Tomatobomo

[Fritz77]

A while ago I discovered a new to me French seed vendor. It’s called Tomatobomo. It has a nice website, very user friendly and with lots of filters to help you sort out what you are looking for. They offer a version of the site in French of course, but also in Italian, English, German and Dutch. What got my eye was the fact that they sold at a decent price rootstocks and other grafting equipment which I had been struggling to find here in Italy. They had a few euros of flat shipping costs so, despite having enough seeds for the next decade, I also ordered seeds of a couple of varieties that I had been looking for. This was on Feb. 20th.
A few days after placing the order I checked my account and with my surprise I found that according to them the package had been delivered to me on Feb. 21st which is almost impossible considering the distance and the time an order needs just to be processed.
The “Help” section of the web site is empty. The “Contact us” section doesn’t work. In the General Conditions of Sale section I found a phone number and a generic email address. Since I only speak a few words of French and since many French (like many Italians) don’t speak any English, I decided to write them an e-mail. This was on Feb 24th.
No answer.
Today I decided to call them. An automatic responder gave me indications in French about my options and after guessing what number I had to dial to speak with a human being, a woman finally answered me. I told her what my problem was and she replied in French that she didn’t understand a word I said and that I had to send them an e-mail. I told her that I already did, but she again replied that she didn’t understand. Conversation over. I wasted a couple of euros for a useless phone call.
Check out below what the vendor says about it’s staff

However I still have hopes to get my staff since the general conditions of sale say:
Since our business is highly seasonal we employ three times the normal number of staff during the first four months of the year. We make every effort to process your order as soon as possible, but throughout the months of February, March and early April you should expect a delivery period of two weeks. Please be prepared and place your orders on time.

I’m not saying you should stay away from Tomatobomo, but I’m kind of warning you. Right now I’m just disappointed with such a bad and confusing Customer Service. In a week I might be also disappointed with having wasted 25 euros of products that I never received.
I’ll give you updates in case I have any.

[loulac]

I'm very sorry to have to quench your enthusiasm, Graines Baumaux felt the need to take a new name as the company is quite unpopular among French organic tomato growers. It sent Kokopelli, the most important French seller of organic heirloom tomato seeds as they were not certified, which is the case of most heirloom garden production as there is always some differences in a given variety. Now the law is less severe but Kokopelli wasted a lot of time and money going to court.
I wouldn't dream of buying seeds from that store, besides identifying the variety of tomatoes they sell is pretty difficult. I suggest you shop somewhere else !

[Fritz77]

Originally Posted by loulac

I'm very sorry to have to quench your enthusiasm, Graines Baumaux felt the need to take a new name as the company is quite unpopular among French organic tomato growers. It sent Kokopelli, the most important French seller of organic heirloom tomato seeds as they were not certified, which is the case of most heirloom garden production as there is always some differences in a given variety. Now the law is less severe but Kokopelli wasted a lot of time and money going to court.
I wouldn't dream of buying seeds from that store, besides identifying the variety of tomatoes they sell is pretty difficult. I suggest you shop somewhere else !

Hi Loulac,

thank you for your reply but I dod't think you read my post carefully. I'm not enthusiastic about Tomatobomo at all!
I don't know if I'm being scammed, but for sure I'm not getting any information from them which from my point of view is irritating. If you are a vendor and especially if you sell on-line and with the goal of reaching also non-French customers, Customer Service is of vital importance. If you don't answer to emails, you have permanent work in progress on your website and you don’ t have anybody of your staff able to speak some English when you get phone calls from international customers, then you’re simply not doing a good job.
The story about the dispute with Kokopelli confirms my opinion.
I won’t buy from them again.

[loulac]

I stand corrected, please accept my apologies, I was misled by the first paragraph and I was too angry to go on reading.
You will find it easy to find wonderful tomatoes in Italy with Franchi seeds among others, they can be found in the States but unfortunately not in France !
all the best

[Fritz77]

Don’t worry. You don’t have to apologize. The only reason why I bought from Tomatobomo, besides not knowing anything about the Kokopelli issue, is that I would like to try grafting this year and I had struggled to find both roostock seeds and grafting clips in small quantities. Tomatobomo sells them and I also found two tomato varieties that were extremely rare in Europe and that I had been chasing a long time (Armenian, Tegucigalpa).
I’ve bought from Franchi in the past as I have from Ingegnoli and I will continue to buy from them in the future. But being a tomato lover, I must look for other sources of rare varieties too.

[Starlight]

Fritz77... I sure hope you get your stuff. I just had some not pleasant surprises from the last two different companies I had ordered from. They were not anybody from TV. I went to them because sometimes it is hard to find the rarer seed and so you have to take a chance.

I have some Tegucigalpa seeds I can share with you. If you would like send me a pm with your addy. I checked but don't have the Armenian.

This is not an open offer, just enough seed to share with one person, sorry.

I see Tania has it listed on her site, but don't see seed available at this time for it.

Tomatofest has it in stock. Say they will ship internationally at your own risk.

http://store.tomatofest.com/Armenian..._p/tf-0029.htm

Have you gone down to the Wanted seed trading forum here on Tv and asked if somebody else might have some seed they willing to share and ship to you?

[Fritz77]

Originally Posted by Starlight

Fritz77... I sure hope you get your stuff. I just had some not pleasant surprises from the last two different companies I had ordered from. They were not anybody from TV. I went to them because sometimes it is hard to find the rarer seed and so you have to take a chance.

I have some Tegucigalpa seeds I can share with you. If you would like send me a pm with your addy. I checked but don't have the Armenian.

This is not an open offer, just enough seed to share with one person, sorry.

I see Tania has it listed on her site, but don't see seed available at this time for it.

Tomatofest has it in stock. Say they will ship internationally at your own risk.

http://store.tomatofest.com/Armenian..._p/tf-0029.htm

Have you gone down to the Wanted seed trading forum here on Tv and asked if somebody else might have some seed they willing to share and ship to you?

Hi Starlight,
thank you for your generous offer. I still have little hopes to get my stuff from Tomatobomo. As I wrote above I ordered from them because I had a hard time in finding rootstock seeds and other grafting equipment. Since they had a flat 6€ euros of shipping costs, I decided to add seeds of those two – for me rare – varieties. If I don’t get them, I can easily replace them with other varieties. It just makes mad to see that a vendor doesn’t even take time to reply your mails. Well, whatever if they don’t care about their reputation.
Some three weeks ago I placed another order with a one of my workmates at Tomatoeden a Polish vendor. The first shipment got surely lost. I wrote the company an e-mail and they replied right away saying that they would have tried to resend me the seeds the following day. This was last monday. We got our stuff (including some bonus seeds) 10 minutes ago. So thumbs up for Tomatoeden.
It’s really a scandal though that still in 2017 shipments are so unreliable! Where does all that lost stuff go?!? It has to be somewhere. I’m beginning to think that those who work for the mail service might hide or burn letters and packages in order to work less. I have no other explanation.
Back to your offer, thank you but I will try to get those two varieties next year, maybe through the MMMM Swap, and if I never get them, I may send you a SASE in case you still have those seeds. I noticed Tomatofest had Armenian but this was when I already had 99% of my wanted varieties. It would have been too expensive to order just one variety from them.
By the way, how did you like Tegucigalpa?

[NarnianGarden]

Hope you'll see your stuff. Never mind the company's reputation, you could not know. Now you (and we all) know.
Tomatoeden is also known in Finland among hobby gardeners, never tried them, but another Polish site has reasonable shipping, with a large assortment of available varieties...