A common strand of conversations across the industry during August has been “How lucky we are to be working in the garden retailing industry!” And indeed, we have all been in the fortunate position of seeing sales run at record summer levels and catch up on the deficit caused by the lock-down closures of March, April and early May.
The GTN Bestsellers All Products Sales Index shows August garden centre volumes to be a massive 20% up on last year and even higher than May sales were in 2019.
Normally an increase in August sales wouldn’t be significant as it’s usually one of the quieter trading months of the year, but, within the epos data analysed by GTN Bestsellers every week we’ve seen massive increases in growing media, garden care products, pots and plant sales. That all indicates a new style of gardening that just keeps on growing. Some believe it is new gardeners buying through the summer because no one told them they can’t, others say it’s a result of planterias and centres being full of stock as growers and producers catch up on sales.
What ever the reason, if the pattern of this summer is to be continued through next year then we have even more reason to be lucky.
It’s sad that we can’t all meet up at the NEC next week for Glee, there are so many stories to be told and greetings to be made, however the Glee team and ourselves are doing all we can to keep everyone connected and up to date with new product information via the Glee Gathering and the Glee Daily News.
See you, virtually, at Glee!
In the September 2020 issue of GTN:
Westland 8 page pull out
The end of an era, Neil & Nicci Gow
Over 200 New Products from Smart
The Wertheim Legacy
Primeurs virtual updates
Christmas is coming
Onduline transform the garden
Hozelock’s new sprayers
10 Years of Garden Re-Leaf Day
Evergreen Garden Care’ Autumn welcome
Glee Gathering
Happy Days ahead for Compost
New Products at Glee
Grow your card sales
LOFA Assured at Stewarts
Eat Out To Help Out
Showrooms to visit
HTA Column
GIMA Column