In This Issue
Easy Fountain picking up on latest trends
Exclusive: First look at Westland's 'Lawn Man' TV ad
Velcro Companies expands with investment in Petface
Vitax appoints new sales manager
Mother’s Day records despite drop in volumes
Pink Kisses are a big sales winner
Woodstock Chimes offer quality and great value
Boost your EGO with sales of petrol free garden machinery
Record-breaking Greenfingers Garden Re-Leaf Day sees 5-year tally pass £0.5m
Team Briers survive the Garden Re-Leaf Day walk
Which one will be crowned Rising Star 2017?
Strongest Man contenders train amongst the plants
Writtle wins Young Gardeners title in Ideal Home Show design contest
Zest 4 Leisure employees to tackle Manchester Marathon
Assistant Garden Centre Manager - Oxfordshire
Nursery Grower Seasonal Bedding Plants (Devon)
Garden Centre Plantarea Horticultural Manager (Worcestershire)
Plantarea Department Head / Manager (Hampshire)
Plantarea Supervior / Manager (Berkshire)
Get your own copy of GTN Xtra
Notcutts celebrates staff ‘heroes’
Lights add sparkle to Mother’s Day
Tomato plant sales soar
Impressive initial roll-call of speakers for GrowQuip
DCF invests £8,500 in students of horticulture
Nursery loans plants for children's charity fundraiser
Mother’s Day hit for growing media sales
LifestyleGarden on the move
Pictures from the Greatest Christmas Gold-winning teams
Bestsellers Top 50 charts every week
Buy your subscription to GTN Bestsellers
All the latest news from the world of garden centre catering
A taster to whet your appetite!
Situations Vacant
Assistant Garden Centre Manager - Oxfordshire
Hilltop Garden Store (part of Hillview Garden Centres)
 
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Garden Centre Plantarea Horticultural Manager (Worcestershire)
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Mother’s Day records despite drop in volumes
First reports of records broken for March from Alton Garden Centre


As we reported in GTN Xtra last week garden centres across the country had record sales over Mother’s Day weekend as people flocked to garden centre restaurants and coffee shops.

And those high sales levels are continuing this weekend leading to record totals for March as reported by Andy Bunker at Alton Garden Centre in Wickford, Essex: "I've just finished number crunching March and it's our best ever in the Plantaria here at Alton, up by 46% which means year to date we are plus 34% and that is the best ever start to the quarter.  I guess Brexit is really biting here in Essex." 

Andy added yesterday:  "It's also a good job I don’t buy to the weather.  I did hear it was supposed to be awful today with wind and rain.  Okay, it’s not a heatwave but by 2pm we've had no rain and only a bit bit of wind.  The car park is full and it's good gardening weather.  That makes me very cheerful!"

According to GTN Bestsellers Epos data analysis the record sales over Mothers Day weekend didn’t quite equate into sales volumes for the whole week.  Plant sales volumes dropped by 8.3% with some centres reported high sales of Italian specimen plants as gifts which will partly account for the drop in volume but deliver higher turnover.  Garden Products dropped by 14.1% and Growing Media by 17.5%.

As with high value plant sales, early furniture and BBQ saleshave been reported as encouraging, contributing to further boosts in value of sales if not volume.

Overall, week 12 was a better week than last year, even though it was Easter in 2016 but as you’ll see from our GTN Bestsellers Top 50 charts (links below) the big wins were last minute gifts and garden lighting.

GTN Bestsellers Top 50 sales volumes compared to the same week last year...
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