IGC Show Chicago features Martha Stewart keynote

The 8th annual IGC Show in Chicago’s Navy Pier kicked off with a tradition. Attendees gathered in the pier’s Grand Ballroom and Cheryl Morey, who produces the IGC Show with her husband, Jeff Morey, conducted an opening prayer. After she concluded her thoughts, Jeff Morey welcomed the crowd and said, “God, country, and this wonderful industry, that’s what it’s all about.”

Keynote speaker and industry consultant Corey Bordine then took the stage and encouraged the audience of independent garden center retailers to see business through their customers’ eyes.

“Success is when the customer feels better when they leave a business than when they came in,” said Bordine, who worked at his family’s garden center business, Bordine’s, and also at The Coca-Cola Company.

Customers anticipate quality plants, equipment that’s in good shape, inspiration and to pay more when they go to independent garden centers, he says, and stores must close the gap between customer expectations and the reality of what exists at many stores today.

“If you don’t plant your garden center streetscape, why should you expect your customers to?” Bordine asked. “[Customers] want to see you as an inspiration center.”

Ways to inspire customers include offering an easy return process, which is the chief complaint among many consumers, and making them feel successful, not intimidated.

A big takeaway from his presentation was that customers will often pay more than many expect, and Bordine suggested implementing a “WCWP” strategy, or “what customers will pay.” Don’t price plants too low.

The crowd then spilled out onto the trade show floor that included some 700 vendors, according to show materials. Look for an article about new products from the show soon.

On Wednesday, the show started with a Q&A with Martha Stewart, conducted by Jeff Morey. The ballroom was standing room only, and Morey said it’s been his dream to share the stage with her and have the opportunity to interview the industry icon.

Much of the interview was about Stewart’s gardens and how she got interested in gardening in the first place. She said she had Polish parents, and “I was told, ever since I was born, that Poles are the best gardeners.”

She has an affinity for roses and peonies (she has a 300-foot circle of peonies on her property), but has established a variety of gardens at her homes, including a massive edible garden that feeds her family and often her staff at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

She talked much about the importance of introducing gardening to children, especially edibles so they understand where their food comes from.

She also told the audience a few things about herself they may not know. She loves weeding, she said, keeps 200 chickens at a time and loves shopping at Terrain. “I spend much more money on seeds and plants than I do clothes and shoes," she said. "I’m much more interested in plants.”

Though the interview was mostly about her life and gardens, she did have a few suggestions for garden centers, such as inviting the younger generation into stores by offering weekday workshops about building a raised bed garden from scratch that start at 7:30 p.m. She also said while big box stores carry cheaper products, independents can carry the best, most high-quality tools to attract customers. She also said she wishes she saw more high-end, pre-potted containers available at stores.

The chicken keeping trend is also catching on, and portable chicken houses would make a "perfect product for a garden center," she said.

She says independents have an advantage over big box stores.

“So many of our larger stores are focused on the bottom line and profitability, that they are not always focused on the customer,” she said.

Toward the end of the conversation, Morey asked Stewart, whose Martha Stewart Living products are sold at Home Depot and Kmart, about whether she’d consider a line exclusive to independents. She didn’t clearly answer one way or the other, but suggested it could be a possibility.

The final keynote was from Henry Hutcheson, president of Family Business USA. His address focused on "secret weapons" family businesses can use to fight for and defend their family stores in the market. 

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