 Josh Schneider |
Gardening is so much about experience and the process. Customers know this, but I think sometimes garden center operators forget about just how much it drives our business. Perhaps we should all journey down the street to the computer store.
My laptop has been teetering on the edge of death for some months, so I’ve been looking at new computers recently. I’ve been struck by how many venues put the marketing focus on the functionality of the machines, rather than on the machines and their technical specifications. You walk in and learn very quickly what the shiny little box will do for you and how it will help you do for yourself.
Computer stores—like Best Buy and Apple, especially—have learned to focus more on “the experience,” with the Apple stores as the undeniable leader. Twenty years ago electronics were a counter in a department store. Today Steve Jobs and his team at Apple have seen that one of the best ways to get his company ahead of the industry behemoth (Remember when Microsoft was going to take over the world?) is to make the product more experiential.
Selling the Experience
Going into the Apple Store, you don’t overhear a lot of discussion about technical specs. You hear people talking about how much music, or how many videos or photos an iPod holds. They may talk about screen size and streaming all their media to their TV or how they check their e-mail or Facebook on their iPhones. There are so many computers around, you can actually try them out for as long as you want.
The store’s staff is dressed to be seen and noticed. They’re taught to make direct eye-contact and ask you questions about what you may want or need. They encourage you to touch and feel.
The crazy thing is that it’s always a zoo in my local Apple Store, and I never feel neglected. There are always people asking and helping. That’s so unusual in today’s retail environment, where you often have a choice of “Annoying Staff Stalker” or the “Aloof Associate” who is more interested in his conversation with his co-worker.
Last year Apple revamped all its store displays. Signage was changed to make information easier to read and more visuals were added. Apple also moved to grouping the iPhone and iPod displays by category to reflect the same system they’ve employed at their wildly-successful App Store on the iTunes website. This keeps customers from being overwhelmed by the 225,000-plus applications now available. Know any other kind of place where choice can overwhelm the customer?
People aren’t coming into the Apple Store with a laundry list of RAM, gigabytes and other specs. They’re asking questions about “the experience” because what Apple is selling is “the experience.”
It’s the Same in the Garden
Our stores should be more about “the experience,” too, for the very same reason. Yes, there will always be a percentage of customers who want to get in and out with their two 12-inch hanging baskets. But what if those Two-Basket Wonders became more engaged in the process of gardening?
If customers are engaged in the process, if they understand it—and if that process can be fun, interesting, educational, collaborative and healthy —there will be a much higher level of satisfaction. Gardening is often work. But it’s usually very satisfying work.
 Columnist Josh Schneider’s daughters, Khaylee (17) and Olivia (14), helped pot combos at Plug Connection’s pre-pack trials this year. The experience has given them a new appreciation of gardening, he said. Gardening with my kids is something that I absolutely love. My own teen daughters help for a few days at pack trials and the preparation for it. They engage in planting and container design in a way that’s very different from many of their other endeavors.
They ask questions and laugh and are truly interested in the “what” and “why” of the work we’re doing. They see me and what I do in some real context (which is no small feat). These joint experiences are laying the groundwork for their future interest in gardening.
It’s worth it for us to focus on “the experience” of what we do and engage our customers in a new and different way. Let’s make our stores more fun, pretty, exciting and vibrant—and not just a horticultural series of shelves for organizing our “product” to move it optimally.
Experiences Matter
The customers’ memories of what they discover at your store will last longer than a 12-inch hanging basket—or two. And gardening is as close to a time-release experience as you can get.
Josh Schneider is a founding partner of Cultivaris, a hort consulting firm. E-mail Josh at josh@cultivaris.com.
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