The Seeds of Success in Lawn and Garden Retail
The Seeds of Success in Lawn and Garden Retail

Ask the Expert

(Sponsored) Lawn and garden retailers are familiar with managing the ups and downs that come with concentrated selling seasons. However, some may need a greater level of control and insight into their business to do so effectively. We talked with retail tech expert, Dan Roessler, to discuss some of the key areas to evaluate to ensure a smooth and successful selling season.

How can I improve the speed of point-of-sale transactions for lawn and garden customers?

When customers are ready to check out, they expect speedy transactions so they can be on their way. To enhance the speed of POS transactions, ensure your system is intuitive and easy to navigate, displaying essential information contextually. Offer multiple payment options, integrated credit card processing, and flexible receipt choices (e.g., email, text, print, or no receipt). Consider a cloud-based POS with offline capabilities to handle internet outages seamlessly. Features like Quick Find and Return All Eligible Items can help manage returns quickly. Additionally, enable the suspension of transactions so customers can add forgotten items without causing delays for others.

How can I prevent Over and Understocking?

Achieving the right inventory balance requires sales insights and data-driven forecasting. A modern, comprehensive retail management system (RMS) can manage inventory with less effort. With features such as product ranking based on categories and store performance, you can use the data to help inform your inventory decisions. To increase customer basket sizes, create product kits that pair well together. Utilize automatic and suggested reordering, alongside forecasting, to streamline inventory management and avoid stock issues.

How do I set and maintain a profitable price margin?

Profit margin is your main measure of profitability, reflecting how much revenue is earned once you deduct the costs of goods sold. It’s a valuable barometer of how much money is going into your pocket. Real-time insight into pricing can help you make the right adjustments so that you aren’t letting good money walk out the door. If you don’t adjust pricing to achieve your margins or if doing so is a time-consuming effort, consider how you can use automated price maintenance within your RMS to streamline things. Using a desired gross margin approach to automating pricing allows you to set your target margin and have confidence that your retail prices will be calculated correctly every time.

What can a store owner do to maximize employee productivity?

Maximizing the productivity of all your employees, whether seasoned or seasonal, is critical to the success of your lawn and garden retail business. This starts with easy onboarding and helpful learning tools. An RMS that delivers a modern user interface with intuitive navigation and simplified workflows can set you up for successful, efficient onboarding. Combine that with guided learning tools and your new employees can be productive and ready to sell in a fraction of the time traditionally required.

What are some good ways to grow customer loyalty?

Growing customer loyalty starts with delivering a good customer experience — this personalized attention is a key advantage independent lawn and garden retailers have over big box retailers — including having expert staff that can provide efficient and accurate responses to customers’ questions. Although part of this comes from staff knowledge and experience, being able to access the right answers when needed is equally important. Your RMS should enable you to quickly find product, pricing, and inventory information when customers need it.

Beyond the Q&A experience, customer and loyalty management capabilities embedded in your RMS can also help increase customer participation, enabling you to run a more effective program more easily. You want to quickly capture new customers, apply rewards to their transactions, and track their activities — all in a way that requires minimal effort from both shoppers and staff.