Compost matters

At a recent party thrown at my house, a guest came up to me and pulled me aside. Of course, I knew this person very well and have had them over several times before, but this time a look of sheer confusion came across her face. “I don’t mean to be nosy,” she said while gazing down into her almost empty party cup, “but what is that big black thing outside your bathroom window?” At first I panicked and the thought of an errant bear wandering around my neighborhood, but then it clicked. The only thing visible outside the bathroom window — besides all of my beautiful flower beds — is my compost pile. The party go-er had a laundry list of questions about how and if the compost pile worked, and of course, once a gardener always a gardener, I was more than willing to talk at length about my compost pile.

This sparked my curiosity though. How many people even know about composting, and beyond that, how many people would go the extra few steps to do it? Why couldn’t selling people on the idea of composting be as simple as throwing a dinner party and showing everybody what lurked beyond my bathroom window?

Put on your imagination caps for a moment and visualize a scenario. Recent news articles have warned that grocery prices are going to skyrocket in the next couple of years due to the population of humans in otherwise agricultural areas. Farms are producing less food, thus driving up the cost of living and putting a tremendous strain on your typical household budget. After a long shopping trip, budgeting and counting every penny, you get home and immediately throw a quarter of it directly into the trash can. You open up your sack of potatoes and toss every fourth one, you grab a handful of grapes and toss those, too. Everything that has reached your home is to be quartered and discarded before being of use to anybody, except for the local grocer. They make money whether you eat your groceries or not. 

Reality stinks
Now, taking this ideology and implementing it in your garden center seems a little farfetched, right? Wrong! Food waste among American households is mind-boggling. The USDA says the national average of food thrown away by the typical family of four is 25 percent.

Of this 25 percent of food waste, 97 percent of it ends up in landfills — unnecessarily so. The public, with the proper knowledge and tools, can reduce this number. This is where your local garden center comes into play. Most people have no idea how much waste really occurs on a daily basis, from the coffee grounds that they mindlessly dump in the trash every morning to the apple cores that they toss after lunch.

It seems like tiny amounts, but when it happens all day, every day, that’s when we start to have a problem. That’s where the 97 percent comes from. By becoming interactive with the public and using your garden center, you can make a difference in the environment and sell some merchandise as well. That’s where the fun begins!

Heap the benefits
Trying to sell people on the idea of saving their garbage can be an extremely hard sell. The key to success is in your approach to the situation, and timing is everything. It’s impractical, of course, to have a big steaming compost pile in the middle of your sales floor to demonstrate the benefits, but subtle hints around the garden center can be crucial, almost subliminal, when placed correctly.

People will rarely approach your retail store with the sole purpose of intending to buy a composter or implements to construct one, but if they’re already shopping and are reminded that composting is an option, they might be more apt to inquire as to how or if they have an area suitable for composting.

Here are a few tips:

• Place small signs the size of index cards in strategic places — it’s a great place to start. These cards should be bright and to the point, suggesting tips or provided facts about composting. 
• Hang a sign near your register with statistics such as, “$2,200 — The amount of money the average family of four throws away in uneaten food each year. What can YOU compost?”
• Set a sign near your bagged goods, instructing people, “Our compost is good, but yours can be better — it’s made with love.”
• Put a sign near your flowers that says something sweet, like, “Did you know, flowers love leftovers? Compost today!”
• Place signs near trash bins — they always get attention. Be brief and terse: “Hey, is that compostable?”

Tumble for attention
Composting is usually hit and miss with clientele, and more likely than not, people would rather get the instant gratification of buying a bag of compost. Being an excellent salesperson is one thing, but you have to generate interest in your products to begin with. By showing that you care as an individual rather than somebody trying to sell somebody something makes a huge impact on the statement you give to your customers. Show that you have a genuine interest and passion in the practice of composting. Simple ways of showing you care can be cheap but very effective:

• Make T-shirts to promote the idea of composting and have key sales staff wear them on busy seasonal days. The wording can be simple such as “Just Compost” or “I don’t stink, but I do compost.”
• Place a compost tumbler near a high-traffic area with signage explaining what it is. Also bring attention to the fact composters aren’t typically stinky.
• Reach out to community gardens and ask for a role in the garden’s construction. Offer to donate a tumbler, but make sure you’re given proper credit.
• Place fliers that explain composting in key coffee shops, but don’t try to sell anybody anything. The goal is to spark interest.
• Get a booth at a local farmers market and vend some small starter plants, but also have demo models of your composter. The goal is to draw people into your garden center, not sell them on the spot.
• Have a contest among your Facebook friends as to who can reduce their garbage the most by composting. The winner should receive a certificate/plaque on your garden center wall.

Although composters in and of themselves may not be the biggest profit item in your store, there are many accessories that you can tack on to drive up sales. There are multitudes of compost buckets, pile turners, compost starters and general amendments that can be tacked on to any purchase. Don’t hesitate to have your sales staff inquire your customers if they compost, and if so, do they need amendments or accessories today? Even if you miss your target and the customer in question doesn’t have a composter, at least you’ll have planted the idea of composting into their heads. That planted idea might grow into something bigger, like needing a composter or two.

Utilize the Web
Your website is your best friend when it comes down to marketing tough-to-sell items. Think of all the times that you’ve wanted to put an item right in front of your register for the entire world to see, but couldn’t because of space restrictions. This is your chance to put your product front and center!

Place the idea in the frontal lobe of your customers’ brains by devoting a key section of your homepage to your composting campaign. Not only will this reach those who are already aware of your existence as a garden center, but this will also show up for those who may not be aware that you exist.

Ensure that you set up an informative, but not overly complex series of pages to instruct how and what to compost. Don’t forget; keywords and adwords are your best friends when it comes down to getting traffic driven to your website. Just typing in compost in a search engine will leave your page down at the bottom of the list, but by using the term “how to compost in (insert your town here),” you’ll be more likely to show up at the top of the list. You can have remarkable information on your site, but it might as well be invisible unless you have the traffic being driven to it. If you haven’t created a website yet, you’re not totally out of luck.

Make your presence known on other local gardening club social media pages or blogs. Be careful though, you don’t want to seem like you’re hijacking the original purpose of their page by trying to sell a bunch of stuff. Offer advice in a gentle manner. The payoff will come later.

Composting isn’t the biggest trend lately, but it very well could be! Looking ahead is the most beneficial tactic you can implement in your battle to be a successful garden center. By being prepared for the next big thing, you’ll be two steps ahead of the competition. Otherwise, you might find yourself throwing dinner parties and strategically placing things you’d like to sell out your ybathroom window for your guests to see and become interested in. Although it worked for me, I don’t recommend it.

Nikki Weed is a horticulturalist and professional adventurer who uses her experiences and knowledge to manage a successful garden center in Greenville, S.C. She can be reached at pepitaweed@gmail.com.