industry news
Dobbies partners with SmartPlant
Notcutts and Thrive launches wellbeing resource
Reducing stress and anxiety by connecting to the therapeutic power of gardens and nature is the target of a new campaign being launched. Spending time in green spaces has proven benefits for mental and
physical health which the gardening-for-health charity Thrive and family- owned garden centre group Notcutts want more people to access through a new free tool called Cultivating Wellbeing in Gardens and Nature. Time spent in green spaces can have a real impact on mental health, with the value of one outdoor experience programme estimated to save around £7,000 in NHS costs, benefit reductions and increased tax contributions per participant.
Cultivating Wellbeing in Gardens and Nature is a free course, available for everyone to access, that not only explains the advantages of being in the great outdoors but will guide users so they can create their own health and wellbeing plans to make best use of what nature offers. Kathryn Rossiter, Thrive’s CEO, said: “Poor mental health is one of the biggest challenges confronting the UK today and our campaign is all about tackling this with a proven method – increasing access to nature. “Thrive’s 40 years of experience tells us that when people connect with
gardens and green spaces, symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression are markedly reduced, and in an era when our health services are under strain, this is a message worth spreading far and wide.” Gardeners’ World presenter and Thrive Ambassador Mark Lane, who trialled Cultivating Wellbeing in Gardens and Nature, said: “As someone whose health and outlook have improved dramatically as a result of being in gardens, this is a valuable and much-needed initiative to encourage more people to tap into what nature freely provides.”
Dobbies has partnered with specialist plant care app, SmartPlant. Dobbies will be working to digitise its entire indoor and outdoor plant ranges for Spring 2020. Following the recent retail acquisitions in 2019, and ongoing
development of
dobbies.com, this signifies a continued ambition from the retailer to merge their online offering, adding value to the customer and offering a unique experiential retail environment, particularly with regard to supplemental and relevant plant care information.
Dobbies will be working in conjunction with their suppliers to add their plants to the SmartPlant app to help further promote their suppliers’ provenance, brand and specialist care tips. Many of Dobbies growers have signed up to support this for 2020 and plants in-store will be activated in the SmartPlant app, giving Dobbies customers a digital plant care solution.
The digital initiative enables Dobbies customers to receive rich plant content either in-store or at home. This takes the form of plant set up instructions, automated care reminders, plant and pest identification and expert chat, all of which help inspire customers to purchase and successfully maintain and care for their plants. The SmartPlant app, which launched in 2017, enables customers to instantly unlock deeper variety specific content with the scan of their mobile offering accuracy to the plant variety level and automated monthly care tips and reminders.
Marcus Eyles, horticulture director, Dobbies, said: “The SmartPlant Partnership is tremendously exciting for Dobbies garden centres both from an online and online perspective and we see enormous potential going forward. This will help us to better inform and engage our customers whilst learning from unparalleled customer insights.”
Positive sales to start 2020 according to GCA
Sales across traditional and non- traditional categories at garden centres across the country were up during January (2020) according to the Garden Centre Association’s (GCA) Barometer of Trade (BoT) report.
Houseplant sales were up 33.01% and outdoor plant sales were up 14.69%, while clothing departments saw an increase in sales of 15.99% and catering sales were 11.28% up compared to the same month the previous year (2019). Iain Wylie, GCA chief executive explained,:
“It is great to see such a positive start to the year with sales up in the majority of traditional and non-traditional categories. The only category that saw a drop in sales was furniture and barbecues at -17.2%, which is understandable at this time of year and any increases or decreases in this category have a negligible effect on the overall figures, given the volume of outdoor leisure sales in January. “It certainly wasn’t barbecue weather, but we did have an unusually mild start to the
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year weather-wise, which meant garden centre customers were able to spend more time outdoors preparing their beds and plots for the coming season.
“Seed and bulb sales were up 4.43%, sales in garden sundries were up 11.6% and pets and aquatics sales were also up at 3.73%. Gift sales were up 9.98%, Christmas sales saw an increase of 2.43% as customers stocked up on items for the 2020 festive season, hard landscaping sales rose 22.13% and food hall and farm shop sales were also up 10.09%.” Overall sales for the month were up 7.69% with a year to date change of 7.69%. Hannah Powell, communications and HR
director at Perrywood Garden Centre, which has centres at Tiptree in Colchester and Sudbury in Suffolk, said: “Our houseplants sales are up 42% and outdoor plants up 18%. After Christmas we saw fantastic sales of houseplants, aided by ongoing Instagram activity, students returning to university and homeowners replacing Christmas decorations. “Bestsellers have been basic houseplants
such as Peace Lily, Spider Plants and Parlour Palms. Whilst unusual houseplants dominate Instagram and do see sales, the bulk of sales is still in easy to care for basics. The age of houseplant buyers is younger than those that are shopping in other departments, and we hope to translate some of their interest into growing outdoor plants when we move into the spring season. Our coffee shop and restaurant sales were up 7%, on the back of continued growth in 2019.
“Last January (2019) we had not yet refurbished our coffee shop at our Sudbury centre and were still working on improvements following the purchase of the centre just four months previously, however, this January, we have doubled turnover. “We have tripled coffee shop and houseplant sales and doubled sales in outdoor plants and seeds and bulbs. The centre is proving to be a very strong ‘gardener’s garden centre’, and with a new bedding plant canopy opening in March we are feeling very optimistic about 2020.”
GCU Spring 2020
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