One of the those 2 AM moments
First, I would like to say that I am not making this up. This evening we had dinner at Chili's. In the middle of the meal Ann (my wife) turned and said "you'll never guess what I woke up thinking about the other night." OK, I give.
"I was thinking about the future of garden centers."
The rest I will have to paraphrase. In the nutshell her concern was how customers were going to relate to shopping at a typical garden center. You know, tables all lined up with plants by category, pots on pallets; everything all lined up in a row.
"How do they expect people to figure it all out?"
She went on to describe what she thought a garden center should look like. More of a showroom with display beds designed and set up for customers to get a better idea of how there home landscape 'could' look. The old concept might of worked for people who saw gardening as a hobby, like building model airplanes, but what about the rest of us?
Then there was a dooooo, doooo, dooo, doooot (substitute the Twilight Zone theme music) moment.
You see I spent Wednesday and Thursday with a group of landscape professionals at a meeting sponsored by Willoway Nursery. One of the other speakers was an old friend Kip Creel from Standpoint Marketing. I have known Kip for a few years now and I felt fortunate to be able to sit in on his talk.
Brilliant stuff - but the thing I kept hearing was a shift from gardening to landscaping; and the fact that the next generation was less likely to become 'gardeners', but rather they saw the landscape as an extension of the home. He went on to describe the shifting market and the opportunity that the future held. Then comes the spooky part - he went on to describe that the garden center of the future would be more like a showroom with the garden center moving towards helping customers with design solutions. (OK, maybe I added that part)
So with that I scrapped the original blog story and went with this one. Landscapers are going to find stiff competition in the future and they might be surprised at where it might come from. It could be that local landscape design center. Will that be your business, or a new player in the market?
I'll keep saying it - stop selling plants, sell design. People want to buy the result of a beautiful landscape. They want the peace and quiet, the increased value to their property and a place to get together with friends and family. They don't want to have to learn latin to understand plants, they will shop where someone can make it a fun, creative experience to landscape their future.
"I was thinking about the future of garden centers."
The rest I will have to paraphrase. In the nutshell her concern was how customers were going to relate to shopping at a typical garden center. You know, tables all lined up with plants by category, pots on pallets; everything all lined up in a row.
"How do they expect people to figure it all out?"
She went on to describe what she thought a garden center should look like. More of a showroom with display beds designed and set up for customers to get a better idea of how there home landscape 'could' look. The old concept might of worked for people who saw gardening as a hobby, like building model airplanes, but what about the rest of us?
Then there was a dooooo, doooo, dooo, doooot (substitute the Twilight Zone theme music) moment.
You see I spent Wednesday and Thursday with a group of landscape professionals at a meeting sponsored by Willoway Nursery. One of the other speakers was an old friend Kip Creel from Standpoint Marketing. I have known Kip for a few years now and I felt fortunate to be able to sit in on his talk.
Brilliant stuff - but the thing I kept hearing was a shift from gardening to landscaping; and the fact that the next generation was less likely to become 'gardeners', but rather they saw the landscape as an extension of the home. He went on to describe the shifting market and the opportunity that the future held. Then comes the spooky part - he went on to describe that the garden center of the future would be more like a showroom with the garden center moving towards helping customers with design solutions. (OK, maybe I added that part)
So with that I scrapped the original blog story and went with this one. Landscapers are going to find stiff competition in the future and they might be surprised at where it might come from. It could be that local landscape design center. Will that be your business, or a new player in the market?
I'll keep saying it - stop selling plants, sell design. People want to buy the result of a beautiful landscape. They want the peace and quiet, the increased value to their property and a place to get together with friends and family. They don't want to have to learn latin to understand plants, they will shop where someone can make it a fun, creative experience to landscape their future.
posted by Sunrise Marketing at
8:23 PM
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