Top 100 IGCs: Deck the halls with profits

Moore & Moore Garden Center, number 81 on our Top 100 Independent Garden Centers, list won our 2013 Christmas displays photo contest on Facebook, so we knew it was worth a trip to see the festive store in person. General manager Robyn Brown and her team have been working holiday magic at the store for many years. And it’s no coincidence the displays look great all year round, not just during the holiday season.

“I, along with one other of my employees came out of higher end women’s clothing [retail], where they do a lot of seminars and meetings on merchandising,” Brown says. She recounts the hands-on merchandising training and believes that it’s made a difference in both her work as well as rubbed off on the employees that she manages. “Some of my guys have helped us set up pottery for so long that they know where to place things sometimes before I even tell them,” she says. “I think by us doing it over and over again, they really get a sense of how it’s supposed to be. And I think my team’s been really, really good at learning that kind of thing.”

When it comes to planning for Christmas, Brown and her team have a system that works well for them, and it actually starts right after Christmas.
 

Take stock of what’s left on the shelf

The first order of post-holiday business at Moore & Moore is to evaluate what is still sitting on the sale rack. “We see what didn’t sell so we don’t make the same mistakes [next year],” Brown says. “While things are fresh, we’ll make notes of what did and didn’t sell, and what to change.” Over the years, they’ve noticed there was a theme behind some of the products that continually undersold: “anything too contemporary looking, cute or whimsical.” After several years of attempting to move those products, they decided to cut back in that category and carry the bare minimum. Most Santas and elves were out, more traditional products were in.
 

Brainstorm for next season and take a trip to the gift shows

From Nashville to the January gift show AmericasMart, where Brown buys most of her Christmas products each year, is only about a four-hour drive away. Each year Brown is accompanied by three of her top designers, two of her floral staff and another buyer. And Brown and her team take full advantage of the time spent in the car to organize their efforts. “We decide on what our themes are going to be for the year and talk about what we’ve seen trending,” Brown says. Their holiday set-up typically has between three and five Christmas trees, each one with a different theme. “When we get to market, everybody kind of goes their separate ways and searches out those themes,” she says.
 

Keep an eye on the trends and be prepared to shift focus from year to year

Owls were at the bottom of the list this year, says Brown. The market was saturated and it was time to move forward with something different. “This year, I saw golds and metallic trending in the magazines, so we decided we were include them,” she says.
 

Visit local retail stores to see what they’re putting on the shelves

Remember how the store decided to cut back on the whimsical, cute and contemporary after subpar sales? Brown did some thinking on the matter and took a look at other retail stores in the area to see what they were carrying. “My guess is that’s it because you can find the whimsical stuff just about everywhere from a Kroger to a Walmart, they don’t buy it from us,” she says.

She stresses the importance of getting out to see what the competition is doing to be able to differentiate on selection rather than price. “Because we’re independent, we can’t compete on [price],” Brown says. “So we have to try to stay ahead of trends.”
 

Find your style

But it’s not all about the trends. You also have to know your customer base and what works for them, as well as identify your store’s Christmas style. Is it funky or more simple? Is it traditional or contemporary? Are you catering to kids or their parents? In Moore & Moore’s case, they haven’t found as much success selling Christmas products for kids. Sure, they carry a few products, but it’s not the store’s focus. “What we do is more of a home décor Christmas [style],” Brown says. “It’s more traditional with an edge.”
 

Repurpose or embellish other products from earlier in other seasons

Since the Christmas season is relatively short and leads into what is the slowest sales period for many garden centers, Brown and her team look for ways to get the biggest bang for their buck throughout the year. They take products that they would already carry at the store, such as candlesticks, picture frames, lanterns and terrariums, and give them a Christmassy look with evergreens, berries and ribbons. And sales took off. “So we thought rather than invest in a bunch of traditional Christmas tabletop products, we would buy items that we could bring in early and decorate,” she says. “If they don’t sell, at least I’ve got an opportunity to take everything [holiday-related] off of them and sell them later.”
 

Spread the in-house work throughout the year when possible

After attending AmericasMart, the team gets into the spring season, and Christmas is put on the back burner until July, when much of the new stock starts to arrive. “I try to buy from companies that give me Christmas dating, which helps us a lot because I can start bringing it in in July when we’re in our slow period and have it all priced and ready to go [before the holidays],” says Brown. From July through October, designers are also busy at work creating handmade artificial wreaths and tabletop pieces and starting to construct display elements. This year a good portion of time was spent breaking down pallets used to create 3-foot-tall wooden Christmas tree table toppers Brown had seen featured on Pinterest. By October 1, the Christmas transformation begins at the store.

Strike while the iron is hot and pull back ordering at the appropriate time

At the beginning of November, Brown takes a good look at her inventory to avoid having product left over after the holidays. At around 5 to 6 weeks before Christmas, she starts cancelling any back orders she placed and typically won’t reorder anything after the Christmas open house (which is always the first weekend in November). And they don’t start putting items on sale until after the holiday is over.

“Last year, we sold through 90 percent of our stock,” she says. “A lot of [the leftovers] we can reuse if we choose to [because they’re regular season products we embellished for Christmas].”
 

Get inspired wherever you can

“I’m really good at going out and stealing ideas,” confesses Brown. Her inspiration can come from magazines, catalogs and even Pinterest. She also spends time talking to her staff about what they’ve been seeing, and makes regular trips out to local stores to see what they’re putting on sale and what’s been overused. “I shop everybody to see what they’re doing so I can be different or at least be able to know what they’re selling, what their selling prices are, and steal any merchandising ideas that I can steal,” she says.

As your holiday season winds to an end, remember — your Christmas shopping may just be beginning. Don’t miss out on opportunities to get ahead of the game and plan for your best Christmas season yet.

Photos by Karen E. Varga