For Immediate Release: October 2, 2012
For more information, contact: Sue Amatangelo Director - Home & Garden
Showplace (773) 294-1685 Fall Market held in Salt Lake City was Full of Excitement for Home & Garden Showplace Retailers CHICAGO, October 2, 2012 – Home & Garden Showplace is delighted to share announcements with the garden center industry. The team and their retailers recently returned from the 2012 Fall Market in Salt Lake City, Utah where 3,561 retailers and over 1,000 vendors joined together to attend the show. The three-day event concluded on September 23 but these locally owned garden centers are doing anything but slowing down! The show included an exclusive conference the day prior to the market floor opening for Home & Garden Showplace as well as Alliance members from Master Nursery Garden Centers. At the conference well-known and respected guest speakers spoke about key issues important to the retailers focusing on customer service excellence. Speakers included Dennis Snow, a customer service expert that took his “lessons from the Mouse” while working at Disney World and applied them to real world career and businesses decisions; Kelly McDonald, a second-time speaker at the event, is a Marketing and Advertising professional with experience on how to keep your customers coming back for more; and Dave Mitchell, an educator and professional trainer who takes proven principles in applied performance and cognitive psychology and delivers a learning experience that is incredibly entertaining and insightful by looking into the personalities of yourself, your customers and employees. In addition vendors spoke about their product lines and retailers networked and shared ideas on how they have used new ideas to move the needle in their own business. The evening concluded with a reception to award the 2012 Retailers and Vendors of the Year. These businesses have showed excellent service, growth and dedication to the garden center industry and to Home & Garden Showplace. We congratulate them for this outstanding accomplishment! Retailers of the Year • • • • •
Northeastern Region Store of the Year – Holdridge Home & Garden Showplace, Ledyard, CT Central Region Store of the Year – Corso’s Flower & Garden Center, Sandusky, OH Western Region Store of the Year – Rail City Garden Center, Sparks, NV Southern Region Store of the Year – Cofer’s Home & Garden Showplace, Athens, GA Master Nursery Garden Center Store of the Year – Bloomers Home &Garden Center, Sewell, NJ
Vendors of the Year • • •
Vendor of the Year – Alpine Corporation New Vendor of the Year – Woolly Pocket Grower of the Year – Monrovia Nursery
About Home & Garden Showplace Home & Garden Showplace is a name that retailers know and trust for premium-quality products for home, gardening and landscaping projects. Home & Garden Showplace is the garden center business unit of the True Value Company, one of the world’s largest retailer-owned hardware cooperatives with sales of $1.9 billion in 2011, an increase of 3.4 percent from 2010. The True Value cooperative includes approximately 4,800 independent retailer locations worldwide operating under the store identities of True Value, Grand Rental Station, Taylor Rental, Party Central, Home & Garden Showplace and Induserve Supply. Additional information on True Value Company and its retail identities is available at www.truevaluecompany.com. ###