Did You Know?!?

We recently attended a meeting where Jeff Morey from the IGC Show and Nursery Retailer and Kip Creel from Standpoint Marketing explained results from a survey that the IGC show sponsored. We found the information from this survey to be very interesting and thought we would pass along a summary of some of the ideas discussed.

The following are just a few of the highlights; please click on the this link to see the entire IGC Research Power Point Presentation. •There are significantly less people who are hobbyist gardeners compared to years past and they are a lot less informed/knowledgeable about plants than what we typically expect. Some suggestions are to make sure all information and signs are written with the beginning gardener in mind and to offer more "take-one" sheets for the customer to take home. •Consumers are much more project driven when purchasing plants. Their main motivations for purchasing plants are to beautify their homes. They are looking for the garden center to provide them with "solutions". Some examples are showing ideas for how to make their mailbox more attractive or to suggest a certain group of plants as "Pool Party Plants". •The term Independent Garden Center is foreign to them. A suggestion is to use the term "locally owned" instead. Key words that need to be used in advertising messages are: friendly, welcoming, expert and trustworthy. Best plants and best assortment are not important to most.