The Global Garden Retail Conference 2022 ... It Changed our World!

By John Stanley
 

One of the biggest challenges the independent garden centre industry has had over the last two years has been looking at trends that can help them improve.

The reason is twofold. One, is they have been busy with increased sales and keeping up with supplying stock, hence they have been time poor, and secondly, because of COVID and travel restrictions around the world, owners have been unable to travel to look at ideas because of COVID and travel restrictions around the world.

As a consultant who works around the world, I have had the same problem: not being able to keep up with ideas and trends.

Hence six months ago I started a conversation with Sid Raisch, the American garden centre consultant, on how we could correct this situation. We harped back to “The Gatherings” I presented in America, France, UK and Czech where I would invite groups of around 15 people to a two day think tank on the garden industry. Perhaps we could go online and attract 50 people to an online gathering? A germ of an idea was born.

Fast Forward Six Months

On February 1-3, 2022, we launched the inaugural online Garden Retail Conference and Trade Show. Participants included over 1,400 people from 30 countries. This was the biggest international conference ever held for our industry and we will now make it a yearly event. It also included the first international trade show linked to a conference for independent garden centre owners.

We needed sponsors and Ball became our Diamond sponsor and Marco Orlandelli and his team became our Italian sponsors. Both placed a booth in the virtual trade show along with Seimans from Holland and number of other international suppliers to the industry.

Speakers presented from around the world. The USA was represented by Anna and Susannah Ball, John Kennedy, Sid Raisch, Katie Elzer-Peters and Derek Peebles; Canada by Todd Baker and Warren Patterson, France by Marcel Rucar, Ukraine by Regina Razumovska, South Africa by Doug Watson, United Kingdom by Andrew Burton, and myself, John Stanley, from Australia. Each speaker was given 20 minutes to get their message across.

A truly international panel of speakers who were selected as being the leading “Thought Leaders” in the industry today. This group became a powerhouse of speakers with positive ideas of how we can grow the industry.

I could provide an article of what every speaker brought to the table, but I thought it would be more valuable to provide an overall article on the trends that came out of the programme and what we all need to do to take the next step.

Before I do that a huge thank you to Ken Klopp and his team at OrderEase for putting this together. They took the ideas from me, Sid Raisch and Andrew Burton and made it happen. Plus, a big thank you to this magazine for supporting the idea and sharing it with. If you did not attend, you missed a major opportunity to develop your business and we look forward to seeing you at the conference next year.

Okay let’s get started ...The Future

For the first time, probably, in our lifetime, every single global trend is trending within our business sector, and this is the same around the world with all countries finding plant sales are up.

The trends in our favour are:

• Consumer attention is focused on their home. Consumers are being forced to spend more time at home and want to fix their place up. Hence paint and plant sales are growing at around the same rate around the globe. The growth being driven by the 25–40-year-olds who are spending more to enhance their house and garden, are in need of green and want to spend time in nature.
• Sustainability. A shift from just caring for the environment to also include personal well-being. Plants are probably the only product sold that are completely sustainable and have a positive impact on the environment. Marcel Rucar from France mentioned that this is also being reflected in younger consumers searching for natural based products, clearer space, but lots of nature. Derek Peebles mentioned that 83% of consumers prefer positive activism and buy products from businesses they believe in.
• Plant Parenting. In the USA alone in 2021 there were 20 million new plant buying customers in the marketplace. All wanting to care for plants. This was developed further by Macel Rucar who talked about the market being divided as follows:
  • Under 40’s             46% of market        (increasing market share)
  • Over 40-59           40% of market
  • Over 60’s               14% of market        (decreasing market share)

One opportunity mentioned was garden centres could make shopping simpler by bundling products to make gardening easier.

Add to this, that gardens are getting larger for the first time in a generation, plus 2021 was the first year in five years that we saw an increase in bricks and mortar shop openings and the “shop local” movement increase their awareness to promote local businesses.

Derek Peebles emphasised the important benefits of local retailing. He illustrated this with research from Maine, USA where when $100 was spent at a local store, $45 stayed local, whilst if a consumer shopped at a chain store only $18 circulated at a local level.

The young consumer of the future is looking for seasonal change in garden centres and their homes, they are getting more lazy, they have more money to spend on their garden, but want more enjoyment out of their garden and want to do less garden chores. This should be reflected in garden services offered and the appropriate bundling of products.

Those born after 2000 are looking to the trends and fashions of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and this is where Sid Raisch picked up the theme of you need to get groovy. These consumers are creating the urban exodus, an increase in bees in the garden and they want to be groovy Gentle Farmers.

Hence, this is the time to grow your business and take risks.

But as Anna Ball emphasised, there are always risks in businesses. The key risks are:

• Supply Chain dysfunction, loss of networking due to COVID travel restrictions, labour shortage and increased customer demand.

Now is the time to invest in your people to ensure they are satisfied with their job, increase your skills in information technology and encourage more people into our industry.

Vision, Values, Violation

To start this journey, John Kennedy emphasised we need to communicate our brand.

People Buy for Four Reasons

9% based on Price

19% based on the Brand

19% based on the Product

53% Based on the Experience

(Reference: John Kennedy)

Your Values are based on what the owners are passionate about and could include fun, happiness, beauty, honesty, success etc. The vision is the willingness of the team to align themselves with the values. The violation is the implementation on a daily basis.

A number of presenters focused on values and implementation as a means of ensuring you provide the consistent experience the consumer is searching for.

Sustainability

As expected, sustainability was a thread throughout the three-day conference. The theme was started by Anna Ball and then followed through by Todd Baker. Todd argued that sustainability was being kept in the background in most garden centres where it should be in the foreground and leading our marketing strategies. He mentioned that the industry has had very few new retailers enter the market and most have operated for over 50 years and are not promoting their “green” strategy. He mentioned Dobbies from the UK as the only leader in this field he could find. We need to be more sustainable, and we need to promote that as a benefit to shopping with our businesses.  It does not have to be expensive. Spacex invented reusable rockets and reduced the cost of space travel by 40%.

20% of Millennial customers, 70% of whom are plant owners, will pay 25% more for a brand that they see as sustainable.

This means:

They do not want to buy plastic pots. We need to take plastic out of the whole process system.

In my presentation I mentioned that we were overdressing plants with fancy labels and coloured plastic pots, and we need to “get back to nature”. Other retail industries are going back to basics, and we should lead, not follow in this area.

We need to tell the story of who grew it and how we grew it, we need to “tell” our sustainable story.

Have you got a sustainable policy on your webpage was one of the challenges from this theme and how are we going to take plastic out of the process?

Information Technology

Anna Ball identified information technology as a weakness in our industry and Warren Patterson picked up this theme in his presentation.

Omni Channel marketing is now the norm with suppliers providing products to the big end retailers via vendor hubs and they are now looking at small retailers to do the same.

Omni Channel marketing can be divided into three processes.

Marketing ... Web, social media, mobile, print, email etc
Engagement ... Instore, online
Fulfilment ... Pickup in store, ship from store, ship from supplier, pick up from store etc

To ensure efficiency, data needs to flow upwards from the maker to the retailer (product information, inventory, pricing, order statistics etc)

At the same time there needs to be down flow of data from the retailer to the maker (In store stock holding, drop shipment details, direct delivery to customer etc).

Efficiency of operations means the retailer needs to invest in E commerce and vendor hubs need to be developed. This is happening already with large retailer relationships and will move down towards small retailers working with Omni channel vendor hubs.

Not all Customers are the Same

Regina Razumovski, a garden centre owner from Ukraine, developed the technology theme as it relates to customer loyalty and growing your business. She stressed the importance of the development of loyalty. With that information you can develop your touch points.

For example, provide the customers who visit 1-2 times a year with the following:

• Show you care about their plants
• Provide plant videos for them
• Give them a call after they have purchased

Showing they care has increased sales by 34% to this segment at Botanic, Regina’s garden centre in the Ukraine.

Customers who visit 5-9 times a year provide the largest average sales, trust the brand, and therefore are provided with different service:

• Advice on garden design
• Personalized visits by a professional
• Free delivery

The increase in sales to this segment since implementation of this strategy has been 84%. Customers who visit the garden centre more than ten times a year are your real advocates

They recommend the garden centre to their friends and provide positive feedback on social media. They have access to the garden centre if they have a plant emergency, get privileged coaching and training and attend “thank you” activities at the garden centre.

Regina’s presentation was a real thought-provoking presentation at the conference.

What will the Future Garden Centre look like?

A number of speakers addressed what future garden centres could look like. Andrew Burton emphasised, as a designer of garden centres, he now has to consider larger warehouses, click and collect, and home delivery facilities in his planning.

Andrew’s main message was “Be Famous for Something” Identify what you are good at, “What are you doing to stay ahead of the competition? “, “What are you doing to stay ahead of the competition in enhancing the customer experience”. This theme was taken up by Doug Watson who explained how Herbland in South Africa had established a unique slice of the market. I also picked up this theme by exploring how you should dominate a category and be famous for that category, whether it be indoor plants, succulents, edible gardening or whatever.

To own a category you need to deliver “Price Taker” products to the consumer and also develop unique “Price Maker” products within in the category, whilst ensuring that the team are “Day Makers” for your customers.

Kate Elzer-Peters took this to a new level by exploring how a garden centre can be a ”Community Hub” A place where locals can gather, celebrate, learn, share ideas, meet with friends, celebrate family traditions etc. Delight your customers and they will do your marketing.

Katie presented a three-stage development:

• Set the Stage ... it could be as simple as tables and chairs, a selfie location and putting some mirrors up.
• Invite the Guests ... let local groups know you have something new to offer them.
• Give Forward ... engage with the local community and support local community events.

Three days of intensive learning and visiting a trade show exceeded all of our expectations.

I, for one, have made changes in my own business and hopefully other have done so as well. We look forward to seeing you at the 2023 Garden Retail Conference.

Thank you again to everyone who made this amazing event possible

Further information

For more information regarding the Global Garden Retail Conference, please contact John Stanley at john@johnstanley.com.au.

Acknowledgements

First published in Garden Centres Australia eNews (16 February 2022).

Reprinted here with permission.