Just the Plants, Ma’am
Some garden centers try to be everything to every customer, with a variety of gifts, hard goods, tools and services. And for some garden centers, that works like a dream. But for Calloway’s Nursery, it’s all about plants. Plants of the highest quality, displayed to inspire customers with every visit and that’s why they’re our Merchandiser of the Year.
Texas-based Calloway’s Nursery was founded in 1986. By 1991, there were 11 stores in operation. Today, that number has more than doubled, with locations throughout the Dallas/Forth Worth area as well as Cornelius Nurseries stores in the Houston area.
With that kind of rapid growth, it’s easy to assume the stores’ diversity of product would explode, too. But that’s not the case for Calloway’s.
Plants and Customers First
“The specialty at Calloway’s is plants: tropicals, nursery, bedding plants, veggies, herbs… we really try to focus on cash and carry,” says Kim Bird, who has been Calloway’s vice president of retail marketing since 2006. “We don’t do landscaping, we don’t do design services. A lot of people have diversified, and they’ve done well. But here, it’s all about the plants. We stay true to that.”
And with such a singular focus, you can’t make up for shoddy merchandising with a dazzling product mix of beautifully packaged garden gifts or wide expanses of hard goods. Calloway’s organized, creative merchandising of green goods really set them apart and earned them the distinction of Lawn & Garden Retailer’s 2009 Merchandiser of the Year.
Beautiful merchandising is the final step in a long process, which begins with selecting the best plants possible for the Texas climate, where gardeners can stay busy all year round. Many of Calloway’s plants are grown locally, a huge competitive advantage for the nursery over its big box competition. “We’ve got a group of growers that has no pun intended grown with us,” Bird says. “When it comes to our color, it almost seems like an extension of our business. They go to the shows with our buyer and choose those genetics together. We go up the supply chain with them and help select the seeds. It takes a lot of time… [but] freshness is a bigger factor than we ever considered. [Customers] want fresh flowers and products that will last.”
How Do They Do It?
Keeping 23 stores stocked and looking great is a particular challenge. Calloway’s centralizes merchandising through the corporate office to ensure that product is consistent from store to store.
The marketing department puts together the floor plans, Bird says; each season or selling period has a certain theme or flow, and the stores are traditionally organized by sun and shade, with annuals and perennials set up in strips.
This spring, the stores will experiment with a new merchandising strategy: Instead of separating nursery stock completely from bedding plants, some will be merchandised into vignettes to help customers envision how to combine them in their own backyards.
“At the grocery store, the milk’s not with the steak,” she says. “[But this year,] we’ll try to set the table somewhere it’s Easter, maybe you should have ham with all this other stuff.”
As for execution of these merchandising plans, it’s all up to the individual locations: Each is arranged differently, with older stores built on concrete slabs and newer locations are open air, and managers are empowered to assign the right staff to each task.
Creative staff members get to strut their merchandising stuff, especially during Summer Safari and Fall Harvest events, and there are also experts on hand to help customers be as successful as possible with their purchases. “We have more Texas-certified nursery professionals than any garden center in the state. We have experts who can speak to how to care for those plants,” Bird says. “[Customers] come in and get advice.”
“I have worked with the team at Calloway’s for the past 15 years and find them both fun to work with and inspirational,” says Faith Savage, retail accounts manager for Syngenta Flowers/Goldsmith Seeds. “They are totally dedicated to giving their customers a quality gardening experience, from the training they provide their staff with to the plant material they seek out. The presentation at store level is often creative, fun and really gets the juices flowing for their customers. What a team!”
Stick to What You Do Best
Bird says the stores carry garden tools, as well as natural/organic and traditional soil amendments, fertilizers and other plant care supplies. But she wonders sometimes whether Calloway’s is doing enough to be diversified and keep customers coming through the stores’ doors. “I go to shows or talk to other garden centers and find out all the stuff they’re doing,” she says. “Maybe we’re not innovative enough, [I think]; maybe we should have birdhouses. But [plants are] what we do well. If you take your eye off that, are you going to let your customers down on what they’ve come to rely on you for?”
There’s always room for change in the future, of course adding new stores and adapting to a constantly changing market and consumer mindset demands adaptability. And trying out new merchandising strategies is part of that. But for now, taking big risks and changing product mix and strategies completely isn’t an option. Letting customers down is one chance the Calloway’s team isn’t willing to take.
SIDEBAR
Look Toward the Future!
Interested in entering the 2010 competition this year? Start collecting photos from your best 2009 displays, and stay tuned for more details in upcoming issues of Lawn & Garden Retailer and our twice-monthly Retail Report e-newsletter. If you don’t get the newsletter, visit www.lgrmag.com to sign up.
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