In This Issue
Dobbies Christmas trading up by 44%
Wow – Christmas product sales break all records
Best year on record for garden centre volume sales
New name for Bord na Mona retail in UK
Bird food company fined £50k over accident that led to finger amputations
Ex-Wyevale GCs ops chief joins digital commerce specialist JGOO to help promote UK goods to Chinese
Mr Fothergill's trial ground awarded Fleuroselect status
Gardman Crest - Investing for the future and ready for business in the new year
Dobbies to close its smallest centre near Dunfermline
Thetford GC plans crazy golf to attract families
Notcutts adds 300-seater restaurant at Ditchling
Reimagine Green Retail at TREx 2020 in Holland
Students offered prospect of 'dream internship' in North America
10 plants to vie for aded-value award at IPM Essen
2020 New Varieties from David Austin
Squire's invites customers to chatter and natter
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Gardening, horticultural and pet industries pay tribute to much-loved Theresa Swann
First upturn for garden product sales since 2014
Chris Schofield joins Infinity Christmas Trees
Fewer plant sales despite more ‘normal’ weather
Records broken for core growing activity
2019 was great year for Veg-2-Gro sales
Wyevale GC HQ moves from Syon Park
Dobbies to drop peat by 2021
Wild Bird Care sales show signs of recovery
Houseplants, gifts and Christmas showed strong growth in November says HTA
The best of last week's
2019 ends 4.2% up on 2018 - A new record year for GTN Bestsellers Volume sales analysis
Gardman Crest ready to deliver you growth in 2020
New General Manager at garden centre
AMES UK report a record pre-season
Wentworth Garden Centre blown away by WinRetail system
Out with the old and in with the new at LOFA
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Garden Centre Photo Tours
Bestsellers Top 50 charts every week
Buy your subscription to GTN Bestsellers
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Email neil.pope@tgcmc.co.uk, or trevor.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk or call the GTN News team on 01733 775700


Gardman Crest - Investing for the future and ready for business in the new year

Gardman Crest 181219_GTN013.jpg

GTN Xtra caught up with Gardman Crest MD, Nick Davies, in the run up to Christmas during one of his brief calls into the new Gardman Crest Showroom in between his many visits to garden centres during December.

 

What everyone wants to know is how the integration of Gardman into the Westland Crest business is progressing.  “We've had an incredibly hard and challenging year in integrating this great Gardman business. Not only integrating it, but creating a completely new warehouse and inputting logistics to future-proof the business,” Nick explained.

 

“As I’ve said to many a retailer, it's no different to what they've been doing over the past few years. When a retailer decides to knock his restaurant down and put a bigger one in, everyone goes through a degree of pain at the beginning to achieve the end result, but when you get through the pain, then you start enjoying the fruits of what you've invested in. In a very honest and straightforward way that is what we've done. We've invested hugely in the categories, the brands and most importantly the people. We have also invested in infrastructure, which was what Gardman as a business needed to get back into the playing field."

 

“The King's Lynn distribution warehouse was a great site doing an absolutely brilliant job, however we found out very early on into the acquisition that the lease could not be renewed and at some point in the future, the site would run out of space. So we knew we had to do something about it."

 

“We at Gardman Crest as part of the Westland family went through all of these major changes over the summer period. We did it with the knowledge that we would come out stronger, healthier and fit for purpose for the next 10 years. The whole operation is running very smoothly now."

 

“The other challenge Gardman faced when we bought it, was stock availability. The majority of our stock is coming from far away and the lead times are therefore long. For the 2020 season ahead we placed a lot of orders. They started getting delivered into us from October onwards, so by the time garden centres are stocking up in January, we can start to send out orders in full ready for the season ahead."

 

Sustainability is high on the Gardman Crest agenda for 2020 and beyond.  “We're a bit ahead of the game on sustainability because we were in a situation where we could change our stock, our range and packaging, and as a result, we have upgraded many of the products too.  If you devalue your product, you'll become an advocate for landfill. That is definitely not what Gardman Crest is all about."

 

Nick joined the family of Westland six years ago and during that time there is one thing all retailers were craving for: “Loud and clear these savvy retailers were telling me they wanted better management of their stock. Customers are now able to mix any products from within the Westland family in their order. Once their order is placed on a designated day the order is then picked and packed and sent on the same vehicle rather than two separate vehicles. So, whilst we might be two separate companies, we now deliver only one invoice.”

 

As Nick headed off to support his sales team during their really busy period taking in orders ready for shipping in January he said: “We've gone through the process of rebuilding and we're very much ready for business in the New Year.”

 

Read the GTN Xtra Gardman Crest Special issue using this link

 

 

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