Travel Report from GLEE - 2007

GLEE is the huge garden center show held every year in Birmingham England. With over 25,000 visitors, it's Britain’s biggest wholesale garden center show. GLEE also has a large area dedicated to pet supplies and aquatic supplies, reflecting the diverse range of products sold in British garden centers today.
Peter Dawson of PJMD Horticulture gave a press briefing to describe the current state of the garden center industry. The bottom line is that 2007 was a difficult years for British garden centers due to a very cold and rainy spring. Retail sales at garden centers have been in decline for several years running: $8,892,000 (2004); $8,002,000 (2005); $7,534,000 (2006). Preliminary information indicates 2007 sale are well below 2006 numbers.
New strong forces are entering the market. The powerful entrepreneur Tom Hunter has controlling ownership in Blooms of Bressingham and in Wyevale, which, with over 120 locations, is England’s largest garden center chain. The giant retailer Tesco has purchased the 21-garden-center chain, Dobbies. Asda (Wal-Mart) has informed some suppliers of its intent to build 30 garden centers. At the same time, other major retailers are offering garden items during the peak selling season. Internet sales have taken some of the market share and are growing fast. Meanwhile, B & Q with 340 DIYs operates 340 garden centers as part of their stores. Home Base and Focus—large DIYs—compete in the garden center space. There's plenty of competition in the garden center business.
Sound like anyplace close to home?
Part of the trip included tours of two of the leading garden center around Birmingham. One was a single-unit operation that had the distinction of being voted the best garden center in England and the other was part of a chain owned by a French company. Both operations were amazing places to visit and spend time. Our hosts were open about percentages and business. The most astonishing number for me was that the sale of plants amounted to 18% of gross sales. Plant sales just equaled the sales of prepared food in the in-store restaurant. The stores sold a wide variety of gourmet food and gift items, and one had a fine meats counter. Both of these stores have succeeded in becoming compelling destinations, a wonderful place to spend time wandering around and buying stuff.
Before going to GLEE, I was in Cleveland for Green Profit's Retail Experience, which had two days of garden center tours. These American operators were just as compelling as destinations as their British counterparts. My favorite experience was seeing the gourmet dog treats at Petittis. It still hurts my head how many of these dog treats they sell. One of the garden centers had wonderful greengrocer produce within the store. Another sold clothing in some volume.
My conclusion from visiting all these retail masters: They have figured out that the experience is far more important to the shopper than the individual price of each item. People paying $1.75 for a fancy dog biscuit just aren't very price sensitive; they are very experience sensitive. Good experiences keep them coming back and buying things they may or may not need.
The number of affluent people and the level of that affluence have grown remarkably worldwide. While these people aren't particularly price sensitive, they are, however, value sensitive. Just because they have a lot of money doesn't mean they'll allow themselves to be taken advantage of. It's probable that they may be more value sensitive. They don’t want the really cheap product that won't last. "Poor people" have to buy that stuff because they have no money to buy the better quality.
This summer has proven to me that the experience, including service and atmosphere, is something that people value a great deal. It's part of the product price and clearly something a lot of people are will to pay for. It was nice to see that independents are alive and well, even if it means they don’t sell as many plants as I'd like.