The Barn Nursery: The right deal at the right time

If there’s one thing the owners of The Barn Nursery have learned from the economic downturn of the late 2000s, it’s that a wise or lucky investment can pay big dividends.

Founded in 1960 and based in Chattanooga, Tenn., The Barn Nursery was not exempt from the recent nationwide recession that impacted nearly every business in the country. However, co-owner Jim Webster says there was opportunity among the crisis, allowing The Barn Nursery to purchase a large influx of hard goods for a steal, which then sold much faster than anticipated.

“When the economy was in its worst doldrums, we bought, initially, 52 tray loads of pottery,” Webster says. “That turned into 85 tray loads. Folks here thought I was crazy. Well, it sold a lot quicker than even I imagined. What I was stuck with was trying to figure out how to replace it, and there was no way I was going to replace that deal.”

Capitalizing on an unexpected customer response to the increased pottery inventory, Webster says The Barn Nursery invested even further in the goods by becoming a distributor for several major pottery companies, including Border Concepts. A section of the business was even dedicated to the popular new goods and dubbed “the Pottery Outlet at The Barn Nursery.”

In this way, a good deal on a popular item led to The Barn Nursery gaining a new specialty.

“It doesn’t turn like plants, but we’ve got a huge selection of pottery and we’ve become really known for that,” Webster says.

Today, The Barn Nursery employs about 30 full-time staff and another 35 seasonal employees. The facility has roughly 50,000 square feet of retail and growing space, with inventory steadily increasing and reaching into new categories. Gift items alone have expanded to around 10,000 square feet of the storefront, with sales on track to hit $1.7 million this year, compared to $60,000 at the end of 2010.

“We’ve grown sales almost $3 million since the economy crashed, and we’ve done a lot of expansion during that period of time,” Webster says. “We just continue to expand and be a little bit more retail friendly and try to reach out to that next generation that’s not gardening like their parents and grandparents. It’s starting to work.”

Another focus of The Barn Nursery’s operation has been a strong web presence and advertising approach that continues to connect with long-time gardeners and curious Millennials alike.

“I’m a big believer in marketing,” Webster says. “I’m the voice of The Barn. Television, radio. We’ve built our business on radio and that way, we’ve gone over and put that into television. We do billboards, we spend about $300,000 a year on marketing.”

As seriously as Webster takes brand awareness and customer engagement, he realizes his limitations when it comes to newer forms of communication. To help spread word about The Barn Nursery across the modern, hyper-connected world, he’s hired a social media expert to supplement traditional promotions.

“I’ve just kind of snuffed off social media,” Webster says. “I don’t understand it, it’s just a foreign language to me. So, we have a social media director now who’s doing a really good job. She gets it.”

Even with all the growth and expansion The Barn Nursery has experienced, there’s more on the horizon. Webster says he hopes to improve the signage in his business to help customers navigate more easily.

“We’ve got to be better on in-house signage,” Webster says. “We’ve got more than 100,000 transactions coming through the door and I think I need to be better at talking to the people that are here with better in-house signage, directional signs and informative signs.”

Webster also intends to open a seminar and meeting area at The Barn Nursery, providing a place for garden clubs and other interested groups to meet, connect and learn. However, these plans are only the tip of the iceberg as The Barn Nursery’s team looks years into the future to determine the best ways to fund new ventures and expansions.

Like with so many other businesses, it comes down to investments paying off and improving the bottom line.

“We’re planning five years out and we’re talking 10 years out,” Webster says. “When we started this last expansion, I was convinced if we continued to do in 10 years what we’re doing now, we’d be out of business. I still feel that way, so we’ve dramatically increased the business, we’re going to increase the business more. It’s fun thinking about it, but you have to figure out how to implement it.”