Local Christmas tree businesses now selling trees online

SHERMAN OAKS, Calif. (FOX 11) - Buying a Christmas tree is now just a click away!

It's a tradition families do every year, which is pick out their Christmas tree, load them onto their cars and take them home to decorate.

Many people still carry this holiday tradition, but they're doing it online. This year, Amazon is among the few large retail chains selling real Christmas trees online and having them delivered to customers' homes.

The new concept was both bizarre and convenient to one young mother.

"If I had a newborn and I didn't want to leave the house, I would probably use that service," she explained her daughter was nearly two.

"It's the same we get food delivered right? Not surprised."

Santa and Sons Christmas Trees in Sherman Oaks saw the online competition coming three years ago.

Instead of griping about the online industry, the owner, Mark Rohls, joined it.

"We've got to adapt. Times are changing and the idea of having a Christmas tree live on the corner in the city is kind of a 1930s business model," he told FOX 11 reporter Leah Uko.

The 30-year-old company says it has seen technology-driven consumers, people with no transportation and commercial businesses and companies place their tree orders online.

Rohls says 40 percent of the tree farms are gone due to the 2008 recession, which put financial burdens on farmers who couldn't plant trees that year. It takes roughly 10 years to grow the trees so here we are, 10 years later with a shortage.

"It's not going to ever come back to where there's a Christmas tree lot on every corner like it once was. So we have to find new ways of meeting the customers where they are," he continued.

"They're online so we need to offer that in conjunction as an addition to what we're doing here."

Not everyone was on board with choosing their tree through a computer screen.

Roommates Andrew Dibartolomeo and Veta Perdew were excited to create their own Christmas tradition, which included going to a local tree farm.

"There's just something about seeing it and smelling it and being right next to it and imagining it in your apartment," Dibartolomeo said.

Same with Perdew.

"There's something exciting about going with someone and like 'what do you think of this tree? Do you think it'll fit?' And the size matters and where the branches are so you can hang your ornaments."

But for customers considering going digital, Santa and Sons asked they consider them because they, too, deliver.

FOX 11 reported on this story from Los Angeles.