Does Display Matter?
It seems like everyone in the green industry is putting an increasing emphasis on the retail display. Growers are packaging their plants with colorful pots, attractive tags, signage, bench tape and more. Every magazine is chock full of articles about displays and how it can drive sales. Industry events have whole tracks of educational seminars devoted to the subject, with consultants consulting all about design.
All parties agree: if we get the presentation right, we can see an increase in sales of 30% or more.
But OpenHort has concluded that display doesn’t matter (as much as everyone thinks it does). [Last year we wrote, “We have given the American consumer two options: call a landscape contractor and they will come to your house with a truck full of Mexicans or go to a garden center and blindly pick out plants as best you can. Trucks or shelves. Take your pick.” It has taken us some time to get around to explaining what we think about this more fully.]
Better Conversion or More Opportunities?
An overemphasis on the retail display is detrimental to long-term results because it addresses the wrong point in the sales funnel (or sales process). We may get excited to find we can impact the point of “conversion,” but if the traffic flow of customers is drying up, it’s a futile effort. Forgive the cliche, but it’s like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It doesn’t matter how nice it looks; the boat is still sinking.
More disturbing than our industry’s unsophisticated product packaging and merchandising is our inability to generate sustained traffic for more than a few weekends in the spring. People aren’t going to garden centers like they used to. The customers are disappearing.
At some point, we have to realize we can’t get by selling 30% more to fewer and fewer people. We need more customers. We need more sales opportunities.
Assuming that growers and consultants and retailers all share the same goal (which, unfortunately, is not true…but maybe more on that later) to sell more plants for increasing margins, our energies would be best served focusing on increasing the frequency of the sales opportunities, not the quality of the presentation. (We’re not saying presentation doesn’t matter at all. It just isn’t as important as the frequency.)
Build it and they WON’T come.
The “Field of Dreams” philosophy of the destination garden center may have worked before, but it’s broken now. Great plants in wonderful packaging arranged in breathtaking displays are not enough to attract the number of customers our industry needs to survive. We have built a game we are bound to lose. We are completely dependent on the fickle, time-pressed, budget-strapped American consumer to take the initiative and seek us out. In Spring. On the weekend. When the weather’s nice. And traffic isn’t too bad. And they feel like doing some strenuous yard work. Instead of a million other things they could do.
So, how are we driving traffic to those lovely retail benches?
Some garden centers are still hoping traditional media like newspapers and radio can bring the masses into their stores. Others are turning to new media like social networking. How well do they work? Not well enough it seems. Others hold seminars and events, parties and benefits. Some innovative retailers have restaurants and cafes; the public comes to dine in a beautiful atmosphere. Plant-shopping is an afterthought.
Increasing the Chances to Sell.
We see two solid ideas that will challenge the supremacy of the retail shelf: take the plants to where the people are and offer garden coach service.
Go to them.
You’ve seen the pop-up garden marts. The road-side stands. What’s old is new again. Are they really working? Are they profitable? (We don’t know!) In the future, we think we will see even smaller and more temporary attempts to “take the plants to where the people are” instead of “build it and they will come.” We will see mobile garden centers. Think of a converted school bus. (Will we hear the ice-cream man say, “Would you like a hydrangea with that?”) Drop-shipped self-selling pallet systems of plants. Kiosks at high-traffic retail spots. Privatized parks and landscapes that are “shoppable” via QR-code type technology. Tupperware or Pampered Chef style “garden parties” for plants (this idea may belong to the “garden coach” section.)
Perhaps the easiest way to “get the plants in front of the people” is…Facebook. Most IGCs already have a FB page, but they don’t sell though it. They remind, encourage and beg their “fans” to come to the store so that their bench has an opportunity to do it’s thing. Why not put some of that bench right there on Facebook? Check out some simple e-commerce solutions that let you sell directly on your Facebook page. There are plugins for WordPress and hosted solutions like BigCommerce.
(Let me know if you want to hear more about any of these concepts.)
Coach them.
This one is big. Really big. We are convinced that the emergence of the garden coach could revitalize our industry very quickly, faster than we dare dream possible. People don’t want to SHOP. It’s a chore. It’s inconvenient. It’s confusing. It’s overwhelming. And the results they get when they do…well, we should be ashamed of how often our customers fail. Shopping stinks.
But plants are awesome!
People want to be happy, comfortable, relaxed (some may say lazy), attractive, healthy, respected, admired, loved, enlightened, empowered and valued. Plants can give them all of what they want, in ways that will blow their minds. But they can’t see past the shelves (so wonderfully merchandised!) to see how in the world the confusing jumble of flowers and shrubs we have hidden away in our houses of glass can give them what they really want.
Enter the garden coach. They can paint the vision. They can relate. They can inspire.
And they can do it even when it’s NOT spring. It doesn’t matter if it’s the weekend. The weather doesn’t have to be perfect. If you’re scratching your head, wondering how a garden coach can do any of these things, things a retail bench can never do…then you really need to think about it some more. It’s gonna be huge.
Disclaimer: We are not retail experts. Think twice before agreeing (or disagreeing) with us! We have thought of a few arguments against our own position: 1) cluttering the sales funnel (fewer quality leads are better than a massive amount of poor leads), 2) DIY is still a strong instinct, therefore resistant to the garden coach 3) not enough talented people qualified to be garden coaches and 4) unproven profit models for alternative sales locations.
Thanks for reading! We’d appreciate any feedback!
~Art
Right on Art! All these years of articles, talks, and instruction on cross merchandising, suggestive selling, merchandising, display, fixtures, etc. and it’s like going backwards in most garden centers. At best any one of these yields a couple of bucks of increased average transaction dollars. (There are exceptions where some have grown primarily as beneficiaries of super great weather, losing large competitors, booming market, etc. of course but outside of that if all of these are executed there is never much gain.) Still, it’s not the increase of a few add ons and suggestions that makes the real difference. The gains that are possible and I’ve seen are in the $20-40 plus increase in average transaction by connecting with the customer individually and personally. The way the math works is that you have to find the big sales among those customers walking through the store and you can’t do that with displays. There has to be a culture that engages every customer and finds their potential. When that happens a few more but meaningful big sales are added on the day or week that boost the average transaction in a big way that nothing else will do. They want the end result and need help imagining it and getting it. Most of them are simply not equipped to self-serve from displays and get what they really want even if they do buy all of the accoutrements. And okay, satellite spring carryouts will help the total company but not on a same-store basis.
I agree with you about the problem – not sure how the solutions would work. Pop up garden centers and weekend events in ultra-cool locations may move a lot of plants but aren’t THERE later when people need something else. I don’t know what it would look like, providing the expertise without the retail presence. I like the idea of the garden coach but it will be a high-end service to people who can pay or it. Don’t know where that leaves the more casual gardener. I see the industry splintering, with most of the dollars going the convenient, drop-ship, email coach, grab and go way while a very select few of us remain as boutique-style garden centers. Rather like the home-sewing business. Most customers buy crafty junk from Hobby Lobby and Jo-Ann’s or online, but some frequent very high-end, high-service boutiques. [Must go apply for job as marketing director for a greenhouse…]
Are we talking about personal shopper with plant knowledge? Oh by the way farmers markets are not profitable unless the owner is doing the growing and selling.
Please be kind enough to explain more in detail how you would envision a garden coach system would work for a garden center. Could you have enough garden coaches that would sell enough product that the bills would get paid for the office.
Great article.We now have a weekday convenience and a weekend experience consumer and this is changing the retail model.Hence the emergence of the virtual garden centre.This concept is now being franchised and I believe will be a critical part of the future.A traditional garden centre in the future has to have a “Clicks” and “Bricks” strategy if it is going to survive,but having said that in Perth in Australia our most successful garden retail model is a virtual garden centre. They are now in discussions to licence this in New Zealand,UK,Canada,USA ,Holland and other countries.It will be one of the future models.
Merchandising in garden centres is an area where consumers should get inspired ,but they want to buy using a convenience model.
I agree completely with your observations here, Art. The exponential increase in ‘private party’ industries (well beyond Tupperware!) in recent years has been fascinating to watch. Candles, jewelry (& more jewelry), purses & monogrammed items, full clothing lines with seasonal launches (!!!), lingerie & intimate products, sheets/towels, makeup. What do all these products have in common? Their target customer. That and for the most part they’re discretionary dollars being spent: (these aren’t “bread & milk” parties!) Bring in a garden coach to a backyard near you with a truckload o’ plants, pour some wine, plant up some combos, get questions answered, hang out with your friends, tally up your bill at the end. Seems like this is a natural fit/extension for bricks & mortar stores!
We are a wholesale grower and the retailers’ problems are our problems. From our experience consumers may try an indoor plants from a big box in their first apartment, depending on their haphazard choice they either think plants are easy or they decide they aren’t worth the money. I believe it is time to push those first time buyers toward the lowest maintenance, most durable plant for a first purchase. Problem is those are often the most expensive choices and the big box doesn’t explain the difference.
I agree with the convience suggestion above. Tell the consumer what they want today and then what they need to come back for next month. Begin with back to school season, If retailers could give a “rebate” on interior plants like agloneamas and ZZ for a first-time buyer those consumers would enjoy immediate positive reinforcement. Then tie the rebate to the next season’s special, i.e. mumms or poinsettia, or Norfolk Island pine, to get them back in a few months to try something else. Don’t want the responsibility of watering, get a ZZ or orchid, even a sansevera. No natural light in the apartment, get an agloneama. What something flowering try a bromeliad. If it grows slow it will be more expensive but it will also survive much longer. Sell success on the first one and tie the extra cost to the sale of a seasonal item later. If it is a seasonal plant then chances are that they won’t feel cheated on if it fails after a month or two in inhospitable conditions. Then when spring comes do the workshops. But make them affordable, let them bring their own container or even by giving them something later. They will quickly learn that it is much easier to do plants outside and maybe, even in the ground.
The biggest complaint I hear from our 30 something friends is that garden centers are “too expensive”. They need to be taught that quality and advice count. These folks spend money. They patronize the same movie theaters, coffee shops, and expensive ice cream shops for the points they accumulate, they want something extra for their money so give them extra. Tropical plants are big and readily available in August and September when it may well be too hot to garden, perhaps that is a way to get them back “inside” at your garden center. And if you are near a new subdivision why aren’t you offering free design plans with a minimum purchase? If you do then is there a big sign out front that says so??
Art,
I”m not sure I buy the ‘attention to display is hurting our industry in the long run’ idea, but I do buy into the garden coach. Per your advice we’ve implemented the idea into our program in a small way and it’s been very successful. Home consultations and personalized attention in the nursery have been a hit with our customer base, and it is encouraging how many referrals we have received from satisfied customers. I envision taking it to the next level via social networking, personalized service (which our customers are willing to pay for) and promotion.
While it’s not new, I do like the idea of bringing the plants to the masses via the garden mart, the entrance of the grocery store or hardware store rather than waiting for them to come to us. So many of our plants are impulse items…the masses would buy if only they could see them…touch them…smell them. Sure, there are peak seasons when they would sell better than others, but isn’t it especially important to get our plants out during slow seasons in order to capture sales and even out our crazy cash flow.
John Stanley…very interesting vision on the virtual garden center. It seems inevitable.
Kellee…I love the idea of visiting the customer’s backyard as a garden coach with a truckload of plants in hand!