The 129-outlet Garden Centre Group is committed to growth, its new CEO Kevin Bradshaw told delegates at this week’s Garden Centre Association winter conference at Chipping Norton.
Bradshaw said the group would continue to recognise the benefits of scale and would look to grow “by our own means” and through acquisition “when that makes sense”.
In a fragmented market, scale gave a huge amount of advantage. “People naturally think of buying terms when it comes to big players, but in almost every function in our business I think there are advantages of scale – in marketing, to get the resources to get a really deep understanding of what customers want and how we should shape our offer, and how we should communicate efficiently with 2.5 million garden club members up and down the country.” Concession partners would benefit from a powerful national footprint and scale offered great opportunities to attract the very best people across the sector.
GCA chairman Peter Burks – a regional manager in Bradshaw’s organisation, owned by equity group Terra Firma – had invited the new CEO to offer his first impressions of the garden industry.
Bradshaw said he had only worked in the industry for 71 days but believed it was “a beautiful sector” “Many industry sectors do not give as much pleasure by half as the one you are working in and nurturing,” he added. “So, first, garden centres are real places of beauty and tranquillity, and every day and every week you are giving real pleasure to customers. Never ever forget that, because not all sectors have that.”
He suggested that garden centre should not be too worried about the high street retail crisis. “Not only are we not physically on the high street, we are also not convenience retailers. We are leisure retailers and there is time to inspire customers in our garden centres, time for them to take leisure, time for them to enjoy. And these are the sort of things that are very hard to replicate on the high street. In that regard, [ours] is an incredibly attractive segment of retailing in the UK.”
He believed that factors that put industries under margin pressure, did not apply to the garden retailing. “We are not dominated or driven by huge dominant suppliers calling terms,” he said. Unlike some other industries, internet sales accounted for only £200m worth of spending in the £5bn gardening sector. Planning lawns made it tough for new entrants. “It’s very hard to see huge swathes of new competitors so again there is not a pressure point there.
“This is an attractive industry in very many more ways than one and I think there are great opportunities to be had for anyone who plays in the industry,” Bradshaw concluded.
Kevin Bradshaw’s career has included consulting, 10 years running a financial date division of Reuters and four years as CEO of Avis UK, the car rental firm.
