The parking problem

Garden centers tend to be free-standing structures offering take-out products; that fact makes parking an essential convenience. Garden centers also tend to exist in a finite space without options for additional land. The result: parking is an ongoing problem. Solutions hardly ever involve land acquisition, but they may involve land reallocation.

Garden center parking problems result from three distinct but related elements: peak/off-peak parking needs, parking confusion that discourages customers and technology limitations.

• Peak/off-peak parking refers both to seasonal and day peaks. The greatest demand for parking is on spring weekends. Unfortunately, few garden centers have the luxury of a huge parking lot that can sit empty most of the year to accommodate this peak demand.
• Parking confusion occurs when the customer cannot see parking or determine just how to park in the spaces offered. Customers may bypass the parking confusion, promising to return later. Given time constraints and multiple shopping options, that customer often becomes the invisible customer by selecting another shopping channel or not repeating the shopping event at all. When parking is inadequate or poorly defined, customers often make their own decisions (often bad ones!) and create even more parking lot congestion.
• Technology and infrastructure often aggravate the lack of parking issues. Technology — from carts (or lack thereof) to cash registers — often slows the customer’s progress through the store. If a customer occupies a parking space but fails to find the products she wants or an efficient checkout process in the time she is willing to invest, store inefficiency exacerbates parking limitations. Failure to provide adequate parking cues — like parking stops — leaves the customer to fend for herself in an unmarked parking area. Bad idea!

Beyond the sales limitations of these parking issues is the simple matter of customer service. Garden centers often pride themselves in “customer service” while ignoring the most basic customer needs.

Look at what you have

Experience with a series of garden centers over the past 25 years has proven again and again that parking spaces often hide in plain site on even the most limited property. One of the values of a scale site plan and a fresh pair of eyes is it reveals where space exists that could be relocated or reorganized to use as parking. The biggest barrier is often that old adage: “This is how we’ve always done it.” Discussions about parking often conjure up expensive options like more asphalt. This is not always the answer.

Inventory: Sometimes valuable parking space is taken up when excess product is allowed to spill over into potential parking or to expand in order to make the store look fuller. In both situations, improved inventory management and efficient product delivery can lead to less product “warehoused” in the store.

Entrance/exit patterns: Sometimes parking spaces are inaccessible because of outmoded entrance and exit patterns. Once again, the site plan often reveals access points for store renovations that include improved parking.

Prioritizing space: Separating growing or landscape operations from retail operations can be the starting point for retail renovation and finding more parking spaces. Growing operations can often be shifted and compacted on a piece of property to free up space for retail, including parking. Long-term planning may indicate decreasing growing operations in favor of more purchased product if local vendors can more efficiently meet the store’s needs. This issue is often another “This is how we’ve always done it” moment, although this option will ensure future retail development. The same is true for landscape services. Space for designer offices, customer contact and equipment must be factored into land-use plans.