I'll be ordering again this year
There are a lot of Skipley Farm reviews on Yelp, some about the website and some about the farm itself. I find the one star reviews amusing, as they are generally from people who think the farm is too cluttered, or who are mortified that the proprietor doesn't wear a mask. Anyway, this review is just about the website. When I first started working with Skipley I wasn't sure how smoothly it would go. It's not a big business with a sales department waiting to serve me. It's a farm. Gil works it during the day, and answers emails at night. And his emails aren't all "we're so happy to help you" and "thank you so much for your order". They are short and to the point. On top of that, the nature of ordering rootstock and scionwood is such that you have to do it weeks ahead of time, while there is still stock available, then you have to wait, while nothing happens, until the appropriate shipping date. And these orders are done by email agreement, not a web commerce app. I placed an order during the winter, and in March my order shipped as promised. However, somewhere between there and here the end of the box opened and the contents fell out, so I received an empty box. I figured I was out a hundred bucks. I sent an email with an explanation and pictures, and the next week (live trees are normally shipped at the beginning of each week, to avoid sitting in a hot truck all weekend) another box was on its way to me. My conclusion is that, while the ordering process is not as streamlined as Amazon's, Gil is a man of his word and I'll be buying from him again this year.