For the birds

This article was published in the March 2024 issue of Garden Center.

The staff at Russell’s Garden Center had an animal problem.

Birds and squirrels kept getting into their bird seed.

So the staff created an entirely separate bird seed room with automatic sliding doors.

It’s one of the many ways the IGC (#52 on Garden Center magazine’s 2023 Top 100 Independent Garden Centers List) in Wayland, Massachusetts, about a half-hour west of Boston, has worked hard to create a strong Bird Shop, says Russell’s Garden Center bird buyer Carly Winsor.

“It’s not our biggest section, but it’s definitely a staple,” she says.

Birding experts from IGCs strongly recommend adding or ramping up birding departments, noting it’s a solid, reliable source of sales with opportunities for add-ons.

Along with Winsor, experts from Van Putte Gardens (#84 on the Top 100 list) in Rochester, New York, and Moana Nursery (#19 on the Top 100 list) in Nevada share their top tips for making birding departments successful.

In Russell’s bird seed room, the staff also added an air conditioner-dehumidifier — “nothing super expensive or high-tech,” Winsor notes — to keep the room cool and dry, which helps the seed last longer.

But Russell’s still orders seed from its highly reliable distributor weekly based on what’s selling, to prevent too much seed from needing to be stored and potentially become a loss if it doesn’t sell.

The Bird Shop helps Russell’s with keeping customers coming into the store in the slower winter months.

“Birds need to be fed the most arguably in the winter because it’s when there’s the least amount of natural food resources for them, and there’s also a lot less water as well because things freeze,” Winsor says. “And if you get customers that are kind of restocking their feeders weekly, it’s just more people that will come into the door.”

Top sellers at Russell’s include Aspen Song seed, which Winsor calls a premium brand with spectacular quality, and feeders from Aspects and Brome Bird Care — the latter of which is the staff’s first recommendation, with Winsor calling them incredible quality and lasting “forever.”

Its other birding products include decorative houses, décor, bird baths and bat houses.

Feed the birds

Lisa Braginton is the Wild Birds Unlimited manager at Moana Nursery, where she does the buying and educating for Moana’s three stores and heads the feederscaping program.

Feederscaping is a product of the Wild Birds Unlimited franchise. It involves going into customers’ yards and guiding them on where to place feeders, water and plantings to attract birds and keep away pests. Moana launched the program in 2021 but has only conducted one paid feederscaping session, which is $180.

Assistant director of marketing Kylea Scott noted it’s been difficult to get sessions scheduled, since “we give [the knowledge] away for free in the store — we only charge you if you want us to come out to your property.”

Scott said Moana has also been hesitant to market the service, since Braginton is the only feederscape provider, and they don’t want her to get overwhelmed.

Braginton admits it can be time-consuming, with each hour-long consultation taking a minimum of three hours of work, between follow-up with the customer, prepping and planning. She noted that for a similar landscaping service, Moana had to install blackout dates and times, since staff became so busy with the popular service at its three locations.

“But I think we could probably go a little stronger than we are now and pull some extra focus,” Scott adds of the feederscaping program.

Moana also hosts promotions to give away free seed or feeders to get people interested in birding — in the hopes that they’ll be converted to a bird customer.

And it seems to be working. In 2023, Moana broke the $1 million mark for birding-related products across its three stores and e-commerce sales, which was over its goal. It’s a trend the Nevada IGC hopes to see continue.

Scott said many of Moana’s birding customers are older, but the stores have started seeing younger shoppers, especially with the increasing popularity of video camera bird feeders, with the videos being posted to social media.

“People, when they were stuck at home during COVID, were paying more attention to their yards and paying more attention to things that they could do while they were at home, and birding really took off during the pandemic,” Braginton says. “But that also coincided with a 30-year study in 2019 that was published in Science Magazine that showed that we had lost about 30% of our bird population in North America. So those two things came together in such a good way, but the importance of it has stayed with people as they found how relaxing and how helpful it is to feed the birds. There’s been this kind of long arc of learning with people that’s persisted past the pandemic.”

Everyone likes birds

Van Putte Gardens green goods buyer & manager Jenna Holzschuh estimates birding products account for 10 to 15% of the IGC’s total sales, noting that sales are especially steady in the winter months.

“It’s really popular. A lot of people aren’t serious about birding, but they do like birds, and the idea of attracting birds to their yard is really appealing to a lot of people,” she says. “It’s something that even if you can only carry a couple different types of bird food or a couple different feeders, you’re probably going to get a little interest with that because it’s something people just like to do to beautify their yards and just to watch wildlife.”

Holzschuh says the IGC carries a range of feeders and foods for customers interested in attracting different particular birds. Suet cakes for woodpeckers and hummingbird feeders are popular items, and squirrel guards make for good add-on sales.

It’s important for employees to be educated on birds and birding products. Some customers are birding experts, but some are brand new and have no idea what they need.

“We have a lot of very knowledgeable customers who are very frequent birders, and it’s a big part of their lives,” Winsor says. “But we also have a lot of customers coming in who say I’ve never fed the birds before; what do I do?”

Russell’s puts up signage in the break room about when birds, especially hummingbirds, are coming back into the area.

“Making sure that your staff is knowledgeable and able to answer the questions is the first step to making the sale,” Holzschuh, from Van Putte, notes.

Top tips

For IGCs with smaller birding departments — or none at all — Winsor’s first piece of advice is to do research on migration schedules for your local birds, so you know when to have products in-store. She highly recommends the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as a resource.

Hummingbird-related products are a good entry point, since those products typically come pre-packaged. Another good thing to start with is black oil sunflower seed, which many birds eat.

Holzschuh suggests talking to customers to see what they’re looking for. She also recommends selling native perennials and shrubs that will attract birds.

Braginton recommends paying attention to the features and qualities of products — that they perform to expectations and work for both customers and the birds. You need to offer a range of price points and have knowledgeable staff members on local birds and the food they need.

“I truly believe that every garden center should have some bird offerings,” she says. “Places like Home Depot and Lowe’s and Walmart obviously have their bird food offerings, and some people just don’t know any better. People don’t realize it makes a big difference in their success if they’re getting the right product to put in front of the birds.”

But you don’t need to offer huge amounts of birding products. Offering some simple seed and high-quality feeders is a great way to start.

“You can actually keep it a little simple when you’re just starting out,” Winsor says. “It doesn’t have to be overly complicated, I think, putting in a bird section.”

Emily Mills is associate editor of Garden Center magazine. Contact her at emills@gie.net.