April 2008
Seed Money By Val Cunningham

What’s a surefire way to attract new customers and give the ones you already have a reason to come back for more? The answer lies in the realm of feeding birds, a hot market with great growth potential. Adult Americans say gardening and watching birds are their top two leisure activities, and more and more people are engaging in both. Make it easy on them by becoming their one-stop shop for both blooms and bird feed.

Some 65 million Americans spend more than $2 billion to feed backyard birds each year. People identify strongly with “their” backyard birds and are willing to invest to keep their feathered visitors returning. With very little effort, you can gain a share of this market and open the door to new profit potential. Consider one important fact: Birds need to eat every day of the year. Stocking bird foods helps position your operation as a four-season store.

Many lawn and garden retailers already devote a shelf or two to bird products, but now’s the time to ramp it up by creating a full-blown department with the potential to pay large dividends. The bird feed market is fairly fad free — stock the basics, and you’ll meet most customers’ needs every season of the year.

Q: What do birds want?

To attract a variety of backyard birds, your customers should offer various kinds of seeds in different styles of feeders. The “gold standard” is the small, plain black oiler sunflower seed; many kinds of birds can crack its soft outer shell to reach the meat inside. Many customers will buy black oilers in 25-pound bags because this seed quickly disappears down the gullets of cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches, titmice and many others.

Finches go crazy for Nyjer seed (often mistakenly called thistle seed). Mixing Nyjer with sunflower hearts can bring down the price of this expensive import.

Woodpeckers go crazy for peanuts, either whole or shelled, and hummingbirds specialize in nectar, whether from flowers or feeders.

Safflower seed is a good choice for people who want to discourage black birds like grackles and starlings. Undesirable birds (and squirrels) disdain safflower while preferred visitors, such as cardinals and finches, like it just fine. For sparrows and other birds that feed on the ground, stock white millet seed. Ground feeders, especially doves, favor cracked corn.

Increasing numbers of manufacturers offer high-quality seed mixes, providing something for every beak shape. For winter feeding, pressed suet cakes and logs offer lifesaving energy.

Q: What can I offer for customers always on the look out for something new?

Mother Nature isn’t inventing new types of seed, but manufacturers are showing ingenuity. People are spending more time on decks and patios and want to share these spaces with backyard birds. To save having to sweep up hulls each day, they’ll buy the 5- and 8-pound bags of sunflower hearts and quality seed mixes featuring shelled seeds, allowing birds to dine without leaving a mess.

Other quality mixes feature dried fruits and nuts along with seeds, a definite crowd pleaser. Suet can be problematic in summer’s heat, although suet cakes hold up on all but the hottest days. Your customers will be intrigued by a new version of this treat, bags of bite-sized suet pieces to drop into feeders.

Sales continue to increase for mealworms; these beetle larvae are hugely popular with birds, even those species that don’t come to seed feeders. The downside is that this is a high-maintenance product requiring refrigeration, so you may wish to let other outlets stock it.

Q: Bird customers seem to have a lot of questions — how can I handle this at busy times?

If you can’t always staff your bird department, tell the story with visuals. Fill a hopper feeder with mixed seed and hang it above bags of this product. Pour Nyjer into a finch tube and sunflower seeds into a hopper feeder, and place them near these seeds. Fill peanut feeders with peanuts to helps customers see how woodpeckers will use these feeders. You could even promote the deck/patio, no-mess mixes by hanging such feeders from shepherd’s hooks out in your gardening operation.

Use signs to help drive the message home: “Cardinals love this,” “Great for jays and woodpeckers,” “Gives grackles the boot,” “A finch favorite” and so on. Signs with bird photos are even better.

Consider inviting a naturalist from a local nature center or park to conduct in-store seminars on the care and feeding of backyard birds. Offer them a chance to promote their operation or book, and they’ll usually do this for free. Promote the events and create more reasons for people to visit your store.

Q: What about customers who don’t feed birds in summer?

Natural foods are abundant in summer, but point out to customers that summer feeders feature a seasonal highlight — parent birds bringing in youngsters for a feeding lesson. Some of the best times I’ve had watching birds have been summertime sightings of young woodpeckers hanging crazily from peanut feeders as they try to remember how Mom or Dad did it.

Q: What’s the best way to keep squirrels out of feeders?

Quite simply, you can’t. Sure, there are feeders that advertise themselves as “squirrel-proof,” but sooner or later, the varmints manage to get into most of these. Advise your customers to keep feeders away from tree trunks and structures to foil jumping squirrels. Keep the rodents busy with their own feeding station — a 5-gallon bucket filled daily with a quart of corn kernels to slow them down for a while. I’m afraid squirrels are a fact of life of backyard bird feeding: we can’t lick ’em, so we might as well let them join the party.

Watch Your Profits Soar

Bird seed is a consumable product that brings customers back time after time. Stock some basics — black-oil sunflower, Nyjer, hummingbird nectar powder, peanut, suets — and some specialty products, such as quality mixes and suet pieces, and you’ll have everything a backyard bird needs. Consider creating your own mix (a simple recipe: four parts black oilers to one part white millet and one part cracked corn) and call it whatever you like, such as “Frank’s Favorite” or “Our Store’s Special Mix.” Use signage to answer common questions, match seed type to bird species and fill feeders with your seed offerings. Then stand back and watch bird seed fly off the shelves.

Val Cunningham

Val Cunningham, a nature writer based in St. Paul, Minn., writes columns for numerous newspapers and magazines on her favorite subject, birds. The author of a book about gardening to attract hummingbirds, she can be reached at [email protected].