In This Issue
spoga+gafa 2021 is postponed to August
All sales up by 93%, plant sales up by 170%
Christmas & Gift 2021 cancelled
PATS Sandown is cancelled
SOLEX 2021 CANCELLED
Heaven Sends welcomes buyers to showroom to view new Christmas Collection
Scottish businesses and key personalities unite in call for garden centres to be re-opened
Happy sowing, happy growing, happy days!
Garden centre set to reopen in Northern Ireland
More events confirmed for Garden Re-Leaf Day 2021
Plants sales at the double
SylvaGrow Farmyard 100% Peat Free wins New Product Award
Turbo charged gardening as February breaks all records
Garden centre food hall and farm shop sales stay positive in January
Engaging 3 million new gardeners and being kind to our planet: key themes at the 2021 Virtual Garden Press Event
What Lies Ahead for 2021? - GTN's February Issue On-Line Now
Evergreen Garden Care partners with PlantSnap to make plant identification and care as simple as snap and grow!
UK’s first ‘Home of Gardening Science’ to open on June 24
Luxury, complete houseplant care solution launched
How the pandemic changed the way customers shop at their favourite garden centre
Tong supports Kirklees School with role play setting
New BBC Gardeners’ World Spring Fair
Altons BBQ World, Aylett Nurseries, Barton Grange, Baytree, Busy Bee, Groves, Pengelly, Pughs, The Old Railway Line and Squires Badshot Lea are the winners of GTN's Greatest Christmas Awards
Christmas Future Trends at Glee's Festive Focus Day
Get your own copy of GTN Xtra
Are New Gardeners the key to gardening sales increases?
Frank P Matthews Delivers Over 4000 Japanese Flowering Cherry Trees
The natural way to protect Box plants
Double bubble for Growing Media
Highest weekly turnover in ten years at Royal Flora Holland
68% turaround for Veg-2-Gro sales in February
She Grows Veg launches first book to promote “beautiful and bountiful” growing
HTA reacts to Chancellor's budget
The best of last week's
February sales - 37% above average - Gardening is Essential!
Hillier Nurseries bidding farewell to 2021 Chelsea Flower Show
Dobbies reports 51% increase in sales
Half term sales set course for a record February
Going from strength to strength
Why choose Meadow View Stone?
Hayes Garden World launches online Grow Your Own range
Bents introduces new virtual shopping service
The GIMA Awards are back!
Get your own copy of GTN Xtra
Barton Grange Christmas 2020 - Exclusive GTN Xtra Photo Tour
Squires Badshot Lea - Christmas 2020
Perrywood at Christmas 2020 - with correct photo gallery now...
British Garden Centres open their 58th centre at Thatcham
Haskins Snowhill re-opens after £15m re-vamp
Bestsellers Top 50 charts every week
Buy your subscription to the GTN Bestsellers printed weekly newsletter
All the latest news from the world of pet products
Natures Menu celebrates 40th anniversary
Pawfect Foods launches Nature’s Feast
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Email trevor@pottingshedpress.co.uk or call the GTN News team on 07973 504214

 

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How the pandemic changed the way customers shop at their favourite garden centre

 

We are nearly a year into the Covid-19 pandemic and its restrictions. It is needless to say that the virus caused an extreme effect on the garden retail industry with many stores forced to close several times during the different lockdowns.

 

During these lockdowns, many consumers switched their spending to online platforms. Leading online marketing provider Garden Connect provides services to many garden centres to improve their online sales channels.

 

Rise of online sales

Surveys show the restrictions have sped up the changing shopping habits for customers. Edwin Meijer, marketing director at Garden Connect explains: “At Garden Connect we have seen a steady rise in online sales ever since the company was founded back in 2002. But during the Covid-19 pandemic, garden centre webshops broke record after record in online turnover with hundreds of orders coming in on a daily basis.”

 

A research commissionedby Visa this summer shows that nine out of ten Britons (89%) have used online shopping since the UK’s lockdown restrictions came into force. With 31% of the Brits purchasing products via e-commerce for the first time. 34% of these customers are now saying they would prefer shopping online over  a physical retailer.

 

Emergency webshops for garden centres

During the beginning of the pandemic Garden Connect quickly realised that many garden centres without a proper webshop would be suffering huge consequences when they were forced to close. In order to help our customers that wanted to move to online quickly, a so-called ‘emergency webshop’ was developed.

 

In normal circumstances it would take approximately 2 to 3 months to get a full webshop up and running. Since every webshop is developed bespokely and no templates are used, it takes time to discuss requirements, development solutions and to make integrations with third-parties like EPoS providers.

 

Sjors Hemmen, business developer at Garden Connect explains: “With the emergency webshop this extensive process was fully skipped. For Garden Connect customers this meant their new webshop was online in a timely manner in just under 3 weeks with a full operational webshop.”

 

Interest in online sales

During spring and summer 2020 Garden Connect delivered dozens of webshops, allowing garden centres to continue trading even though they were closed or at least not open to their full extent. Every single retailer confirmed that having a tradable online presence helped them to allow their customers to continue shopping at their favourite garden centres. Even when customers were not able to visit the garden centre for reasons like self-isolation, social distancing or closed centres.

 

As the pandemic continues, Garden Connect added the successful Emergency Webshop package’ to our list with standard services as a Baseline Webshop’. During the last months the uptake on new clients that started a webshop continued since the rise of online sales isn’t slowing down at all.

 

Currently there are still a couple of slots available for the upcoming months for Baseline Webshops. Please do feel free to contact Garden Connect if you would like to learn more about this unique opportunity.

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