Market Buzz

15 takeaways from Cultivate’15

By Michelle Simakis

With more than 600 exhibitors, 120 educational sessions and keynotes, AmericanHort’s annual Cultivate trade show can feel like a whirlwind of activity and information. As you begin to absorb what you learned during the event and implement new ideas, take a look at our highlights and key takeaways from the show. What captured your attention and inspired you? Check out our 15 key takeaways and ideas for independent garden center retailers from Cultivate’15 and add to our list by emailing Editor Michelle Simakis at msimakis@gie.net.

For more coverage from Cultivate’15, watch our video highlights at gardencentermag.com/media

1. There’s a lot we can learn from retailers in other industries. During the Retail Road Show, attendees stopped off at Giant Eagle’s Market District, a high-end grocery store chain with a location in Grandview, Ohio. The tour offered a bevy of ideas applicable to garden center retailers, but one of the company’s principles out for many attendees — “if you see it, you own it.” Employees have their specializations, from produce to skin care, but they aren’t pigeon-holed into departments, so everything from spills to customer service is everyone’s responsibility. The store’s Q-shaped checkout system also captured our attention, and is a layout garden centers could implement, especially during peak season. All shoppers are funneled through the same line, which is intentionally surrounded by shelves of impulse items. That line feeds into several separate registers so customers don’t have to worry about avoiding the “slow” line or finding the “fast” one.

2. Employees, not customers, first. Customer service is always king, but Market District’s strategy is to take care of employees first, because if employees are happy, they’ll treat customers well. Positive reinforcement, rewards and other incentives are distributed to motivate and encourage staff to do a good job.

3. Branding is essential. This was a message repeated throughout the show at keynotes and educational sessions, but Oakland Nurseries offered a concrete example of why branding is important during the Retail Road Show. A couple of years ago, the garden center — with four locations in the Columbus area — opened a separate facility at its Dublin location and coined it “Oakland Nursery HOME.” As the name suggests, the store contains all home décor items, many of which are rustic, vintage pieces. The store has an obvious and seemingly purposeful nature-inspired, organic feel, and the success is seen in sales growth. In the 4,300-square-foot store alone, sales grew by nearly half a million dollars from the 2013-2014 season, when it opened, to the 2014-2015 season.

4. Education is key. Scheiderer Farms, a stop along the Retail Road Show, gives customers opportunities to learn how to garden in a variety of ways. The company offers container workshops where gardeners can learn how to plant beautiful pots. They can also visit the custom container area and get assistance depending on their level of need. This has helped push the average sale in the department to $50. Customers can also use their phones to learn independently through the company’s app, which has “beacons,” or informational alerts that pop up on shoppers’ phones when they browse by a notable plant or section of the store. Simple signage can also offer educational opportunities. Co-owner Candi Scheiderer showcases her favorite plants and an easy, three-step process for creating custom containers on signs displayed in the greenhouse.

5. Understanding Millennials, both employees and customers of this generation, will make or break your business. Curt Steinhorst’s keynote on Day 1 of the show offered attendees a humorous but honest perspective on how to reach 20- and 30-somethings. It’s essential because Generation Y will outspend Baby Boomers by 2017. For a variety of reasons, the generation is “delaying adulthood” — getting married, having kids and buying homes in their early- to mid-30s. They will invest in their landscapes, but it’s going to be later than previous generations. Capturing them means making them feel successful and important. Keep plant language simple, provide how-to videos and concrete examples and offer loyal customers exclusive offers and other incentives to make them feel like VIPs. (See our November/December 2014 article about Swanson’s Nursery for inspiration: bit.ly/1xsIDdX.) Once you do, they’ll share their experience with their friends via social media. So make your online presence known. If you don’t, to this generation, you simply do not exist.

6. “We need to reinvent the hobby of gardening.” The lively Town Meeting, “Not Your Grandma’s Garden: Gardens in the new millennium” featured panelists Brienne Gluvna Arthur of “Growing a Greener World,” Garry Grueber of Cultivaris Europe, Kelly Norris of the Des Moines Botanical Garden and Mason Day of GrowIt! Mobile. The group of experts repeated ad nauseam the importance of social media and changing the way the industry sells plants. One panelist (comments can be reported but not directly quoted and assigned) said one of the most important things retailers must do is “reinvent the hobby of gardening.” For years, the industry has tried to make gardening simple and easy so that people weren’t scared of the work involved. That has inadvertently diminished the idea of gardening as a hobby. People are looking for hobbies and DIY projects, and gardening is a perfect outlet for them. Planting a landscape shouldn’t be a one-time event. Be sure to advertise this, too. As one panelist noted, “Marketing is a real profession.” Hire someone to help.

7. “Food drives consumers.” Canning, brewing, fermenting, hydroponic gardening kits and other DIY food-making products should be offered at garden centers, panelists said during the Town Meeting. Edibles are a no-brainer, and often do well when sold in larger pots and “ready-to-go” containers for small space gardeners. But this generation is reverting back to their grandparents and great-grandparents’ traditions of preserving their garden bounties and making their own products.

8. People appreciate green spaces and like to spend time outdoors. As an industry, we need to help them do this. Attendance is up at public gardens. By creating an experience at your store, customers will start spending time (and money) there, too. (More on this below.)

9. SHIFT your idea of what retail means and how you operate your business. AmericanHort shared results from its yearlong (and going) study of garden centers and retail, with the goal of getting new gardeners into independent retailers. After visiting and researching more than 40 garden centers across the country, AmericanHort and the MindMarket team from the Columbus College of Art and Design digested the data into explicit, specific examples of how garden centers can better serve customers. This includes a friendly, no hassle (and conversational) return policy, later hours, especially during peak season, and rethinking how we talk to shoppers.

Instead of inundating customers who may be new gardeners with questions like “Sun or shade?” Keep it simple and instead ask “Pink or purple?” “Indoors or out?” “Gift for you or for someone else?”

10. The industry needs to get back to its roots. Sure, dog food and scarves can attract a more diverse customer base, but the focus of the garden center should be plants. Retailers can engage customers by asking questions like, “Why are plants important to you?” and give them space to share their ideas. (The SHIFT display at Cultivate’15 included a white board and dry-erase markers where people could write their thoughts.) Merchandising should celebrate and focus on green goods.

To read the rest of our takeaways from Cultivate’15, follow this link: bit.ly/1OmTx9E

California reduces water use by 29 percent

SACRAMENTO, Calif. –- As the state continues to experience near-record and record hot conditions, increasing the severity of the drought’s effects on communities, agriculture and the environment, California’s urban water suppliers reported the highest level of conservation achieved to date for the month of May.

The State Water Resources Control Board announced that statewide residential water use declined 28.9 percent in May, the steepest drop since Gov. Jerry Brown called on all Californians to conserve water in the face of limited supplies.

“The numbers tell us that more Californians are stepping up to help make their communities more water secure, which is welcome news in the face of this dire drought,” said State Water Board Chair Felicia Marcus. “That said, we need all Californians to step up — and keep it up — as if we don’t know when it will rain and snow again, because we don’t.”

Enforcement and compliance statistics reported for the month of May also indicate that water suppliers are following up on water waste complaints and issuing formal warnings and penalties against alleged violators. Complaints are a very important tool for identifying leaks and overwatering that could go undetected for weeks, resulting in millions of gallons of wasted water. This latest information comes ahead of the June reporting period, the first month that the new statewide conservation standards are in effect and measured.

Encouraged by the newest data, State Water Board officials called on all Californians to continue conserving as the drought persists and further reduce their water use in the critical summer months of June, July, August and beyond.

The Board remains cautiously optimistic, acknowledging that rain in some parts of the state during May likely contributed to the higher conservation rate. The conservation mandate allows locals to decide where to conserve, but encourages suppliers to focus on reducing irrigation, which accounts for up to 80 percent of residential water use in hotter climates.

To read more about California’s drought, read our July cover story: bit.ly/1OrLHvY

Difference makers

Homestead Gardens
Davidsonville and Severna Park, Maryland

For more than a decade, the Emerald Ash Borer has devastated millions of ash trees throughout the U.S.

Maryland, like many states in the central and southeastern part of the country, has been hit hard. Ash is the most common tree in Baltimore, according to the Maryland Department of Agriculture, and accounts for 293,000 trees or 10.4 percent of the tree population. The USDA has estimated losses could exceed $227,568,000 from EAB in the Baltimore area alone.

Homestead Gardens, like other independent garden centers in the state, has worked to encourage customers to replant and protect their trees. But many are hesitant. Trees are a significant investment, and gardeners are worried they’ll lose a tree again. The state offers a $25 coupon for trees with a retail value of at least $50, and that helps nudge gun-shy consumers, but education and prevention are also key.

That’s why Mark Jenkins, assistant general manager, and Rick Fuller, nursery manager, decided to partner with Bayer Advanced and its Healthy Trees for Life program. The lawn-and-garden products company works with the Arbor Day Foundation and visits communities to educate residents on how to care for trees and protect them from EAB. They offer product demonstrations and other information. Venues vary from recreation departments to parks to independent garden centers, and communities.

“We thought it was a great thing for the community to make sure we can protect our trees and make sure we have healthy trees in the area,” Jenkins says.

This past spring, Bayer Advanced set up a table at Homestead Gardens, one of the companies they partnered with in 2015.

“The point of having Bayer here was to help protect those specific species [affected by EAB], and they had a planning packet with care information,” Fuller says. “We do want these trees to live when our customers plant them, that’s why we wanted to offer the knowledge to take this tree down the road.”

They both said Bayer Advance’s information and products are “instrumental” in protecting trees from the invasive pest.

“I think it’s important to note that our customers look to us as the experts, so when we support a product, they immediately feel some comfort with buying the product,” Fuller says.

Sales on the products and trees were up that day, despite the less-than-ideal weather.

“Between Healthy Trees for Life and the Maryland Plant Trees campaign, we’ve seen a major increase in the middle-of-the-road trees,” Fuller says. “People were always skeptical about planting Dogwoods, but with products like this at their disposal, we’ve seen an increase in the 7 and 15 gallon price range, from $74.99 to $149.

“We are doing a lot to reach our customers about how to plant our trees, but the Bayer product is definitely helping with the survivability of these trees.”