Marketplace News

Departments - Marketplace News

May 31, 2011
Garden Center

Garden spending drops, but retailers maintain head-to-head competition
Planned consumer garden spending is expected to drop from an average $615 per household in 2009 to a projected $469 for 2011, according to Garden Writers Association Foundation (GWAF) 2011 Early Spring Gardening Trends Research Report. At the same time, competition between independent garden centers and mass merchants is expected to remain evenly split for early-spring plant purchases. When GWAF started tracking the early spring gardening preferences of consumers in 2005, only 40 percent of the respondents planned to buy most of their spring plants at garden centers, compared to 51 percent who favored mass merchants. GWAF’s latest report, conducted in April, found that garden centers maintain a slight edge over mass merchants (46 percent to 44 percent) for consumer preference in purchasing most of their spring plants.

American Garden Award enters its third year
The American Garden Award contest is back and bigger than ever for 2011. There are now 24 participating public gardens displaying seven new varieties for the gardening public to choose as their favorite. All 24 gardens can be viewed on the AGA website (www.americangardenaward.com). Garden visitors can then vote on their favorite. There are three ways to vote: (1) By texting a given code to a polling number; (2) by going to the website and clicking on the voting button; (3) by using postage-paid voting postcards located at most participating gardens. Voting runs until August 31. Winners are announced in September.

New iPhone app recognizes leaves
Leafsnap is the first in a series of electronic field guides being developed by researchers from Columbia University, the University of Maryland and the Smithsonian Institution. This free mobile app (available in the iTunes app store) uses visual recognition software to help identify tree species from photographs of their leaves. Leafsnap contains beautiful high-resolution images of leaves, flowers, fruit, petiole, seeds and bark. Leafsnap currently includes the trees of New York City and Washington, D.C., and will soon grow to include the trees of the entire continental United States. The makers say apps for the iPad and Android are coming soon.

Neighbors’ landscapes affect your home’s value
Your customers may have a lush landscape, but their neighbor with dead grass, spindly trash trees and mounds of dirt is bringing down their home value. An unkempt yard in close proximity may reduce the value of a home by as much as 15 percent, according to the Appraisal Institute. In terms of value, bad landscapes rank up there with sex offenders, landfills or power plants in or near a neighborhood.

Plants Nouveau announces new partnership
Plants Nouveau, www.plantsnouveau.com, a company specializing in plant introductions and marketing, recently announced a new partnership with Linda Guy, former managing director of Novalis. “Plants Nouveau has always been a company about plants, fueled by the introduction of novel, innovative selections from real plant people,” said Angela Treadwell-Palmer, founder of Plants Nouveau. “Adding the expertise of Linda Guy and her genuine love for new plants as well as her breeder relationships into our mix gives us amazing credibility, an amazing new plant inventory and an even more amazing addition to my innovative vision and plans for the future.”

Endless Summer launches Display Promotion
Showing off display skills could pay off this season for one lucky garden center employee. Endless Summer Collection launched its World’s Easiest Display Promotion, with the grand prize of a 2011 Ford Fiesta. The contest is exclusively for independent garden center employees. Simply set up a creative display using Endless Summer Collection corex and bench tape, then take pictures and upload them to the contest page. The promotion runs through July 30, 2011. Visit www.endlesssummerblooms.com for details.

Recent research questions women’s buying power
From The Wall Street Journal: A longstanding marketing adage is women control 80 percent or more of household spending. But several recent surveys suggest that men have nearly equal say on spending, and that when men and women live together, both participate in spending decisions. In a survey conducted last year of nearly 4,000 Americans 16 and older by Futures Co., a London consulting firm, just 37 percent of women said they have primary responsibility for shopping decisions in their household, while 85 percent said they have primary or shared responsibility. The respective figures for men were similar: 31 percent and 84 percent.

No hill for a climber

Departments - Editor’s Note

You're trying to shop for a customer who gets almost everything she wants, when she wants it - and you're just hoping that what you pick out will please her come Christmas-time, some seven months away.

May 31, 2011
Yale Youngblood

Yale Youngblood

Consider, if you will, the following scenario: Your customer awakens to an alarm clock that goes off automatically, exactly at a time that was predetermined the previous evening.

She’s still tired when the alarm sounds (today she’s opting for Light Rock over buzz), so she hits a button on the clock that grants her nine more minutes of restful slumber. Nine minutes become 18. Then 27. When she finally arises, she decides to take a shower.

She turns the handle that regulates the water temperature to a certain spot, and instantly the stream flowing from the showerhead is Goldilocks perfect—not too hot, not too cold, just right.

After her shower, she gets dressed and turns on the television—but decides she doesn’t like the program. With a push of a button, she is transported elsewhere in the world. With another button push, she is moved again. One more “click” and she’s resituated once more, even though, literally, the only moves she has made are the ones used to put on the clothes she laid out for herself the previous evening. Twice. You see, her husband, when asked his opinion regarding the red outfit vs. the blue one, chose the former, thus rendering the latter the obviously correct answer.

WHAT’S BREWING? Also during the night before she programmed her coffee maker to finish percolating at precisely ... three, two, one ... this second, so she takes a cup out of the cupboard and fills it with her favorite imported java, which she ordered over the Internet in less than a minute and received in less than two days.

Today, after her coffee, she will use keyless entry to unlock her vehicle; then, after backing from the driveway with the assistance of a rear-view camera, she will turn on an electronic navigation system that will tell her precisely when and where to turn to arrive at ... wherever.

Before her day is done, “wherever” will include three retail venues, each of which was actually chosen several days prior, as she checked e-mail and discovered, thanks to personalized missives from the stores, that new shipments had arrived and that her size/style/tastes would be accounted for the second she walks in the door.

AND, YOU? You’re making your way up and down the trade show aisles this month, trying to “shop” for this customer, the person who gets almost everything she wants, when she wants it—and you’re just hoping that what you pick out will please her come Christmas-time, some seven months away.

And to think, you went into this business because you love plants.

yyoungblood@gie.net

Plugging in the potting shed

Departments - Column

Everything today is about handy, useful information.

May 31, 2011
Chad Harris

Chad Harris

Everything today is about handy, useful information. You can pay for coffee using a cell phone, research products by scanning barcodes, and let those fingertips type away to find the latest and greatest of anything. A pertinent question facing garden center operators, then, is, “What should I be doing to create a useful virtual environment that gets consumers to interact with my business?” Web presentation is similar to the front door of your store. With both you want to create an environment that represents your personality, as well as the goods and services you provide. Decide who you are; then proceed from there.

Simple stuff first
At the very least, you need a simple website that provides information, location and operational hours. This is easily achieved and takes a few weeks to accomplish. Cost: $500-$1,500.

Remember, though, that an interactive site engages the user. An interactive site can stream video presentations on DIY projects, allow users to upload/download instructions/photos and allow the business to collect the users’ information to use in future promotions. Cost: $2,500-$10,000.

Shopping sites, (e-commerce sites), provide users the ability to purchase your goods and have them delivered. Cost: $7,500 to millions.

DE-TAILS (clap clap) DE-TAILS
Whatever you do, you need to think in graphic terms. Images need to include highly detailed photographs of your store, products or services—and it helps your cause when they tell a story.

Remove product tags. Pick off the yellow leaves or dying buds. Make sure the lighting is right. Photography can make or break your site with the customer.

Site layouts are important to engage users. An effective site features easy navigation; reducing the number of clicks needed to locate a product or service requires planning. You need a website builder that understands user engagement—it will benefit you in the long run even it costs more in the beginning.

Paying the Piper
Obviously, you’ll need to develop a virtual budget that the business can afford. If you have a marketing budget of 3 percent of your gross income, allocate funds from marketing. If your marketing budget is in its infancy, consider your monthly gross income. If sales are $100,000 then consider spending $5,000 or 5 percent of a month’s gross income to start. Then allocate an additional 5 percent of a month’s income for ongoing routine maintenance and updating over the course of a year.

Making it work for you!
A site with user engagement is reliant on creative thinking, beautiful images and content that users are looking to find. Taking the time to provide features that users find appealing will require work, planning and updating ...

… And a vast potential for reward. We all keep a close eye on the bottom line, and the bottom line on virtual retailing is this: “Plugging in” your potting shed can lead to an increase in sales and customer retention—and maybe even to shipping a bizzillion brown boxes.

Contact Chad E. Harris, charris@ceverettharris.com; www.ceverettharris.com; www.thegardengates.com; follow him @ www.twitter.com/ceverettharris; friend him @ www.facebook.com/ceverettharris; watch him @ www.youtube/thegardengatesnola.com; read about him @ www.thegardengatesblog.com

Does your education program get an 'A'?

Departments - Views You Can Use

Throughout the spring, I spent quite a bit of time at my local garden center here in San Diego watching how customers interact with the merchandise.

May 31, 2011
Josh Schneider

Josh Schneider

Throughout the spring, I spent quite a bit of time at my local garden center here in San Diego watching how customers interact with the merchandise. It seems to me that merchandising decisions are made on the basis of several competing needs that often are not harmonized—but could be.

If we divide the customers into two main groups, we have one group that is on a mission because they know exactly what they want. They are coming for their Supertunias or Knock Out Roses or Early Girl Tomatoes, and the only barrier they face is finding what they’re looking for, which can be a challenge in itself.

The second group comes to the garden center knowing they want something, but aren’t sure just what it is. My guess is that, especially during the busy spring season, up to half your customers are in Group Two.

This means they are looking for information to build a foundation on which to make their purchasing decisions. These consumers want to find products and ideas that will help them be successful with their gardening projects. And because fear of failure is a big “de-motivator” for many would-be gardeners, your ability to provide the solutions they seek can make or break your garden center in their minds. Gardening requires a substantial investment of time, and helping the customer maximize that time investment will pay dividends for the garden center’s brand later.

A new breed of customers
I recently talked with at least 10 people who I would put into the “Young Enthusiast” category of beginner gardeners. These people were totally overwhelmed by the more than 40 varieties of tomatoes on offer, as well as the countless peppers and other veggies and herbs. They had no idea of, say, the difference between determinate and indeterminate and didn’t realize why this was relevant to their purchasing decision.

This beginner customer is in desperate need of education about the basics of gardening before he or she can even start to decide what they want; yet most garden centers spend more of their time working on simply stocking the shelves and answering customer questions than in creating a system to meet the needs of this large block of beginning customers.

The value in developing a means to educate the customer in-store would seem to be enormous, so why do we simply assume that we will be able to talk to everyone who has a question and provide them with the information that they need?

Perhaps our thought is that they will have done the work ahead of time, but that seems awfully optimistic, given that these are BEGINNING GARDENERS. Then, in the busy spring, the staff members inevitably tire of answering the same questions, and their collective response evolves into a clipped and sometimes even curt way of addressing inquiries.

Here's an idea
Develop a kiosk system or wall of signage that speaks the language of new gardeners. It could easily be crafted over the winter during our downtimes. Or, better yet, why not enlist the services of an enterprising company that caters to garden centers and that specializes in helping provide answers to obvious customer needs?

I envision a large group of sign panels that would show with photos or drawings and clearly written copy the simple steps for “How to grow flowers or vegetables in containers,” that aids in “Choosing a spot for a vegetable garden,” that outlines “The top 10 tomato varieties for your area,” that illustrates “How often to fertilize,” that provides “The definitions for the terms full- and part-sun” that … well, you get the gist.

You know the questions that your customers ask over and over. I see these new gardeners as being the basis for tomorrow’s business. Doesn’t it make sense to help educate them? Being their “Gardening Alma Mater” would make it far more likely to have them as a relationship rather than as just a transaction.

Josh Schneider is a founding partner of Cultivaris, a hort consulting firm. E-mail Josh at josh@cultivaris.com.

This 'n' Data

Departments - This 'n' Data

Facts and figures - and other fun stuff - you can turn into a competitive advantage.

May 31, 2011
Garden Center

The poll position

Here’s what industry folks have been telling us in recent online polls. Be sure to check
www.gardencentermagazine.com each week to cast your vote on various pertinent topics.

Lettuce entertain you
It's not uncommon for my wife to come in the door griping about something. Recently it was the price of lettuce. She complained that she had to pay $3.49 for a head of lettuce. Then she asked, “Are you growing lettuce this year?” It just so happens that I am. I grew it last year, but I don't think she noticed.

There are several types of lettuce to grow, at least 75 varieties, according to the Johnny's Selected Seed catalog. Probably the king of the head lettuce is Iceberg. It forms a head like a cabbage, and people like it because of the crunch rather than the flavor. Of course, after you put all that salad dressing on it, who really knows what lettuce actually tastes like?

I have a bit of lettuce history ... Christopher Columbus was the first to introduce lettuce to the new land. History does not specify if the lettuce was on the Nina, Pinta or Santa Maria. I sort of lean toward the Nina.

The big break in lettuce history happened in 1926 and featured none other than the great Bruce Church. Bruce bought a field of head lettuce in Salinas, Calif., and wanted to ship the crop to the East Coast. He packed ice around the plants in the train car so they would keep fresh on the trip. When the kids in Maine noticed this, they would yell, “Here come the Icebergs!” The name stuck.

Looseleaf lettuce is the easiest to grow and is quite healthy, containing almost six times more vitamin C and 10 times more vitamin A than Iceberg lettuce. Leaf lettuce grows fast and can be harvested in three to four weeks. In early April I plant the seeds; by the end of when you are ready to plant flowers, I will have already had a month of eating fresh salad.

If my math is correct, there are 600 seeds in a packet of lettuce. The packet cost about $3.49. If I cut the lettuce and package it, I should be able to make $2,094 by selling it to my wife. With this profit, I would be able to spend my winters in the Bahamas. The moral of the story: Bruce wasn't the only Church with the brains to make a little lettuce off of lettuce.

– Gary Church, a former grower, is a columnist for the New Castle (Pa.) News