Imagine the consumer walking into the garden centre, looking at a gorgeous plant and picking it up to admire the flowers. They wonder who raised it, the history of the plant, where to plant it in their garden and how to care for it. They get out their mobile phone and place it next to the label.

The phone comes to life and shows them a video of the plant raiser, provides a brief history of the plant, it shows a mature plant and how to care for it. The phone also links through to a Face book page where they can read the comments of previous buyers of the plant. They are captivated by the plant and the information provided and place the plant in their shopping trolley.

You may think I have just lost the plot or I am talking about a scenario that will take place in 2050, but this could happen today, there is nothing stopping your labels talking about you to the customer.

Having observed this scenario you, as an observer, are curious and take a closer look at the label, you expect to see a bar code similar to what you are familiar with when you look at the cans in the grocery store. But, this bar code is different, it is square and has little back squares across it. The computer gurus call it a “QR Code” as it is a two dimensional bar code. You do your research and find it was invented in Japan in 1994 by the Denso-Wave Corporation. The QR stands for “Quick Response” and is in fact a common bar code in Japan. In fact a Japanese garden centre would find that a lot of the mobile phones in 2010 in Japan can already read this code.

Welcome to a new Era in Marketing Plants
You may wonder why we should look at this technology? I believe it will become essential if we are to grow plant sales. One of the challenges that the industry has is that garden centres have a wide range of plant material and a labour force that is becoming less effective in providing all the information required by the customer. My own research via our web page earlier this year asked the question of those surveyed if they felt product knowledge had improved or deteriorated over the last five years. 61.8% of those asked felt that the knowledge provided by retail sales people had gone backwards in that period. This means customers are less trusting of information provided by sales people in a garden centre any other retail outlet.

The person they will believe is the grower and their friends who have already purchased a plant and have real life experiences of the plant in their gardens.

This new technology brings trust back into the purchase and will help bolster the customers confidence.The grower is now the trusted guru who provides the advice and gives support to the retailer. The Facebook friends offer genuine unbiased advice to support the information provided by the experts.

QR Codes may still be futuristic for the industry, but they are commonly used in industry as tracing devices and mobile tagging is now becoming common with mobile phone users who have the right camera built into their phone.

I will leave the technology to those who are far more qualified than me to explain, I am just fascinated at how it will help us develop the industry in the future.

The system is being developed and becoming main stream.The UK pop group, The Pet Shop Boys used a QR Code for the download of their 2007 CD and directed users to their website.

I am aware of horticultural label companies that are already looking at this technology and it indicates a major shift in the way we will sell plants or other products in the future.

When it comes to bar coding we would be called late adopters to the system, time will tell whether we become late adopters to this new system. We cannot say it will not work on a plant label because we know that it does, we cannot say it will not have benefits we know that plant sales are often held back because of the lack of confidence of the consumer in retail outlet. We will need to look at the return on the investment, but that investment will shrink rapidly as the system becomes more available to all businesses.

The consumer is already starting to upgrade to smarter phones and it will not be too long before all phones will have the but in technology.

Look at The Advantages
Consider the advantages that this system brings to the supply chain:

1. As a raiser of plants you control the communications within the supply chain. You can be confident that every consumer gets the right information and the same information
2. Consumers can comment on your plants and you can address those queries as they come along. You will hear the positive and negative news yourself and will be able to address these immediately.
3. You save valuable staff time training team member in the supply chain on the technical features and benefits of the product.
4. You can plan promotions directly with the consumer through the plant label.
5. Supply partners can join forces with you to do add on selling and to cross merchandise.
6. garden centre owners and managers can be confident that the information being provided to the consumer is accurate.

When I introduced this system to a group of propagators recently at a conference there were misgivings. Not about the system, but the fact that they would become the hero in the customers eyes rather than the sales person. I was surprised at this reaction as I felt the propagator should be the hero as they started the process and they were responsible for the growing process. As a consumer I would love to know from the plant raiser the stories connected with the plant.
Do not look on this as a result of new technology, it is part of an ongoing process and other new ideas using this type of coding will develop.

Already in New York their is an interactive billboard using the same technology. It is promoting Air New Zealand, the countries national carrier. The billboard has a code and when you plug in the code to your phone you can control what the pilot does on the billboard. If you want him to do a Moon Dance you plug in a certain code and he starts dancing accordingly. Although the billboard is located in Time Square, the phone connection goes to Wellington. Just think what control the grower will have in the retail location in the future.

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