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Thoughts on the Past/Present and Future for Gardening Retailers Independent retail consultant, Liam Kelly charts the evolution of garden retailing and sets a course for a possible future
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ith 2017 being my business’s 10 year anniversary it seemed appropriate that I should comment on issues I have come across over that decade and have a look at where garden centres need to position themselves going forward into the next one. For the most part I work with medium and small retailers who recognise there is a problem and have a hunger and a real need to improve and drive sales. This can be a learning process for all concerned as I impose myself on their operation and twist and distort it into a retail business, which in most cases means a new way of thinking for everyone involved in the company, albeit with positive results. It also means that I get to see all the problems that affect a business, and generally their issues can be summed up in one major, all-
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encompassing question: How do I become a retailer? Perhaps it is not asked as blatantly as that, but it is certainly the crux of what of most clients require. This is very understandable as many came from a plant growing, farming or other background and fell into selling to the public almost by accident, as that love of growing plants turned into a source of income and then developed from there. But many had no retail acumen. Back when they started, the closest thing to link selling was the ubiquitous bag of bone meal suggested as a fertiliser with a few hundred Leylandii, and merchandising meant ’Stack them up neatly over there’. A few retail consultants from overseas came and went over the interim but there is a uniqueness to retailing in this country that requires knowledge of our growers and wholesalers as well as a need to know how the garden centre owners/managers themselves think and what drives them. Perhaps that’s how I slotted in so neatly, as I kept (and still keep) my product knowledge up to date by occasionally working the floor in a couple of garden centres to keep myself sharp on what the customer wants and how they have evolved over the last decade. This retail schooling is still an ongoing process, as many gardening retailers can lose that once-gained retail savvy that brought them to where they are now. They can become
HORTICULTURECONNECTED / www.horticulture.ie / Spring 2017
