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Winners
Published: 02 Aug, 2010
What are the business categories and drivers in garden retail that mark winning garden centres from average garden centers?
In our May bulletin, John Russell discussed how industry awards force garden retailers to assess how well they do things in their store. In recent months, many garden centers worldwide have worked hard to meet the judging criteria for retail awards with variable success.
John has judged two 2010 ‘Garden Centre of the Year’ awards, one for a national garden centre chain, the other a national competition open to garden centres of all shapes and sizes. The variance in the standards achieved across the judging criteria was surprising.
In both competitions the criteria fell into the same broad categories – premises, product range and quality, product merchandising, customer services, marketing and promotion, product knowledge, and management. Product range and quality were generally very good. Staff were friendly, greeting customers and being helpful. The garden centres were mostly clean and tidy and well presented in that sense.........
What the two competitions had most in common was the three worst performing categories were the same for each - merchandising, product knowledge, and operations management.
These reflect areas of garden retail that need attention in many other garden centres that I visit around the world so it was not that surprising.
Merchandising standards ranged from the very good to the very basic. Merchandising is a key area in successful garden retail and can account for up to 80% of sales in store.
While one on one personal selling is important, the logistics of serving every customer who comes into store are unrealistic. We thus have to find other ways to get our customers to buy.
Good merchandising is the simple, cost effective means of doing this.
It is surprising, therefore, to see so little effort and enthusiasm being put into this aspect. Even more surprising is that even though good merchandising practices and skills can be easily taught and learned, very few invested any time or money in up-skilling staff in these skills.
The two basic principles of good merchandising are visibility and appeal. Customers must be able to see the product first and foremost. Then having seen it, it must appeal to them and make them want to buy.
We can further reinforce this urge to buy by giving them a reason to buy. This we do by good signage.
The lack of often basic product knowledge was disturbing. I have to wonder what sort of advice staff are giving their customers when they come into stores seeking information. This is cause for concern when you consider that many of those customers are new to gardening, and the ones we want to convert into enthusiasts by giving them sound, easy to understand, and correct, information and advice. This information and advice can be given in several ways:
- one on one interaction between customer and sales staff – in this case it is important that sales staff are well informed and
skilled to give out correct information that is easily understood. - having good simple signs, giving the key product benefits as bullet points that can be read and understood easily.
- having a selection of ‘How To’ information brochures and pamphlets that customers can access readily, or that staff can hand to them as part of the selling process.
- Information can also be disseminated via your website, through social media and through weekly email newsletters to your customer data base.
Not all staff can be expected to know all things. What they must know though, is how and where to access the correct information so they can handle customer enquiries in a professional manner.
I imagine a lot of us got into this business because of a love for plants and an interest in gardening. To many of us the thought of spending time in the back office is not something that excites us greatly. But if we are to thrive and succeed it is the back office, operations, financial management side of the business that is going to require our attention.
So what are the things you need to focus on?
First, a business plan – where do we want to be and how are we going to get there.
As part of this a promotions plan is important – how are we going to drive the business over the next year and beyond?
Second, budgets – sales, purchases, expenses and cash flow budgets - these give us the targets and goals we strive to attain, and just as importantly they give us a benchmark against which to measure our performance and a means of ensuring that purchases and expenses are controlled and kept in line.
Finally, record and monitor performance on a regular basis and don't wait until the end of the financial year to see how well or poorly you have done. The more frequently you monitor the more readily you can react and take action.
You needn’t wait for competitions and awards to come along to make you address these important aspects of good garden retailing. All retailers should be assessing their performance in these areas constantly and making necessary changes and improvements.
All the tools you need are available to you here on this site –manuals, templates, mentoring, consultancy. Remember, the most important award is not a cup or a plaque, but rather a successful, profitable business. By putting on your retailers’ hat, not your plant lover’s hat, and focusing on these retail skills, that award could be yours.
