Choice Marketing has announced the addition of a further five new garden centres to the group from across the country, further expanding its nationwide network of independent garden centres.
They are: Goonhavern and Chacewater in Cornwall, GardenTime in Dartmouth, Swarkestone in Derbyshire and Scott’s of Southend in Essex.
With these new additions, Choice Marketing now has 52 centres on board, contributing to a group retail turnover exceeding £185m.
Michelle de Lavis-Trafford, CEO of Choice Marketing, said: “We are delighted to have welcomed all five of these lovely garden centres into the Choice family, and we look forward to helping them improve their profitability, sharing in our group successes and generally sharing best practice.
“In addition to the enhanced margins on pricing adding to the everyday bottom line, 2022 saw Choice once again repay a record amount of rebate back to its members at over £2.6m. This really does exemplify the power and positive rewards of working together within an established organisation, with fantastic support from our key suppliers. Although all our member centres are both independently owned and run, we do speak with one voice in our relationships with our suppliers.”
Choice is one of the industry’s leading buying and marketing groups and has forged strong and mutually beneficial working relationships with over 200+ key suppliers throughout the garden centre, gift, home and leisure sectors.
Members benefit from a fully supportive central admin team and gain enormous support from other members too, it is a true co-operative.
Additional member benefits include preferential merchant card service rates for all their debit and credit card transactions and enhanced purchase pricing for catering through its specialist partners, and a whole lot more besides. These have quite literally saved members thousands of pounds.
Choice members value the combined influence and buying strength that Choice gives its members and far exceeds anything they could possibly achieve on their own. The enhanced service that members receive from suppliers, combined with the direct lines of communication, that the team at Choice have with key account managers, right across the supply chain, ensures that any issues are dealt with quickly and efficiently.
In addition to the rewards of membership, Choice is now well under way in its preparations for its upcoming annual conference and trade show, scheduled to be held in the Midlands at the end of September.
Mike Cook, Group Services Manager, said: “We are thrilled to report that our event is nearing a sell-out, with over 300 delegates already booked in. Our conference, trade show and gala dinner presents an excellent opportunity for our members and suppliers to connect, whilst our members can also explore the latest and greatest products and services offered by our suppliers at our trade show.”
Mike added: “Once again, we extend a very warm welcome to our five new garden centre members and really look forward to a successful and rewarding partnership with them.”
