- Categories: Hobby Gardeners
Garden Stores have evolved to become a leisure destination with play centres for children, restaurants and other activities designed to improve the shopping experience and increase the time spent at the centre. These changes have partly come about because the main competitors to the traditional garden Stores, such as the DIY chains, have brought down prices. Competition has also increased from online garden Stores such as Crocus and Gardening Express, although companies such as Blue Diamond, Capital Gardens, Dobbies, Riverside Garden Centre and Longacres have now responded by developing and marketing their own online operations. Some open-air attractions (e.g. RHS Garden, Wisley, Westonbirt Arboretum) also run small garden Stores as additional sources of revenue or to discourage the unofficial taking of plant cuttings.
The peak business seasons in the UK are spring (March to June) and autumn (September and October). In addition, garden Stores also experience surges in popularity through the start of the winter season (November to January), when most of them sell goods related to Christmas, such as decorations and festive plants. Additionally, it is now not abnormal for garden Stores to experience their peak season within the winter months, due to the surge in popularity of garden Stores around Christmas time.
A Garden Stores offers more products and services than the traditional nursery which mainly retails plants. Garden Stores offer not only garden supplies but also leisure buildings, garden furniture, products for pets and fish keeping, and giftware and home products, up-market farm shop style food offerings are also becoming the norm in many garden Stores. Many larger Stores also have florist departments, wild bird care and their own restaurants. They have also diversified into the Christmas market heavily supplying such goods as traditional Christmas Trees, decorations and novelty and seasonal foods.
Garden Stores include concessions that are either operated as manned, unmanned or short-term promotional businesses. They trade under a lease and licence contract which govern the business relationship. Garden Stores concessions use their own branding, employ their own personnel and transact their sales through their own tills. The concessions are granted a degree of exclusivity to retail their product ranges which are complementary to the garden Stores.