With so many recent sales campaigns geared towards Christmas, February is indeed the big comedown when customers often tighten their belts and the ‘urge to splurge’ dramatically declines. Now with the wider offering garden retail affords, businesses can use this traditionally quiet time of year as the ideal opportunity to maximise year-round sales and encourage footfall with a particular emphasis on driving profits in the post-Christmas slump.
The perfect place to tap into such an opportunity will be at Glee (11-13 September, NEC Birmingham), which already promises to be the place to be in 2017 to see inspirational products, displays and top name brands.
From launching exciting new products and sales promotions, to providing innovative PoS displays or catering facilities, there are many ways to encourage visitors into store and drive sales, even during off-peak periods. In fact, simply by enhancing the customer experience can make a difference to footfall and ultimately sales, as consumers look to while away the gloomy weather at their leisure.With its growing popularity in recent years, catering is becoming an all-important add-on and proving a significant revenue stream to a growing number of garden centres, with catering overtaking sales in more traditional categories such as outdoor plants in 2015.* Recent statistics also show that over 50% of garden centres now offer on-site catering facilities, with an estimated 55 million visits to garden centre cafes taking place in 2011 alone**. This clearly shows that garden centre catering is big business.
Sales promotion is another area where garden centres and retailers have been increasingly flexing their entrepreneurial muscle and innovative spirit to increase footfall and maximise sales, particularly after Christmas.
Mike Burks, of The Garden Group, explains how his team helps to drive footfall in the quieter post-Christmas period. He said: “We utilise times of high footfall to promote events and promotions in time of low footfall. We also look at creating a variety of events and content that will appeal to the full breadth of our customers, including everything from festive decoration sales and incentives such as offering discounted vouchers valid for January, to extra activities such as in-house talks from keynote speakers, calendar events such as ‘Orchid Day’ and half-term events for children.”
These methods also encourage impulsive spending among consumers and an opportunity to entice customers via inspiring PoS displays. This is something important to bear in mind when visiting this year’s Glee, with many of the UK's top suppliers of PoS displaying products to offer fresh, creative ideas to attract further business.
“Customers visit more frequently if we can offer them interest and something going on, so how do we consistently do that? It’s a question of good staff and great product selection – a combination of value and relevance while providing solutions, plus inspirational and aspirational products,” Richard Cumming, Managing Director of Orchard Park Garden Centre explains. “All year round is our aim, an absolutely vital factor for any retailer wanting to stay on top of their game and maintain a consistently healthy bottom line.”
It is non-weather dependent products such as this that have seen the most recent surge in exhibitor sign ups, reveals Glee Event Director, Matthew Mein:“Glee offers retailers more options than ever for ensuring more stable cashflow opportunities during seasonal slumps. Whether you are looking to buy homewares or giftware, food or clothing, you'll find it all under the same roof at the exhibition come September."
Find out more
Glee is the UK’s leading garden retail show, focussing on building year-round profits within core product categories including garden care, landscaping, outdoor living, garden design, pet, speciality food and catering, home, gift and clothing, and plants. Each year the show attracts thousands of buyers from top retailers, such as leading UK garden centres, builders’ merchants, multiple retailers, and DIY stores. To keep up-to-date on all the latest news visit www.gleebirmingham.com or for details on exhibiting at Glee 2017, call 0203 033 2160.
