RANGE REVIEW: GARDEN & WOODCARE
GARDEN CARE GROWING SALES IN
Evergreen Garden Care UK marketing director Ann-Marie O’Riordan explains how garden retailers could maximise their sales of garden care products through effective category management, helping consumers visualise the end result, and not missing a trick with linked sales.
consumers’ love of gardening where they are trying to create a green oasis at home,” says Ann-Marie. However, she also stresses that the key to this is simplifying gardening and making it easier for shoppers to find what they need quickly and easily. “The more we can simplify gardening, the more people we can bring in and retailers will see the benefits. This translates across online, to the retail fixture, the packaging, and all the other places where we can touch the consumer.” An obstacle to this is unnecessary confusion at point of fixture, with too much product and technical information for the shopper – some of whom will be novice gardeners – to wade through. This can have a negative impact on sales. “In the garden care category there
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are too many brands, sub brands, and sub categories,” she says. “Where consumers need advice and
18 DIY WEEK 26 APRIL 2019
s a business, we have a category vision and we firmly believe we can unlock
guidance, we shouldn’t be putting barriers in the way from helping them to find what they need. The principle of good shopper marketing, with a clear call to buy, has not always been applied in garden retail environments. They often end up overloading customers with too much information. It is exceptionally technical, so it only talks to a niche market. I often compare this category to the adhesives and sealants sector, which is very similar. There is a clear path to purchase and retailers need to adapt their offer to that. We really need to go to the other extreme and make it really simple, and then they will seek more advice if they need it. The more you can do, the more people will engage and have a positive experience.”
The power of imagery
Another step change that needs to happen in store is treating garden care as part of a bigger journey to create that perfect garden or outdoor space, rather than breaking it up into smaller jobs that and just lining shelves with bottles and tubs of
product. This approach will help to inspire customers and get them spending more. “We can engage more people and inspire them if we talk more about the end benefit of gardening,” says Ann-Marie. “They don’t just want to kill a weed. It’s about visualising that end result; and how it’s merchandised is really key to that. With our category, you go into a garden centre or retail environment and it’s just lots of bottles on a shelf, with no imagery at all. In the past we have just showed weedkilling but we realise it is part of a process, part of a bigger project to achieve a beautiful garden.” Anne-Marie takes inspiration from the years she spent years working at decorative coatings giant Akzo Nobel to provide an example. “My background is in the interiors sector, so consider, if we never showed consumers an image of how their house could look, you’d never inspire them to take on a task! It’s the power of imagery. Why not use gondola ends and all-shelf displays to inspire? You could even create room sets with beautiful images.
Garden retailers have an array of beautiful plants at their disposal, so bring them in.” She continues: “Why can’t we
show plants at fixtures in store with examples of ‘fed’ and ‘not fed’? You’ve got to draw people in with visual imagery and props. I’m not a big lover of digital screens on retail fixtures. I think images depicting the end result is far more effective. You could set up a small garden space, decorated with pots of flowers, and have samples with signage saying ‘if your lawn looks like this, you need this’, and so on.
“One thing garden centres don’t lack is space! You can use that space to tell consumers about the end benefits better in a more engaging way.” Whilst visual cues to buy are important, so is the way retailers talk to their customers via signage and point of sale material. “It broke my heart when I walked into one garden centre and they had abbreviated it to ‘ferts & chems’,” Ann-Marie sighs. “That’s a buyer’s language. You need to make sure you are using the
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