In This Issue
Christmas Future Trends and GTN's Greatest Christmas Awards Winners to be announced during Glee's on-line Festive Focus Day
CSY in 2020 – Adapting To Change
Alton's praised for tough stance on facemasks
Garden centre owners share their thoughts on being open during Lockdown 3
GARDENA launches Leaf and Grass Collector
The COVID year in numbers
Flymo's 2021 products raise the bar for innovative gardening equipment
Team Smart’s Sue Sharp retires
Boyd's 'no cake and chocolate' pledge takes him into the top 10% of New Year fundraisers
The GTN Xtra Top 100 Most Read Stories of 2020
Get your own copy of GTN Xtra
Final call for scholarship applications
Order your Begonias from Ball Colegrave now
Expo 2021 Hatay (Turkey) to postpone opening by eight months
Gardeningexpress.co.uk owner closes garden centre during lockdown 3
Launch of The New Heirloom Garden book
The best of last week's
We're Here For You
Dobbies sponsors ITV’s ‘Love Your Weekend’ with Alan Titchmarsh
Millbrook plans for the future of Crowborough centre
Boyd gives up chocolate and cake for a whole year
Bursting fish tank averts aquatic shop blaze
Get your own copy of GTN Xtra
Haskins Snowhill re-opens after £15m re-vamp
Perrywood at Christmas 2020 - with correct photo gallery now...
British Garden Centres open their 58th centre at Thatcham
Barton Grange Christmas 2020 - Exclusive GTN Xtra Photo Tour
Squires Badshot Lea - Christmas 2020
Garden Centre Photo Tours
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
Pet firm buys Ocado's Fetch brand
Pet Brands releases boredom-busting range of games
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CSY in 2020 – Adapting To Change
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2020 was not the year anyone was expecting but we all adapted in some way and helped each other out. From zoom meetings and wearing masks to introducing brand new features and a lot more online demos, CSY have found new ways to continue helping retailers across the UK.

 

“CSY were really proactive in all the challenges faced by us this year, from offering eCommerce lite early in the lockdown to making reporting eat out to help out easy. CSY approached us in instead of us asking for solutions to our problems, which was a massive help.” –  Freddie at Bell Plantation.

 

As well as welcoming new customers we love to see our existing ones grow, Nunhead Gardener opened 3 new stores across London in 2020. Peter Milne, Co-Head Gardener and founder, said when asked why they chose CSY over 2 years ago “one of the main reasons we invested in Vector was how easy it would be to put into our other stores once we started to expand, with their experience of working with multi-branch retailers.”

 

As well as multi-sites we also have helped our independent garden centres like Bell Plantation, Woburn Sands Emporium, Summerhill Garden Centre and many more to carry on serving customers throughout 2020.

 

Over 80% of our garden centre customers already have an EPOS system before having our system installed. This has allowed us to work closely with our customers and provide them with a simple and painless data migration experience. “The whole process was really easy, having gone through the pain of data migration with the previous system. CSY made it really easy! Their IT teams took our data and migrated it to the new system with ease,” says Ollie at Woburn Sands Emporium who started using our system at the beginning of the year.

 

With not just one but two lockdowns this year our Vector eCommerce Lite sites have been a great help in keeping sales flowing. Our Lite sites are super simple but fully functional versions of our eCommerce sites that allowed our customers to sell online with sales tracking and live stock levels. Throughout the past year our web designer Josh has been able to assist our customers, including Bell Plantation Garden Centre, in getting their sites live quickly and looking professional. “I just wanted to thank-you for your hard work and speed at getting our online shop up and running, Josh worked really hard on it and was very helpful throughout, despite being busy I’m sure.” 

 

Back in March when the talks of a nationwide lockdown started to circulate, we knew we had to help. Our eCommerce Lite sites have helped not only businesses stay in business but also paying staff's wages, reaching a wider customer base and some even introduced a click & collect option.

 

“CSY set up our ecommerce lite site in about 7 working days and we were able to take a quarter of our normal April takings doing home delivery. The website contributed hugely to our cash flow position, kept our plant waste down and helped pay the wages of the team I kept on.” – Freddie at Bell Plantation Garden Centre.

 

 

“CSY support with the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme was amazing with clear instructions and phone support if we needed it.” – Ollie at Woburn Sands Emporium.

 

In July came the announcement of the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme to get everyone eating in restaurants and cafes again. With many of our garden centre customers having restaurants, and only a few weeks turnaround, we made it possible for our customers to apply the discount at the till, with our EPOS doing all the calculations.

 

“We are so pleased CSY have automated the till process for the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme. Without this assistance it really would have been very difficult to calculate the discount quickly and efficiently at the till. They have also added a new report to make claiming really easy,” – Katrina Holford, Operations Director at Parker’s Garden Company.

 

Alongside the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme, in July VAT changes were announced for hospitality and tourism sectors. Knowing many of our garden centre customers have restaurants or cafes we wanted to make the VAT changes easy for them.

 

“2020 threw up a lot of challenges for us and our customers. At each turn, I am pleased to say the CSY team pulled out all the stops so that we could adapt to keep our ship running smoothly and provide new key services for our customers in rapid fashion. All the team have worked extremely hard this year carrying on with new installations, demonstrations and training. Our helpdesk has remained open throughout and I know their hard work has been very much appreciated by our customers.” – Ross Pierrepont, Managing Director at CSY Retail Systems.

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