Embracing change with technology
With decades of history behind its name, Forest Lake Greenhouses is combining its strength in history with modernized technology to move the garden center into the future.
Forest Lake Greenhouses, currently owned by Luke Venable, was founded in 1989 and operates both wholesale and retail garden center operations in Florence, South Carolina. Venable’s grandfather, an entrepreneur and farmer, helped the retailer’s founders kick start business and gave them a piece of his farmland.
For 30 years, Forest Lake Greenhouses experienced steady growth and grew to the point where it was growing harder to manage, leading the founders to step away and retire. Venable had worked at the retailer for a summer and his mother was a minority owner. In 2019, they decided to purchase the greenhouse.
Identifying a Need
Venable’s background is in IT, specifically warehouse management software. After assuming the role of president at Forest Lake Greenhouses, he quickly realized that it was reliant on outdated programs that didn’t add to the customer experience.
“It became very apparent to me that old-school cash registers and fax machines were not the way for the business to continue into the future,” he said. “We were very dependent on three or four cashiers memorizing lots of prices, and we really had no way of checking the accuracy of things being run up.”
Additionally, there was no P.O.S. solution to keep track of customer data. Venable ultimately decided to partner with Epicor and adopt the Propello product, a cloud-based management system designed for independent retailers.
Propello aims to combine power and simplicity in one, said Dan Roessler, senior principal product marketing manager of retail at Epicor.
“It’s very much designed with the retail community in mind,” Roessler explained. “There was a lot of input that they had into the product as we worked on it. It’s designed with and for retailers, and it’s really meant to simplify the daily operations of retail.”
The P.O.S. technology aims to give back time to retailers as well as tailor the overall experience to each customer. The system can operate offline so business can proceed even if the internet is down. It offers inventory management capabilities, keeps a record of customers and products sold, and speeds up the checkout process.
“When a clerk is checking out a particular customer, right there at the P.O.S., they have information on that customer, they know what that customer bought the last time they came — they can make suggestions, they can look at that history,” Roessler said. “It really is about embracing some of those capabilities and leveraging them so that your employees are informed and have that contextual information they need to really create a great customer experience. In the end, that’s what separates independent retailers and gives them an advantage — that customer experience they create.”
Seeing Results
According to Venable, Forest Lake Greenhouses has grown in revenue by 35%, as well as increased its operational efficiencies since adopting the Epicor Propello software.
From a customer’s standpoint, checkout is faster and customer loyalty programs are kept within the software system, so they don’t have to keep track of their loyalty points themselves. The improved experience helps to incentivize the customer to return, Venable said.
Operationally, he said the software has revolutionized how employees can work and keep track of sales goals. The garden center has been able to move its seasoned workers to the floor to interact more directly with customers and share their expertise, while new, less experienced workers can come on board and quickly learn the cashiering system without any issue.
“I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had a new employee, after one day of shadowing a cashier, basically take over the process,” Venable said. “We’ve had many employees who have been a cashier at three places say, ‘This is the best, easiest system I’ve ever had to work with.’ That meant the world to us. This industry is not not quick to adopt technology and having that type of feedback from new cashiers is awesome and makes everybody less afraid of technology and change.”
Timing was also on Forest Lake Greenhouses’ side as it adopted this system right before the onset of the pandemic in 2020.
“We were very grateful that we had taken those steps because COVID was right around the corner and we had historic volumes,” Venable said. “If we hadn’t hadn’t taken those steps, we wouldn’t have been able to even keep up.”
Offering Advice
Venable advises other garden centers looking to adopt new technology to do so at the most strategic time of year.
“Because we’re so seasonal, it just pays dividends to be able to start in the offseason and get geared up before the peak season hits,” he said.
He also urges them to not shy away from new technology, especially with a software partner that aims to meet retailers where they’re at.
“All the staff we’ve interacted with from Epicor were very knowledgeable, had been with the company for a long time, and just went above and beyond to make sure everything was working and that we were comfortable with the solution,” Venable said. “We’ve had the solution for probably 3.5 years now and the continued support has been fantastic.”
Photo courtesy of Forest Lake Greenhouses.
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