The latest Gardenex organised ‘Meet the Buyer’ event held in Sutton Coldfield on 15 November proved to be a day packed with valuable information on the US lawn and garden market and at the same time opened doors for many British suppliers to sell their products to overseas markets.
Early reaction from British suppliers of garden leisure items as they emerged from meetings with overseas buyers was that UK-made products are still in great demand. In all, 62 one-to-one meetings were held during the day with buyers from Belgium, Estonia, Germany, Turkey and the USA. The carefully targeted garden and leisure items presented to the buyers were well received and bode well for the future expansion of Britain’s garden exports. Many of the British firms in attendance are benefiting from overseas business as a result of earlier ‘Meet the Buyer’ days.
A key to the success of the meetings is the research carried out prior to the meetings by Gardenex in order to ensure that the visiting buyers are seeking the type of items put before them. On the day prior to the meetings, the overseas buyers were taken on a tour of local outlets to acquaint them with the layout and merchandise of a typical UK garden centre.
An illuminating part of the day’s proceedings was in the form of a presentation on the US lawn and garden market. No-one needs telling that the US land mass is far bigger than the UK – 38 times in fact - but the imbalance between the east and west coast in terms of garden retail outlets surprised many delegates. While the eastern coast of the country is saturated with outlets, the remainder of the US is sparsely served, making knowledge of distribution a key factor in reaching the market. The retail market in particular differs greatly to that of the UK. Take garden centres, for example, where the US boasts around 16,000 outlets but no one chain dominates the scene. However, outlets for garden items spreads far wider than garden centres, with hardware stores, supermarket/drug stores, feed/seed stores, gift shops, dollar stores and home centres all featuring strongly. Add into the mix the numerous on-line outlets and the television shopping channels and you have a huge and diverse market.
Helping British suppliers to find their way through the complexities of the market, the founder of Bosmere Inc from Charlotte, North Carolina gave an on-the-spot view of the market, and members of the Gardenex team provided their latest in-depth US report that includes tips on exporting to the US. Bosmere Inc already stocks a number of British products such as Haws, Spear & Jackson, Haxnicks, The Potting Shed and Bosmere Products, which it supplies to the garden centre, mail-order and internet sales sectors in the USA. Hopefully, many other UK made items will be added to the list following the latest buyer meeting.
Gardenex is the The Federation of Garden and Leisure Manufacturers Ltd, the trade association that works on behalf of British companies to help its members increase sales worldwide.
www.gardenex.com
