Storm Hannah may have taken the gloss off the Easter Fortnight 2019 but it was still the best Easter, for total volume sales, since 2015 and the third best since 2010 according to GTN Bestsellers weekly garden centre EPOS data analysis.

The top line GTN Bestsellers sales data reveals the last week of April 2019 was up 18% on the same week last year, when the season started to get going, and recorded the highest weekly sales total for the end of April since 2011.  It was also the biggest week of the year so far.  When combined with the first Easter week that puts the 2019 Easter Fortnight total at 10% above the Easter nine year average.

As our graph shows, it's the later Easter Fortnight's that deliver the best sales results, especially when combined with favourable weather.  An early, cold and wet Easter as in 2013 does not do anything for garden centre profits.

No wonder we received so many reports of record trading on Easter Monday for this year - see the article linked below - and we also heard of centres breaking their weekday trading records on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, before Storm Hannah came along and tempered the gardening momentum.

Thankfully the weather forecast is looking better again for the May Bank Holiday weekend ahead so lets hope gardening remains the antidote to Brexit for a while yet.  Will we see more records broken as we move into May?  Watch this GTN Bestsellers space!