Today’s independent Garden Centers face many challenges associated with retail tree sales: smaller house lots, time-starved consumers, maturing markets and homeowners who seek instant satisfaction. For whatever reason, tree sales have become difficult in recent years but the future holds great promise as the “Green” movement continues to take hold.
In most, if not all Garden Centers, tree storage, a.k.a. tree displays, are placed far away from prime traffic areas and consumers are left with sometimes long treks through mud and muck, gravel or mulch only to find blown over trees displayed in no particular fashion. Worse still, retail sales people are very often ill equipped to fully and properly guide homeowners to responsible selections.
The following guidelines and recommendations will improve your tree sales both in volume and margins:
Too many choices? Homeowners become fearful of making the wrong decision when it comes to choosing the perfect tree. Without proper displays offering solutions to typical home restrictions today, customers can become confused and dismayed and simply walk away wishing and hoping. Tree purchases are personal and emotional buying decisions for your customer. Reduce the fear of failure by offering guarantees and reassurance that they are making a worthwhile, long-term investment in their property and the environment.
Plant trees around your garden center today to promote tree sales for years to come. Tree choices are most always made because the homeowner saw the tree in the landscape at sometime. During the spring months no POP or display can do a better job than the real deal.
Promote new varieties of old favorites. Many homeowners shy away from trees such as Birch and Crabapples because of older failing trees. Today’s varieties are virtually pest free and perform extremely well in adverse conditions. Homeowners are not aware of the advances made in our industry; promote your tree displays as having only new and improved selections of old-time favorites.
Change your buying habits to match what the consumer wants today. Let’s face it, with smaller building lots and shorter periods of ownership, Shade Trees have become much less popular than fast growing, instantly satisfying Flowering Trees. Your inventory should mirror this dramatic change in demand. Furthermore, you may consider not stocking Shade Tree selections at all and rely on your grower to supply just in time inventory of those items. Using sales tools such as the Pennsylvania Pride Guide to Selecting Trees & Shrubs can still close the sale.
Fruit Trees are making a come back. Almost with 100% certainty, during times of recession, wars or any uncertainty, homeowners will begin to 'nest’ again and the demand for fruiting trees, shrubs and vines grows rapidly. Even more, with today’s trend towards organic production, homeowners may be more serious about producing some of their own fruits. Market and promote fruit trees aggressively during the fall planting season offering huge and tasteful rewards the following spring, a natural fit for IGC’s.
If your tree display looks like a flea market you can be sure your customer expects to pay flea market prices. Make an investment in your tree displays, modernize irrigation, pave and widen pathways and invest in signage. Create a detailed plan for improving your tree department each year, set goals and seek new and efficient systems that support your efforts. Listen, the mud and muck have to go and you can never ask a customer to walk through water again.
Take care of your trees. Very often trees are allowed to suffer and become unsightly quickly after the spring season. Simple pruning and light fertilizing can go a long way. Especially with container trees, they continue to grow and do require attention. Consult with your grower for maintaining peak sales appeal all through the year.
The best loss is an early loss! When a tree is past its prime and salability is reduced dramatically, throw it out quickly. Tree maintenance is expensive and burdensome to your staff.
Offer outstanding planting and delivery services to grow revenue from services. Each year, Garden Centers report a higher percentage of tree sales when delivered or installed. If you do not offer these services you might consider getting out of the tree business altogether. And if you do offer these services, make them the best they can be, offer levels of service, same day, next day and garden center choice and get paid well for the service.
Designate By Brand. We prefer Pennsylvania Pride Trees be displayed away from other grower’s trees. Mix displays of trees and shrubs of the same brand for best results, for real product differentiation!
Cross Merchandise supporting products. Display Tree fertilizer where the trees are, offer your favorite pruners right in your tree display. Look for opportunities for easy add-on supporting sales, but be careful - send the right message. Too many support products needed can mean work and stress to your customer, keep it simple.
Sign it! Improve your signage in your tree displays. Help your customers with suggestions, selections and answer their questions with POP before they ask. We offer an outstanding selection of supporting POP for tree displays.
Qualified Sales People. Easier said than done we know. PennsylvaniaPride.com is a fantastic source of useful information to train your sales staff. Make an effort to meet as a group each spring and study our assortment of available trees. Not only what you inventory, but familiarize your team with our entire list of what we grow, therefore allowing your team not to miss a single sale. The Pennsylvania Pride Guide to Selecting Trees & Shrubs was published solely to assist retail sales people in the Garden Center.
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