Any grower who works with MasterTag has the option to print plant labels at their own growing operation using My Print. The online printing tool gives growers the flexibility to make changes to their plant labels on the fly.
“The My Print tool allows you to quickly print the label items MasterTag has created for you or take advantage of some of our other built-in features online,” says Gregg Minnebo, Digital Systems Lead at MasterTag. “It can be really helpful for growers.”
Here’s an example of what the system looks like in practice: A grower has already ordered and received their plant labels, only to find out that they need to make a price change the very next day. If the grower has My Print, they can easily change the price on the label and print them on-site in seconds.
It nips a potential garden center mishap in the bud.
How the My Print System Works
Once growers set up their printer—an Epson 6500, 7500, or 8500—all they have to do is navigate to the label they’d like to print on MasterTag Online. As soon as the feature has been enabled for the grower, a “My Print” button would appear. The grower clicks that button, chooses how many labels they want to print, and the printer takes care of the rest.
“It’s a basic computer-based solution,” Minnebo says. “You don’t need print servers or anything like that, just the printing tools that are already on their PC.”
The process is simple by design, but that simplicity comes with some important trade-offs that growers should understand before committing.
Who Should Use the My Print System
My Print isn’t meant to be a grower’s primary, one-size-fits-all printing solution, and Minnebo is the first to say so.
He recommends the My Print system to all growers, but thinks small- to mid-size growers might see the greatest benifits—he also encourages growers to purchase their labels through the MasterTag Online store for greater efficiencies. Using the My Print system is ideal for an unexpected price change or printing a few hundred labels at a time.
“It’s not the tool to use if you’re planning to do all of your label printing on-site,” he says. “If you do the math, it’s not financially viable. You have to consider what your input costs are.”
From the start, My Print was designed as a solution for growers who need to make last-minute changes, not a total replacement for ordering through MasterTag Online.
If growers are already ordering pre-printed labels from MasterTag, Minnebo says, the My Print system serves as a great supplement if something goes wrong with their original order.
“It’s really helpful if a grower were to come up 100 labels short or there were production issues that damaged some of their labels,” he says. “But if they need 1,000-2,000 more labels, it would be much easier to call us up and place an order or order through MasterTag Online.”
Part of what makes My Print practical for those smaller, last-minute jobs is how straightforward the technical setup is.
The Technical Side of the Printer
When a grower uses the My Print system, they can only print adhesive labels in certain sizes.
In order to print their plant labels on-site, growers can purchase MasterTag’s Ink Jet label rolls which include free print credits or you can buy My Print Credits, which are 2 cents a piece if you haven’t purchased their material. The credits aren’t limited to MasterTag products, either.
“Growers can buy the credits if they’re getting the print material elsewhere and they can print that way,” he says. “Or they can buy the roll of adhesive from us and just print when they’re ready.”
MasterTag can work with label materials outside of its own—even from competitors. The print quality the My Print system has, however, makes the company stand out.
“We’re getting good feedback on the quality of the print based on the artwork we have,” Minnebo says. “The primary reason our customers go with us is because our quality is better. Our QR codes and barcodes are crisper and read better on the scanners.”
Setting Growers Up for Success
Before a grower invests in the My Print system, Minnebo ensures they understand how it works and why it makes sense for them to have.
“The system is pretty easy to set up, but I’ll still get in touch with the grower beforehand,” he says. “Sometimes I’ll even visit them to make sure everything is set up and working correctly.”
Once the system is set up, growers are adequately prepared for any plant label emergency that comes their way. Whether they need 10 labels ASAP or 500, My Print will have their labels printed in minutes—sometimes seconds.
For most growers, My Print will sit quietly in the background until the day they really need it. Growers who want to see the system in action before committing can visit MasterTag at Cultivate’26 in Columbus, Ohio, from July 12-14 at booth 1937.
Ever wish you could see all your invoices in one place instead of digging through emails? Or track exactly where your custom tag project stands in production? MasterTag just made both possible.
The company rolled out two major updates to its online ordering platform last month, both driven by grower requests.
“We built this tool in collaboration with our customers,” said Korey Minnebo, Senior Manager of Customer Service & Success at MasterTag. “We could have come to the table with everything that MasterTag thought was what our customers needed, and we wouldn’t have hit the mark.”
Since the platform launched in 2020, that collaborative approach has driven steady improvements. Here’s what’s new, what’s coming, and how MasterTag uses customer input to shape the ordering experience.
The One-Question Survey That Drives Improvement
At the heart of MasterTag’s development process is a simple feedback mechanism: after placing an order or proofing items in the online environment, customers see a brief pop-up asking them to rate their experience on a scale of 1 to 10.
“We ask one simple question: ‘How is our service for you?'” Minnebo said. “They can answer anonymously, or they can leave their information so we can contact them at a later time.”
The MasterTag team watches these responses closely for trends, concerns, and new feature ideas. The survey also creates opportunities for one-on-one connections with customers who may not realize certain capabilities already exist.
“It allows customer service to connect with those customers,” Minnebo said. “To say, ‘If you have a few minutes, I can actually show you that that’s something we have available.'”
Beyond the survey, MasterTag’s customer service team is always speaking with growers using the platform.
“We are constantly asking, ‘How was your experience? Is there anything we could do better? Hey, we just delivered a new feature. Have you given it a try? Did it meet your needs?'” Minnebo said.
This ongoing engagement ensures that even when a new feature hits 90% of customer needs, MasterTag can quickly identify and address the remaining 10%.
Major Updates: “My Documents” and “My Projects”
MasterTag rolled out two significant new features approximately one month ago: “My Documents” and “My Projects.” Both aim to give growers a single-source location for tracking all their activity with MasterTag.
My Documents: A Repository for Invoices and Reference Materials
The “My Documents” section provides a centralized hub for important order documentation.
The most impactful addition is invoice access.
“When a customer places an order, once we’ve shipped the order, we invoice the order,” Minnebo explained. “Prior to this, they would get an email with the invoice attached to it. Now they’ll actually be able to come in here and look at all of their invoices.”
Instead of searching through email for past invoices, growers can now access their complete billing history in one place.
A “Quotes” section is in development and will work similarly.
“This feature is coming soon,” Minnebo said. “When a customer requests a custom quote — for something very specific — we’ll be able to load that quote directly into the system instead of sending it via email.”
The third component is “Reference Documents,” which houses program information, scheduled run details, sell sheets, and other informational materials MasterTag shares with customers.
“This gives our customer service team an area to load all of that information for a customer,” Minnebo explained. “So again, they’re not sifting through email blasts or things we’ve sent them, but they have one area to go to to find all of that information.”
My Projects: Visibility Into Custom Work
For the first time, growers can now see exactly where their custom projects stand in MasterTag’s workflow.
“Previous to this, they would have had no visibility to any of the open projects we had for them,” Minnebo said.
The “My Projects” section includes two main areas:
Service Requests cover custom activities like creative design work, new shape development, and custom quoting. When customers click into an open project, they see a visual timeline showing where the project stands.
“It’s essentially going to tell them where this [project] lives in the process,” Minnebo explained. As it moves through different stages, the customer will see checkmarks next to completed phases. “And it would give them an idea of, ‘Okay, there are nine steps here. I’m on step five. I see my due date is this.'”
Item Builds track new varieties being created for a customer’s account — for example, 50 new tomato varieties being prepared.
“They would be able to see the list of those here and when they’re due to be completed,” Minnebo said. “We’re giving them timeline information that they wouldn’t have had here before. We’re setting expectations on when they’re going to hear from us next, [and] when some of those projects are completed.”
The next phase of “My Projects” will connect completed work to “My Documents.”
“Once that project output is completed, you will see it in your ‘My Documents’ area,” Minnebo explained. “So once your quote was completed, you could see the timeline here, [in ‘Item Builds’]. And now you could see the quote output in my ‘My Documents.'”
Coming Soon: Favorites and Enhanced Sorting
Two highly requested features are in active development.
My Favorites
MasterTag is building a “My Favorites” capability to help with reordering and long-term planning.
“When you’re shopping, if you find something that you want to be able to go back to, but you’re not ready to add it to your shopping cart, we would give them a ‘My Favorites’ option,” Minnebo said.
This feature will also help growers maintain a shorter list of frequently ordered items instead of searching through the entire catalog each time.
“That would also help with reorders,” Minnebo noted. “Or [if] they know they’re going to want to order it again in the future, to help maintain a shorter list of items that they’re interested in.”
Shopping Cart Sorting
Currently in development, this enhancement will allow customers to sort their shopping cart contents, similar to the filtering options available during the browsing phase.
“When they’re in that shopping cart environment, to still give them the ability, like they have when they’re shopping, to sort it by variety or sort it by shape, things like that,” Minnebo said.
Past Improvements That Made a Difference
Several customer-driven enhancements have already become integral to how growers use the platform.
“Order Via Upload”
Perhaps the most impactful feature addition, launched around 2021, was the “Order Via Upload” capability. This allows growers to upload spreadsheets directly instead of manually entering line items, especially valuable for operations that already work in spreadsheets or extract data from their own systems.
“This came along from customers who would come to us and say, ‘Well, typically I would have just emailed this spreadsheet to you. How can I still do that?'” Minnebo recalled.
The feature serves two customer groups: those who maintain their orders in spreadsheets and collaborate with teams before submitting, and those who extract order data from their own POS or database systems.
“Prior to the ‘Order Via Upload’ option, they would have to take that spreadsheet and find all of those items,” Minnebo said. “We’re giving them a shortcut.”
Simplified Account Creation
Around 2022, MasterTag streamlined the new customer onboarding process, reducing the amount of information required upfront and adding automation to prevent duplicate accounts.
“It’s changed over the years from the customer’s experience. The amount of information we ask them to provide before they can start ordering with us has lessened,” Minnebo said.
Ongoing Small Refinements
Beyond major features, MasterTag continuously tweaks smaller elements based on user experience. “Sometimes there are little tweaks here or there regarding how they add items to a cart, things like that,” Minnebo noted.
Even when a feature launches successfully, customer feedback can reveal opportunities for refinement.
“There are definitely tweaks that we’ve made along the way where maybe we output a feature that hit 90% of the need, but it didn’t find all customers,” Minnebo said. “[Then it’s], ‘Okay, what can we do next then to hit some of those other customers?'”
Managing Custom Inventory with “My Tags”
Separate from the stock catalog, MasterTag maintains a “My Tags” section for each customer’s custom items.
“If I’m doing custom business with MasterTag, that’s where my items are going to land because they’re custom to me,” Minnebo explained. “If they’re doing custom activity with MasterTag and it’s only for them to order, that’s what ‘My Tags’ is for them.”
This section helps growers evaluate their custom catalog season to season.
“It’s giving them visibility to their custom offering with us so they can tweak, enhance, and make changes as they need,” Minnebo said. They can identify varieties they’re no longer ordering, items that need to be added, or products that should be refreshed.
“That ‘My Tags’ area definitely helps them as far as their item inventory, what they’re ordering from us, and how to maintain and keep it clean and fresh,” Minnebo added.
Mobile Accessibility
MasterTag’s online ordering system is accessible via mobile browsers on phones and tablets, though usage patterns show most customers still prefer desktop. In October, less than 8% of users accessed MasterTag Online via a mobile device.
The mobile experience does have its use cases, particularly for iPad users.
“There have been a few [responses] from our online surveys where customers might use an iPad in the greenhouse,” Minnebo said. “And they want to go check to make sure, ‘Oh, I need so many more of these.’ An iPad has worked for what they need it for.”
Most mobile usage appears to focus on checking order status rather than placing full orders. “Phone [usage] is probably more that they’re checking to see when their order might ship as opposed to actually placing an order via a cell phone,” Minnebo noted.
Desktop ordering remains the norm for most operations: “In most cases, you have someone in an office setting that’s being given, ‘This is what we need you to order with MasterTag,’ and someone else is out in the greenhouse compiling what that list looks like,” she said.
The Role of Korey and Her Team
As Senior Manager of Customer Service & Success, Minnebo serves as the bridge between customer needs and MasterTag’s development team.
“A lot of what I’m doing is educating customers, engaging with customers, and making sure that [online ordering] is successful for them,” she said.
Her team includes customer service representatives, quality staff, production scheduling, and pre-production — all the “upfront operations teams” that work between creative and actual production. With 27 years at MasterTag (15 in pre-production, 12 in customer service leadership), Minnebo has deep knowledge of both customer needs and internal capabilities.
When feedback comes in through surveys or direct conversations, Minnebo collaborates with the IT and development teams to evaluate options.
“A lot of the success of this platform weighs on, ‘What am I doing? How am I doing it? What are the things we’re making a priority?'” she said.
Sometimes that means delivering exactly what customers ask for. Other times, it means finding better solutions. “[Sometimes, it’s] ‘The customer asked for this. I think we actually have a better option, let’s do this, deliver it to them, and see how it goes,'” Minnebo said.
What’s Next: Getting Feedback on Recent Features
Korey Minnebo, Senior Manager of Customer Service & Success
Over the coming months, MasterTag’s primary focus will be gathering customer reactions to “My Documents” and “My Projects.”
“Getting their feedback on those features to understand, ‘Is it working for them? Is it giving them the visibility that they’ve been asking for? Is there more that we can do there?'” Minnebo said.
As customers begin using these new tools, their input will shape the next round of refinements, continuing the collaborative approach that has guided the platform’s development since 2020.
So if you’re using the system and something could work better, speak up. That one-question survey, a quick call to customer service, even an offhand comment during an order — it all gets heard. And more often than not, it gets built.
Ordering plant tags used to mean phone calls strictly during business hours, emailed spreadsheets, and endless PDF markups sent back and forth. MasterTag’s online ordering platform changed that in 2020, giving growers a self-service system that works on their schedule: day or night.
“What it really brought customers that we didn’t have before was an enhanced ordering tool,” said Korey Minnebo, Senior Manager of Customer Service & Success at MasterTag, who has been with the company for 27 years. “We had online ordering in years prior, but nothing to this extent.”
The platform introduced two game-changing capabilities: comprehensive ordering tools and online proofing. Since launch, MasterTag has continued refining the system based on customer feedback. Here’s how it works and what makes it efficient for growers managing complex tag orders.
A Personalized Experience From Login
When growers log in to their MasterTag account, they will see an experience tailored to their operation. “It is completely customizable to that customer,” Minnebo said. “We have the ability to add in a lot of personal preferences, defaults, reminders, favorites, things like that. That makes it their own experience. So it’s not necessarily cookie-cutter for all customers.”
This personalization extends throughout the ordering process, with customers seeing only the products, programs, and filters relevant to their business.
Multiple Ways to Find What You Need
MasterTag’s catalog is extensive, so the platform offers several search and filter options to help growers quickly narrow down their selections.
At the top of the page, customers can use a search field to look for botanical names, varieties, or common names. As they type, the system automatically narrows down choices.
The left side of the screen displays filtering options that can be customized for each customer.
“This customer has been set up with a lot of customized filtering options that apply to their products only,” Minnebo noted while demonstrating the system. Growers can filter by program, common name, series name, shape number, and other attributes.
Customers can also toggle between two viewing modes: an image view that shows product photos, or a list view that resembles a spreadsheet with sortable columns.
“Lots of our customers like the image view, obviously, because it gives them the benefit of seeing what they’re ordering,” Minnebo said.
For even faster access, the platform includes shortcuts to specific breeder programs under the stock catalog section. Instead of searching broadly, growers can click directly on breeder programs like Syngenta to see those varieties immediately.
Two Approaches to Building Your Order
MasterTag offers two distinct methods for placing orders, depending on how growers prefer to work.
Traditional Shopping Experience
The first option is browsing through the catalog, viewing product images, and entering quantities directly into cart fields. Customers can click on any product to see more details or enlarge images. “If there’s a front and back, they can see the front and back of the product,” Minnebo explained.
As items are added to the cart, a number appears next to the shopping cart icon in the upper right corner, providing a running tally.
Order Via Upload
The second option, which launched around 2021, allows growers to bypass manual browsing entirely by uploading a spreadsheet.
“This is really beneficial for customers who already work in a spreadsheet,” Minnebo said. “They have their order in a spreadsheet, and they’re coming to MasterTag Online to place that order. Within a few clicks, they can upload their spreadsheet, and they’re already in the shopping cart process.”
The feature works two ways: growers can download a MasterTag template, fill it in, and re-upload it, or they can use their own spreadsheets.
When using their own spreadsheets, “there are only a couple of areas of information we need for that feature to work. But it allows them to use documents and spreadsheets they already have as their ordering tool,” Minnebo said.
This is particularly valuable for operations that extract order data from their own systems or databases, or for teams that collaborate on orders before submitting them.
“We get pretty good feedback on that,” Minnebo said. “They can work out of the tool with their team to organize their order.”
Managing Your Shopping Cart
Once items are added — whether through traditional browsing or spreadsheet upload — growers move into the shopping cart experience.
One key feature: customers can maintain multiple shopping carts simultaneously.
“Maybe they have an order for their perennials, and maybe they have an order for their annuals,” Minnebo explained. “They can maintain more than one shopping cart at a time as opposed to previously, [when] they would only be able to [build] one shopping cart at a time, and they’d have to wait before they could work on another order.”
Shopping carts never expire, so growers can work at their own pace.
“A customer could order all in one day or a customer could spend weeks working on an order, and it will still be there when they come back,” Minnebo said.
This is also the first point where pricing appears. The cart displays a summary showing the number of items ordered and total quantities. Customers can still review and make changes here, adjusting quantities, clicking for better product views, or using the download and print options to share cart contents with others.
The Checkout Process
Moving through checkout involves three main steps: delivery, payment, and review.
Delivery
In the delivery step, growers enter shipping address information. For operations with multiple locations, MasterTag offers an address book feature.
“If a customer has multiple ship-to locations, they can create an address book up front, or we can for them,” Minnebo said. “When they get to this step in the process, they’re essentially choosing them from a drop-down list, so they don’t have to enter in that ship-to information every time.”
This is also where customers select shipping methods (ground, priority, or overnight) and see an expected ship date based on their order composition.
Payment
Growers can pay by credit card, PayPal, or — if they have terms set up with MasterTag — simply enter a purchase order number.
Review
The final review step gives one last opportunity to verify all order details before submitting.
After You Hit Submit
Once an order is placed, customers immediately see a confirmation message with an order number. Simultaneously, the system sends an automated email confirmation that includes a link back to the order in the platform.
From that point forward, growers have complete visibility into their order status through the “My Orders” section. “This is their all-encompassing order history with MasterTag,” Minnebo said.
The order history includes every order, even those placed by phone or email through MasterTag’s customer service team. Each entry shows the order number, PO number, date placed, who placed it (customer or MasterTag staff), number of items, and current status.
Status indicators include “processing” (before the order reaches MasterTag’s ERP system), “in process” (actively being produced), and “shipped.” For shipped orders, customers can click into the “Shipment” tab to access tracking information with direct links to carrier sites.
“When they submit the order, they’ll receive a nice ‘thank you for your order’ message in the summary on the right. They get an order number, and at the same time, the system will automatically email them an order confirmation with all of the same information, including a link to come back into the ordering tool and find the order that they placed,” Minnebo said.
Handling Special Order Needs
MasterTag’s online platform also supports a range of order scenarios beyond standard placements.
Rush Orders and Custom Ship Dates
During the delivery step of checkout, growers see an expected ship date calculated based on their order volume and production lead time. But if they need something sooner or later, they can request a different date.
“If for some reason they don’t want that estimated ship date, [they have options to move it forward or backward],” Minnebo explained. “[If] they want something faster, they have a calendar that they can select dates from.” Customers can select either an earlier date (for rush needs) or a later date (for planned spring shipments placed in fall, for example).
When a customer requests an earlier date, a MasterTag project manager receives an email notification and works with the production scheduling team to see if it’s feasible. “They will then work with the customer to change that date if that’s something we can do,” Minnebo said.
Small Quantities
Order minimums vary depending on whether growers are ordering stock items or custom products.
Stock items — MasterTag’s pre-determined catalog based on new breeder varieties, high sellers, and years of order history — are available in increments as low as 25 to 100 tags.
“The reason we can accommodate lower increments in our stock offering is because we spent our non-peak months building up that inventory in our fulfillment warehouse,” Minnebo said. “Because it’s been produced already and it’s been put on our shelf when a customer comes here to order, they don’t have to order in production runs.”
When a stock order is submitted, the fulfillment team picks it from the shelf and ships it within three to five business days.
Custom orders require higher minimums (typically 1,000 tags) because production work hasn’t been done yet.
“We are pricing according to production efficiencies,” Minnebo said. “To run very short amounts, like a hundred, means that the customer is going to pay more for that product versus if they order a thousand.”
MasterTag can accommodate exceptions for unique customer needs, including short sheet runs, though smaller custom quantities do cost more.
Getting Help When You Need It
Customer service support is built into the platform in several ways.
At the bottom of every screen, growers see a phone number and email address ([email protected]) connecting them directly to the customer service team, available 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday.
“Whether they’re in our online ordering tool or whether they’re just on mastertag.com, they can call our 1-800-number, or they can email us,” Minnebo said. “That will go directly to our customer service team, who are there to answer questions, offer support. They’re also trained in offering guidance on how to use the tool.”
There’s also a “Request a Tag” button that allows customers to describe what they’re looking for if they can’t find it in the catalog. “They can click this button, enter what it is that they’re looking for, and when they submit it, that is also going directly to our customer service team, and they will reach out with guidance on how to help them find it,” Minnebo explained.
Why Order Online vs. Phone or Email
While MasterTag accommodates orders placed any way customers prefer — phone, mail, fax, email, or online — the online platform offers several advantages.
“Even in its simplest form, they’re actually seeing what they’re ordering as opposed to if they call us on the phone or they send an email. They’re not going to see the products firsthand like they can when they’re in MasterTag Online,” Minnebo said.
The platform also provides ordering flexibility beyond business hours.
“They can do it on their time. They don’t have to do it during business hours. With MasterTag Online, they can do it when it works for them in the evening on a weekend. They’re not then forced to place an order when customer service is available during the week,” she added.
Perhaps most importantly, online ordering puts information directly in growers’ hands: tracking updates, expected delivery dates, product availability, order history, and, for custom orders, the ability to proof and approve designs before production begins.
“A lot of [the benefit] is visibility, a lot of it is convenience, as well as proofing,” Minnebo said. “[Customers] have the ability to request [custom] items from us and then proof and see them online before they actually place an order.”
MasterTag Online reflects the company’s commitment to giving growers control and transparency throughout the ordering process, while still maintaining the personal service and support it has built its reputation on.
Whether you’re ordering at midnight or calling during business hours, the system (and the team behind it) is designed to work the way you do.
