February 2004
Get retail ready! By Judy Sharpton

A new venue at the AHMA Hardware Show will showcase The Garden Center of the Future for retailers to learn and enjoy.

At this year’s AHMA Hardware Show, to be held in Chicago April 18-20, Lawn & Garden Retailer will be sponsoring an experimental venue designed exclusively for independent garden centers. The Garden Center of the Future will showcase two product categories of particular interest to retailers in a “showroom” that simulates a retail environment.

Blending not-for-resale products essential to a professional retail presentation with retail products supported by POP material, The Garden Center of the Future will focus as much on store layout and merchandising concepts as on individual products. Beyond just a collection of products, The Garden Center of the Future will be staffed by retail specialists to answer product-specific and retail-related questions.

And, don’t look for any pipe and drape! Although participating venders will occupy traditional sales booths on the trade show floor in close proximity to their “showroom,” the product display area will feature an open floor plan to create a “shopping environment.”

The not-for-resale component of the venue will feature a retail-style greenhouse structure plus fixtures, carts, POS units, signage and other retail support products.

All retail merchandise included in the venue will be “retail ready” with full POS support and effective displays. Products will be arranged in shopping zones to illustrate juxtapositions, transitions and other cross merchandising opportunities that you can take home to your garden center.

The venue will include a product demonstration and retail seminar area where topics related to retailing will utilize products displayed in the venue for hands-on workshops or merchandising. No slides! No PowerPoint! Just real merchandise and ways you can use it.

And, to add the consumer research component, attendees will be asked to complete product and venue response surveys. Venders will have real feedback from potential customers on the impact and potential of their products and will learn how to tweak this experimental venue for future trade events. There will be plenty of prizes for participating in vendor presentations and surveys.

It’s a Lawn & Garden Retailer event just for retail garden centers. See it first at the AHMA Hardware Show, McCormick Place, Chicago, Ill., April 18-20.

Judy Sharpton

Judy Sharpton is owner of Growing Places Marketing, Atlanta, Ga., which specializes in garden center renovation to create a retail-ready environment. She can be reached by phone at (770) 457-0608 or E-mail at [email protected].