Beyond the bench

Merchandising inspiration is as close as your neighborhood grocery store. Take a field trip, see what they’re doing right, and adapt it in your own store.

Garden retailers can easily fall into a merchandising funk. Line out plants on benches. Add signage. Maybe get crazy and cross merchandise some fertilizer with the annuals. Voila. Tis done.

While this approach may work for diehard gardeners, it takes more to entice infrequent or first-time customers. To get some fresh perspective on merchandising, Garden Center recently spoke with Steve Hansen, director of new business development for Quick Turn Merchandising (www.qturns.com). His company has worked with major grocery chains as well as garden-related businesses. Hansen offers this insight:
 

Dive deep. Garden retailers have to take the inventory/merchandising plunge and stock up to show they’re truly committed to a product line.

“First and foremost, the garden center has to be viewed as a true profit center with a commitment to the category,” Hansen said. “If there is a commitment, the garden center can generate sales throughout the year and not just be a seasonal/part-time convenience category. The larger big-box DIY retailers have shown this commitment.”
 

Stay fresh. Merchandising isn’t a part-time endeavor. Successful retailers are constantly refining their merchandising tactics.

“An outdated approach that’s still being used is to only put merchandising labor in to the garden center at peak seasons, the rest of the time the areas become quite dormant or catch-alls for extra product overstocks,” Hansen said.

But—as we all know—merchandising takes time. And, in many garden centers, there isn’t a single employee devoted to merchandising. Do you really need a full-time person in this role for maximum impact? Hansen had this to say:

“It depends on the retailer’s business philosophy for the garden center. Larger garden centers with higher inventory levels will definitely see increased sales with devoted merchandising. The weekly turns are tremendous, and without true plan-o-gramming and merchandiser labor, sales can be lost. Live goods and tie-in products have to be properly displayed and restocked.”

To keep turns up—and keep your creative juices flowing—Hansen encourages garden retailers to emulate display trends seen outside the industry.

“Current trends are to merchandise the ‘project’ instead of individual items,” Hansen said. “This prompts the end customer to think creatively and make multiple purchases instead of buying single items they planned to get upon entering the garden center.

“If you want to see what the future holds for plant marketing and merchandising look at Europe, particularly Holland. They do much more garden center marketing than the U.S. Trends happening there will get here in 2-3 years.”

Want to monitor the European trends like Hansen suggested? Cruise over to the Flower Council of Holland website: www.flowercouncil.org.