GTN survey reveals other centres plan to open too Easter Sunday sales could help pull back deficit
A GTN Xtra survey has revealed that up to 20% of UK garden centres plan to work their way around the Sunday Trading laws and open their plant areas and coffee shops on Easter Sunday.
GTN contacted over 50 centres and discovered that 11 were planning to open on Easter Sunday although six were in Scotland where they can open as usual anyway.
This year's Easter Bank Holiday could prove even more important than usual as the current wintry conditions seem to have affected sales at garden centres.
The current GTN Bestsellers sales volumes are consirably lower than the same week in 2012 – down 30% in fact – although the weather was summer-like 12 months ago.
With continued cold and wet weather plus some more snow forecast for this weekend we’re in for another tough sales performance that may mean March sales volumes are closer to those of March 2009 or 2010 rather than the past two years.
For those who can remember back to 2010, our current sales volumes tracked by GTN Bestsellers are running at 5% up. After a snowy start to the year 2010 really got going in April and weeks 12 through to week 24 were the highest for total aggregate sales of the last three years.
What are your plans for Easter Sunday? How are you working your way around the Sunday Traduing Laws to maximise on sales opportunities? What is the feedback form your customers? Let us know using the comments link below or e-mail trevor.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk
