Planning Your Customer’s Future
One of the complaints I here most often from garden center employees is they don’t have enough time in the spring to walk around the store for an hour with every customer that comes in. One of the complaints I hear most often from consumers is that they just don’t know how to build beautiful gardens by themselves. Does any of this sound familiar? I thought so.
Though landscape installation is a hot topic right now for a lot of consumers, the DIYers have not totally left the building. Landscape installation is one of the most wonderful inventions known to man (for this workaholic, at least), but there are still a lot of people out there who love to garden themselves and just need a little help. There are still others that really can’t afford to have everything done by professional landscape designers. For those who opt to landscape for themselves, Eckert’s Garden Center, Belleville, Ill., is prepared to help.
Eckert’s has developed a number of different garden plans that offer options to fit every gardening scenario. They have taken a simple line drawing and turned it into a garden inspiration.
The example to the left gives a lot of detail in an easy-to-read format. It shows consumers how to build a sun garden by detailing exactly where the plants should go, which plants are the best to use, how many hours a day they like the light and how the drawing’s scaling transfers to the actual size the garden needs to be in the yard. This plan includes a lot of good, helpful information on one photocopied sheet of paper. And, of course, Eckert’s houses all of the plants that go into the plans so customers can easily pick them up right there.
This is just one of many tools garden centers can use to help employees gain a little bit of sanity during the spring season and help customers understand a little more about gardening. We all know that educating the consumer is key the more garden savvy customers you have, the better it is for you, your staff and, ultimately, the customer.
This idea can be implemented as a DIY seminar; you can promote it as a “Free Service” that makes customers think they are getting a fabulous garden designed for free. All in all, it is a win-win situation. You can always control the way the customer thinks by using the correct buzzwords: free, custom, sale, etc. They are yours for the taking. Good luck!
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