How results are sorted

Plants you can buy from shops in Europe (including the UK) come first. Next come plants from a shop based there whose delivery to you is not confirmed, marked “check shipping”. Then the other regions follow in this order: Asia, then the US and Canada, then other regions. Plants that are sold out everywhere come last.

On New, Price drops and the genus pages, plants with a shop in your country come first within each of these groups. If you are outside Europe, Germany counts as your country. With “Newest first” the date comes first and your country only decides between equal dates.

Within each group, the list follows the sort order you choose, or the default of that list (see below).

Choosing a genus, a type or a region narrows the list and never changes the sort order. With a type chosen, a plant’s group and price are those of that type.

When two plants are equal on every rule, a fixed internal ID decides, so the same data always gives the same order.

Plays no part. No shop pays Fenestry; see How Fenestry makes money.

Plants whose price is falling come first, the steepest fall first. A fall is either a downward trend in the price of the same item (shown as “falling …%/year”) or a drop this month (shown as “−…% this month”). Then come plants with a steady or rising price, the smallest rise first, then plants without a price signal, newest first.

The plants Fenestry saw for the first time most recently come first. Plants without a first-seen date come last.

Plants offered by the fewest sellers come first. Between equals, the more expensive plant comes first.

The lowest price first: the cheapest offer for the plant within its group.

On Price drops only: the biggest saving against the usual price, in euros, first.

Plants you can buy now, nearest region first, then newest first; plants without a first-seen date follow, rarest first. The band shows only plants with a picture. It leaves out common species that many shops in Europe stock, plants sold only by garden centres and DIY stores, Anthurium crosses with very few sellers and a short list of plants we keep off the front page. If too few plants have a first-seen date, the band is called “All plants”.

Plants you can buy now whose price is falling, nearest region first, then steepest fall first, with the same picture and selection rules as “New”. At most two lab plantlets (tissue culture). When no genus is chosen, the genera take turns and no genus fills the row on its own.

Newest first when enough plants in the first group have a first-seen date, otherwise cheapest first. Without filters the page opens with a mix chosen by the rules of the “New” band (“Showing a mix”); “See everything” shows the full list. You can switch to falling fastest, newest, rarest or cheapest.

Biggest savings first. You can switch to falling fastest, newest, rarest or cheapest.

Falling fastest first. Plants that are not available now follow at the end under “Not available now”, the most recently available first.

Offers are grouped by region, nearest first: shops in Europe (including the UK), then shops there whose delivery to you is not confirmed (“check shipping”), then Asia, then the US and Canada, then other regions. Within each region the cheapest offer comes first, each shop with its cheapest offer. Your country does not change this order. Labs and exporters in Europe come after the shops you can buy from, even when they are cheaper, and are marked “Lab / exporter”. Offers you cannot buy follow in their region, and regions with nothing to buy come last. Offers from shops with a warning stay hidden until you choose “Shops with a warning”.

The shop’s price for the item. Shipping is not included.

A price in another currency is converted into euros at the European Central Bank reference rate, fixed once a month, and marked “≈”.

An offer from a shop in Europe on the other side of a customs border from you, for example a UK or Swiss shop for a visitor in Germany, is marked “Customs may apply”.

Their prices are before customs duty, a plant health certificate and shipping. The list says so above the first of these offers.

Up to every 10 minutes. A shop counts as fast when, in the last 30 days, a plant sold out there within two days of Fenestry first seeing it. This works only for shops whose product data we can read quickly (Shopify and WooCommerce). If a shop’s robots.txt asks for longer pauses or its site keeps failing, it is checked every hour instead.

The most active dealers and our searches up to every 10 minutes; all dealers we follow every hour.

A full check once a day, including Etsy shops and shops we read from their sitemap. All other shops are checked only in this daily check, and so are the shops whose robots.txt we have to read before every visit.

The short checks run from 7 am to midnight in the local time of the shop’s country; for shops in Europe and for Kleinanzeigen that is German time. Shops in the US and Canada are checked around the clock. The daily full check is not tied to these hours.

A price alert fires when a counted offer in the regions you chose is at or below your target price, whichever shop it comes from.

Pre-orders, live auctions, offers from shops with a warning and listings that may be a different plant, among others. The same rules decide the prices in every list. Offers marked “check shipping” never trigger an alert.

We leave a shop out when, for example, it mostly sells goods other than plants, sells only wholesale or is a copy of a shop we already check.

A shop can carry a warning, for example for a new domain, a VAT ID that is not valid, no imprint found, or unusual stock and discounts. Its offers stay on the plant page, hidden until you choose “Shops with a warning”, and do not count.