.

• Once you have found your preferred tree from a reputable online retailer, point and click and your real Christmas tree will arrive within a few days.

Information Sources:

• National Christmas Tree Association website: http://www.christmastree.org
• Recycling information –Earth 911 website: http://earth911.org/
• December 10, 2006 New York Times article regarding online sales of real Christmas trees: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/business/yourmoney/10trees.html
• Article on purchasing premium Christmas trees: http://www.premiumchristmastree.com/a35/How-to-Buy-a-Premium-Christmas-Tree/article_info.html
• Article on the typical consumer who purchases real Christmas trees on line: http://www.premiumchristmastree.com/a25/Who-Buys-Christmas-Trees-Online/article_info.html