A Southern Hemisphere Perspective of the U.K. Garden Centre Industry

By John Stanley

During September I had the opportunity of taking 22 garden centre owners from South Africa, Middle East and Australia around some of the best garden centres in the U.K.  For a number of the tour delegates this was their first time to the U.K. and it was therefore a fascinating insight to look at the industry through other people�s eyes.

On the last evening we had a review of the industry session.  What were
their thoughts on the U.K., what would they take home as ideas and
where did they feel the U.K. lagged behind?

There was a unanimous agreement that the U.K. garden centre was aiming
at the �share of garden� market spend with centres providing for all
the needs of the U.K. gardener, they were truly one stop shops, plus
the diversification into pets, coffee shops and farm shop produce was
the envy of all.

Most southern hemisphere garden centres are more plant orientated with
70% of income coming from plants, rather than the 30% quoted by many
U.K. retailers.

The group did question whether this diversification was healthy, they
all agreed that �share of garden� spend was ideal, but were puzzled at
why many of the centres, when compared with home, had let the plant
offer deteriorate.  The quality, variety and display strategy for
plants was, in the visitors� viewpoint a lot more variable than the dry
offer and more variable than would be expected in the leading garden
centres in their own countries.

Customer service was especially good in all the pet departments the
group visited, but again was variable in the garden plant departments.
The conclusion came across that the pet retailers were more passionate
about their product and customers than the plant retailers.

The group were impressed with the quality of the food offer, both in
food halls selling local food and in the restaurants visited.

The big stimulus for my delegates was that the U.K. highlighted that
you have to constantly be proactive; the term if you �snooze you lose�
is very apt for the garden market today.  The proactive retailers were
growing the market and thriving, whilst the less proactive were losing
market share.

The key role of middle management also focused delegates� minds.  They
became aware of how important proactive category managers are in an
independent business.

This was the first southern hemisphere delegates� tour to link up with
GLEE.  It was voted a huge success and the group were impressed with
what they saw.  They will back next year to see new developments.

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