Retailers seeking products of the future and the latest in-store merchandising ideas need look no further than the Retail Lab at Glee.

Now in its third year, this inspirational feature area, in association with the Horticultural Trades Association, is bursting with ideas. In fact, 61% of Glee’s visitors say they will attend Glee 2019 as a result of seeing the Retail Lab last year. Here, we meet one of the sponsors of this year’s feature, Meadow View Stone, who brings over 25 years’ experience of supplying the widest range of imported and exclusive decorative aggregates and landscaping stone to the garden centre industry.

Meadow View Stone’s Marketing Director, Sarah Hill, said: “We’ve been a sponsor of the Retail Lab since its initial conception, and see it as a fantastic tool to not only showcase our products, but also view it as an opportunity to gain great insight into current trends/buying direction.

“For us, we view the Retail Lab as a great hub of inspiration, providing garden centre retailers and merchandisers with invaluable insight into how to display products in store to drive sales and provide effective cross selling opportunities.  We strongly support this theory as we have similarly merchandised a selection of our key accounts with extensive lifestyle display gardens, which have inspired and influenced customers and as a result returned excellent sales growth for these accounts.”

Whilst the Meadow View Stone team are still deciding which products will feature in the Retail Lab come September, Sarah has confirmed that a selection of the company’s porcelain

paving and some of its exciting new product lines - yet to be released - will form part of the various displays.

With future trends such a key focus of the Retail Lab, Sarah shares some of the key trends that have been shaping Meadow View Stone’s business in recent months, and will continue to influence future ranges. She said: “The colour grey has been a major influencer on both our paving and aggregate collections. This has been proven over the past two years and is featuring heavily in our product selections and sales performance for the immediate future.

Looking ahead to the wider show, Sarah added: “We will be maintaining the same core elements of the stand, with our extremely successful Gin Bar and Innovation Hub, both of which were immensely successful last year. 

“The Innovation Hub will continue to feature market leading insight into how garden centres can increase the sales value of their areas, whilst providing invaluable trend reports and case studies from customers who have embraced our stocking suggestions and recorded some excellent sales successes.  The Gin Bar, undoubtedly, is now an established part of our stand and provides an excellent informal and relaxed social space, allowing us to conduct private meetings whilst rewarding our customers with a well-earned drink!

“Our POS and innovative display gardens will also feature as a means to show retailers how to inspire their customers and generate increased sales. With two new product categories also to be unveiled we have an exciting collection of products and merchandising to suit every garden centre visiting Glee 2019.