GTN PROMOTION
Grow your card sales the easy way…
Award-winning Fron Goch and Haskins garden centres choose Woodmansterne as their greeting card category management partners. Greeting cards are a growth area for garden centres - they drive footfall all year round, with a good margin that supports other garden centre gifting categories. When cards are retailed well, they create a visually-impactful area to grow sales. That’s where category management plays a key role, ensuring great availability, a varied product range from different publishers, day-to-day management, as well as sales reporting and analysis. GTN spoke to Kati Taylor at the Garden Centre of the Year 2019, Fron Goch, and Michelle Martin from the successful garden centre group, Haskins, to understand their recent success with card category management.
Card sales up by over 30% at Fron Goch Kati Taylor, Head of Retail & Marketing at Fron Goch Garden Centre in Carnarvon, North Wales, told GTN that they were looking for an improved greeting card department because of developments at the award-winning centre.
“Fron Goch has evolved over the last decade from a trip for a couple of plants to a chosen destination for a relaxed shopping and dining experience.” “Strengthening our developing ell-being, departments of houseplants, well-being, side the cards, books and clothing alongside introduction of new departmentss was the driving force behind the new £1.5m improvements project started at the beginning of the year.” Why did Fron Goch move to W-Select? “Card sales had stagnated over the last few years and the ageing area no longer fitted the customers expectations in range. Changing the area, installing new fixtures and tailoring the range has had immediate results. After extensive research and visiting various suppliers at Spring Fair we decided Woodmansterne had the range, quality and look we were desiring.”
Emma Bridgewater cards for Woodmansterne What was your experience of working with Woodmansterne? “Throughout the whole process the team remained easy-natured and professional. From the initial conversation at Spring Fair, communication throughout to the installation, Woodmansterne have proven to be both professional and collaborative. Working together we designed the space and layout, colour matching with new and existing departments alongside the designated area and planned the specific card designs and collections we felt would fit our customers needs.” How has the new card department at Fron Goch worked? “Since the new department was installed the feedback from both customers and team have been incredibly complimentary. The merchandising support has proved invaluable and despite it being such a short period of time we have seen an instant increase in sales of over 30%. The fresh range, clear signage and the ability to include a large selection of Welsh cards into the collection meant we now have a unique display that we are proud of.” Would you recommend W-Select? “Highly. The whole process has been a joy. The fit out, range of cards and back up support has been exceptional.”
40 September 2020
www.gardentradenews.co.uk
