Hot Chocolate
Dark, creamy, sweet, rich chocolate: Need I say more? I really should just finish the column right here, but I won’t. As they say in the fashion world, brown is the new black, and it’s better than ever. Of course, the trend started out in clothing and moved to décor, and now the chocolate-brown craze has entered the garden center world.
Even gourmet food has drawn some excitement to actual chocolate candy by adding extra designs, doing fun and different things to the decadent treat. So everyone can gobble up the goodness, Target stores recently started carrying the Choxie Collection chocolates with high-end flavors, designs and quality at economical prices. Clearly, chocolate is hot right now and consumers are anxious to get their hands on it.
According to a recent article in Chicago Home and Garden magazine, brown has taken over the trend market with a punch. The article stated the color schemes that go along with the rich (not drab) browns are pinks, corals, blues and greens. However, there are those who want something with a little more drama so they go for very deep browns with bright, pure whites.
Using different brown textures, like suede, miscellaneous fibers, even something like wooden flooring or a cork wall can add that chocolaty feeling. There are tons of different options as far as the color goes for inside décor, so how on earth do we move it outdoors?
Thank goodness the manufacturing companies have started working on that for you. The good thing about the brown craze is that the outside already has a lot of brown and green to work with, so it is just a matter of adding compliments to outside décor.
Use brown-toned wood, terra cotta or glazed containers and add some pink-, coral- or blue-colored plants to make them pop. Customers will want to eat the chocolaty tones up, and some may want to just take the whole thing home right then and there.
There are also many products in the accent and décor category that can add to the rich-brown-hues craze: birdhouses, feeders, gazing balls, torches, planters and even some plants.
You even can go so far as to have chocolate-scented candles burning (for more on candles in the garden center turn to page 66). Customers will smell the candles when they walk into the store and get in the mood for decadence. Sweeten the experience by having a chocolate station with hot chocolate, candy, cookies and cakes, and most customers will not want to leave your store.
You can encourage your customers to develop an outdoor Godiva experience so those ever-so-popular women customers can walk in, see the chocolate experience and melt the registers with sales. But just make sure you keep it in the realm of the self-indulgent Godiva experience because Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory may look good in a movie, but we don’t want it in the garden.
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