The competition may be hard to spot

It's easy in our trade to point at the mass merchants as the prime competition for smaller independent garden centers. When you go to Home Depot or Lowe's and see the line of people snaking out the door on a sunny weekend, you might think, "That's where all my customers went".  After all, the box stores most resemble our brick and mortar operations in that you have to go to the store and buy stuff.

What we need to notice is not so noticeable. It's the power of The Internet to draw business from your store. You don't see the people who now buy their fertilizer online instead of from you. They might still shop at your store, but the total sale might be smaller since their gardening dollars are being used to buy more stuff online. It will become increasingly probable that the customer will still come to your store to buy some potting soil for the citrus tree they bought online. They might still come to your store for advice, for the succulents they bought online. They don't need fertilizer since the succulent place sold them some. Of course, as soon as they can get real time advice online they won't even need to come into your store and bug you with their questions.

This could be quite depressing for the small garden shop, or it could be invigorating depending on how you look at it. What can I say? I do much of my shopping online now. I buy locally roasted coffee online. I support a local business this way, and get really great coffee beans shipped to my door. This doesn't have to be the end of the small, local garden shop. People do want to support smaller local businesses, but only if they do it better than larger concerns. We worry that we can't compete with the bigger players online. That assumes that those already online are doing it right. What if you could take the the small garden shop concept and offer it to more potential customers online?

Your biggest competitor could be another small garden shop that decided instead of fighting change, to roll with it. They offer the same great service you do, but to a larger audience. They ship quick, offer free real time advice, and enjoy the good will of customers who feel they are supporting a small, well run operation. Sure it would be nice to have that fertilizer customer come into your brick and mortar store. They would be able to enjoy the ambiance, and maybe see some other stuff they want. You know what? They just want to get that fertilizer. They don't have time to come and visit your store. If you don't make it easy to  buy it from you, they will buy it somewhere else that is more accommodating to their needs.

The day your supplier sells direct to the customer

The day the vendor you have bought from for so many years starts selling direct to the public, what will you do? Don't think it will happen? Remember all those wholesale nurseries that promised to only sell to Independent Garden Centers. They are now selling to the box stores, and not looking back.

The problem for the box stores? As these vendors get squeezed on costs, shipping, and everything else by the chains they will become less profitable. The market for their garden products continues to shrink. The need for much of the stuff sold is diminishing as the public continues to turn away from much of ornamental gardening. Please don't mis-undestand. There will always be people looking for these products, but not in the quantities needed to maintain the status quo as it stands today.

Business these days need to cut out as many middle-men as possible to maintain and grow profits. Who is a middle man? Lot's of box stores, garden centers, re-wholesale operations, sales people, and more. If you don't manufacturer or grow the stuff yourself, your a middleman.  How can you stay viable in this environment? I hope to discuss some of the options here, but the first step is accept that businesses will very quickly realize that many wholesale operations will find dealing direct with the customer may be on way to stay viable.

A bit of a stretch

Over at Southern Living Steve Bender known as "The Grumpy Gardener" has written an article titled, "Who wants to kill the birds?" It's about the recent fines Scotts Miracle-Gro received for selling poisoned bird seed.  In the article Steve say's, "Grumpy loves birds. He fills his feeder twice a day. So imagine his shock when he learned that Scott’s Miracle-Gro admitted to selling bird seed tainted with pesticides. Was Scott’s, the maker of a slew of popular lawn and garden products, in league with the devil? To find out, Grumpy paid the company a visit last week at their corporate headquarters in Marysville, Ohio."

It's great that Steve goes straight to the source for some investigative journalism. However, Steve mentions at the end of the article,  "Scott's paid my airfare and lodging for my visit. The Scott’s haters will immediately conclude that Grumpy was bought. Not so. I only agreed to hear Scott’s side of the story with no promise that I would report on it positively, negatively, or at all. Lots of companies in the garden industry send me stuff. If I try a product out and conclude that it’s good for my audience, I recommend it. If I don’t, you never hear about it."

Sure Steve.

You cannot control the message

My last post concerning Scotts/Miracle-Gro's trademarking a phrase thought up by someone else brought us this comment from Robert Woodman, of The British Gardener. "I was in ‘shock and ore’ to read what Scotts has done with trade-marking ‘you can grow that’. I guess this is ‘the taste of a new generation’, but its not ‘M’m M’m good’. As a writer I like to ‘get ready to rumble’ but I want to ‘be all that you can be’ and choose my words carefully. Still this kind of stuff can ‘put a tiger in your tank’. Scotts ‘just do it’ attitude for their marketing doesn’t leave me with a ‘we love to see you smile’ feeling, but ‘it’s so easy, even a caveman can do it’. Sure it’s ‘taking care of business’ to come up with these slogans, but to rip it off from a blogger and prevent others from using it leaves me to think that Scotts is ‘Home of the Whopper’. ‘Have it your way’, we can show disapproval by buying from the competition, words that ‘melts in your mouth, not in your hands’. What ever happened to freedom of speech, doesn’t it extend to the written word as well as the spoken word? As always Trey, your blog is ‘good to the last drop’ when exposing ‘pork, the other white meat’."

It's as if by trademarking someone else's phrase you bring some of the enthusiasm and "mojo" that created the original idea to your business. It just doesn't work that way anymore. These days the customers are often the ones creating the content, via social media. That's the big news. You cannot control the message. People will talk about you, with or without your input.

Thanks to Robert for the entertaining comment.

You can't grow that!

Here is a story that shows just how quickly the horticultural industry in diverging into two different types of business. On the one hand we have smaller, independent garden professionals and on the other hand we have the larger concerns who seem terrified of what the smaller concerns are up to. How else does one explain Scotts/Miracle Gro's recent actions? According to her website, garden writer CL Fornari decided last October to start a campaign titled, “You Can Grow That”. Once a week any garden writer who wished to participate would write an article under that heading. You can read about it here. Long story short, Scotts/Miracle Gro applied for a trademark on “You Can Gro That!”, after she had broached the idea on The Internet.

What’s up with Scotts? At a recent shareholders meeting in January 2012, Chairman and CEO Jim Hagedorn said, "We are making a step change in fiscal 2012 and setting a new benchmark for our advertising investment," Hagedorn told shareholders. "Both our Scotts and Miracle-Gro brands will be supported by completely new campaigns. While we will continue to support individual products in each commercial, we will do so with a consistent approach and message that creates a halo effect for the brands. I believe this is some of the best creative work we have done in years and I am confident it will impact our business – not just in 2012 – but over the longer-term as well."

Then last August Scotts reported, “During today's conference call to discuss its third quarter results, the Company said it expects adjusted earnings for fiscal 2012 to be approximately $2.00 per share and mistakenly stated an expected loss in the fourth quarter of about 40 cents. To clarify, the Company anticipates an operating loss in the fourth quarter which will translate into an adjusted loss per share closer to 60 cents. The Company still expects adjusted earnings per share of about $2.00 for the year.”

Like all of us, Scotts is trying to figure out its place in the changing gardening scene. Its reputation has taken a beating these last few years, and people just don’t seem to want to garden in a way that helped build the company in the past. Garden centers no longer feel it necessary to carry their products, as there are better alternatives now available. Lawns are slowly loosing favor with the gardening public, and lawn care is where Scotts ruled. Finally, through actions like trade marking a phrase, “You can grow that” it shows a certain un-becoming characteristic. It seems destined to alienate itself even further from the very people it would normally count on for support, garden writers and their readers.

Success by thinking small

Finding businesses and people who have become successful by thinking and staying small is a pleasure of mine. "Small is cool" is about people and business who have found success by traveling  a different path. The competition in the nursery trade is fierce, with the box stores bringing in the very suppliers that at one time we're exclusive to the independent channel. Trying to compete on their scale is impossible for most  smaller garden shops, so we need to find a different way. I see examples of different businesses who have achieved some success, however they define it, by staying true to their beliefs and staying small. Today in SFGate an article titled, "Wine shops find success in thinking small"caught my eye. Wine merchants have many of the same concerns as garden centers might have. We read that, "of course, great wine boutiques have been here all along. But in recent years, those who deliberately chose the small path have seen customer loyalty survive even when the recession pushed a $60 splurge down to $20." It continues with, "supermarkets and large retailers like BevMo have always offered ease of shopping - although at times it feels like I'm staring at a long row of wines that came from the same big spigot. But buying wine is becoming more intimate. Customers are willing to pay for expert curation."

So while the big suppliers like BevMo and Costco will always have a market, these wine merchants in the SFGate article have found a way to survive and thrive by, "...downsizing. Similar to what happened on Bay Area wine lists, buyers decided they didn't have to be all things to all people. Stores could be smaller, which meant lower rents and the chance to do one thing really well."  Some garden centers are starting to see this, and are headed in that direction. Should you?

The cost of cheap, Panama Pottery closes after 99 years

Panama Pottery has been operating out of Sacramento for the last 99 years but is now closing.  As one of

the last  pottery makers in the area the current owners cited State regulations and the box stores for their demise. According to The Sacramento Bee, the current owner, Carol Honda says she ..."got roped in by its charm. There are kilns as big as rooms and mounds of shards that tempt you to dig deep for a piece of the place's 99-year history." Unfortunately, after buying the facility the owners we're informed by CAl OSHA (California Occupational Safety and Health Administration) that "expensive renovations (we're) needed to continue running the factory". In addition customers said they could buy similar products at Home Depot and Costco at lower prices. According to Honda, "the pots that we were making didn't work any different than the ones coming from Mexico and China, and they cost twice as much. In addition she adds "'foreign companies"' buy the clay from Lincoln, CA. They ship it to Mexico, make a pot and ship it back to us for cheaper than we could manufacture it.'"

How is it that the clay which is local, can be shipped to another country and made into pots cheaper than we can do it here? Do people realize that this kind of stuff is why we are losing our place as "makers", and have become a country of "users". Do the customers who say they can buy stuff cheaper at Home Depot or Costco realize what they are responsible for? Yes, where you do your shopping does make a difference. Instead of always looking for the "cheapest" stuff maybe we could look at the big picture once and awhile?

Does anyone care?

There is a guest post at Garden Rant by James Roush titled, “Japanese Beetles for Sale? Really?" James relates a story about his day at “a large regional nursery about 60 miles east of Manhattan, Kansas.” He says, “This nursery sells each spring, among other plants, the largest variety of potted roses in a 100-mile radius. I could not help but stop to view the few remaining potted roses on sale, hoping particularly to find a ‘St. Swithun’ marked down to a price that even a curmudgeonly rosarian would accept.  And there, I saw them.  Japanese beetles!” The nursery is at fault for not letting its customers know about this up-front. Rather than educate, they sell the plants infested so you can deal with it at home. This is what can happen with large nurseries and growers that ship all across the country. You get diseases and insect pests being spread faster than they would on their own.  I am sure they will have some pesticides you can buy later to get rid of them. See, everything will be better.

Where you choose to do business does make a difference. Not all nurseries, or nursery people are as uncaring. I work with nursery people from all over, and they would never allow this to happen in their businesses. They watch as these large regional stores, their suppliers, and customers continue the long slow march to the bottom.  See if you can find a garden center in your area that cares, and then show you care by supporting them. If you can't find one, it could indicate a need (business opportunity) for the community. It appears the local regulatory agency has done a poor job of alerting the public, and the “large regional nursery” could care less, so who are you going to call next time a pest or disease threatens your garden? It's kind of scary when no one cares.

Sunset magazine, now a box store brand.

Sunset magazine seems intent on dragging itself into the box, and chain stores.  According to SFGate, "Sunset introduced a line of branded plants designed to thrive and shine in virtually every California garden. The introduction was timed to coincide with the release of the ninth edition of Sunset's influential Western Garden Book."  The article continues, "Sunset's Western Garden Collection is on nursery shelves in all 89 Orchard Supply Hardware stores and 40 Lowe's in California, and the company hopes to expand into selected small chains and independent garden centers."

The plants in the Sunset Western Garden Collection are not even new to the trade. They are in most cases already being sold, but will now be "branded" as "The Sunset Collection". Sunset say's, "The Sunset Western Garden Collection is the first live plant collection to focus exclusively on top performing plants for the Western gardener. The Sunset Western Garden Collection will debut this spring." What a bunch of crock! I, and other western independent garden centers have been selling plants that focus exclusively on the western gardener for many, many years. I guess our independent garden center brands don't count with Sunset.

When Sunset released the most recent edition of their "formally" influential Sunset Western Garden Book, many small garden retailers we're upset when the books showed up at Costco first. Topping  it off, they we're at  prices we small retailers would have to pay just to be able to sell them in our stores. Now Sunset disses the small locally owned garden centers that helped build the Sunset Brand over all those years, and heads straight to the box stores with their collection?

What's with all these branded plant collections? Does no one do anything original anymore? It's all cut and paste for these companies. Take existing plants or products, buy the rights, slap your name on them, tell people how original you are, and hope no one notices it's just more noise. Sunset magazine has managed in just a couple of attempts to alienate small locally owned garden centers across the west. Why would an independent garden center sell plants that are easily recognized as a "box store" brand with Sunsets name on them? I know we won't. Like other small western retailers we will concentrate on building our own brand. We have been "focusing exclusively on top performing plants for the Western gardener" long before this recent attempt to stay relevant from Sunset.

Saying one thing, doing another.

An interesting moment on Twitter today when a garden media personality got excited about seeing a certain plant brand in their local Lowe's, and decided to Tweet their excitement. A couple of independent garden centers decided to Tweet their displeasure to the personality. You see, they also carry that particular brand of plants, and are not too happy about being left out of the marketing.

You will see more of this as smaller, locally owned garden centers realize that they have the ability to answer back. It's also going to get a whole lot harder for "media" people and branding companies to claim they want to support independent, locally owned business all the while promoting the box stores instead.

Garden Centres Having Trouble in Britain?

Those of us in the garden center trades have been told for years that we needed to look to Great Britain for the future of  garden retail.  We we're told that the British, with their love of all things gardening somehow had unlocked the secrets to gardening retail.

All is not well with garden retail in Britain. In Garden Center Magazines,  "Reflections from across the pond" author Ian Baldwin say's, "British operators seem to have put gardening 'on hold...'" WHAT!?! The British nurseryman putting gardening on hold? Yes, it seems the British have the same issues we are dealing with here in many parts of North America. According to Ian, who visits Europe regularly as part of his consultation business, "many places had a tired look from the front of the 'Car Park.' Some outdoor sales areas had simply been allowed to go backwards without even a screen or fence to hide them. Only one or two centers had continued the creative standards of merchandising, POP (point of purchase) and even cleanliness in the plant areas that we took for granted in the past 20 years."

This is a profound change!  Nothing could stop the motivated British gardener from pursuing their craft, or so we believed. In addition The British have their own box stores. Ian say's, "many stores we saw on our yearly tours were no longer owned by the original family, having been acquired by small chains of investment companies or, in one case, by Tesco, the U.K.’s biggest retailer. "

In "Finding Mr. Flowerdew?"  written in 2006, I quoted Sir Roy Strong, historian and former longtime director of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Sir Roy said, "Gardening is one of the few things holding British society together". If that is the case it sounds like British society is going through much the same angst our own society is experiencing.

In October 2007 I wrote, "This can be a lonely profession".  I said, "we read the trade magazines, listen to the consultants, and go to the trade shows which only confuse us more. People only want flowers in color, they don’t want to garden themselves (DIFM), drop the Latin Names (we’re told the consumer just doesn't care), put a coffee shop in, basically just try to make gardening as work free and instant as possible. " Glad we didn't follow that advice.

In the same 2006 article mentioned above the nucleus for our current garden center groups was formulated. I said, "the solution is communication within the individual garden centers. I enjoy reading other nursery peoples experiences with these important subjects. Since we are generally separated by distance, the idea of talking to the 'competitor' changes to talking with a fellow nursery person. There seems to be a freer exchange of information and experiences."

The post continues, "I would like to hear from more of you in the trade. Many of us are like Teresa who says, 'This article has finally gotten me to step out of my silent reader status' and comment. I think many of us don’t speak up because we are afraid of rocking the boat. We’ll its time for the boat rocking to commence. We independents must speak up to the wholesale concerns that supply our plants, we need to speak up to the large retailers that continue to dumb down gardening and attempt to convince people that gardening is problem free (two year guarantee?)."

That was the catalyst to starting my LinkedIn group, "Garden Centers, Nurseries, and New Media", which as of today has over 2800 members (anyone with an interest in gardening businesses can join). Our Facebook Group, Independent Garden Centers and Nurseries has over 355 of the most forward thinking nursery people as members (you should be there!). Finally, our newest group, Retail Independent Garden Centers, Vendors, and Media now has 180 members. Did I mention we have members from across the pond now, too? In our interconnected world we are more alike, than different. We can all learn from each other.

Are we the "green industry"?

Over at Garden Rant, Elizabeth's say's, "In 2012, it would be nice if..." then lists some of her wishes for the new year. One wish is, "Independent Garden Centers Would Stop Whining  About The Box Stores." Agree or disagree, it's something those of us in the trade are aware of. What caught my eye today however was  the last comment after the post. Tara, a regular commenter at Rant say's, "Nothing green-eco-friendly about the annual industry. (Green houses, heating, cooling, petroleum made packaging, transportation, insecticides, fungicides, fertilizer, man-made soil, irrigation & etc)."  Interesting observation.

Are we as green as we think, and does the public think along those lines also?  Is there a contradiction with a  garden center that say's it's "green", all the while carrying annuals and other plants produced at large greenhouse operations, as Tara describes?  Is there a marketing opportunity for garden business that actively advertise that they don't carry these plants?  Interesting, and further evidence that the trade is fragmenting along different paths.

"Hundreds of new garden centers"

An interesting trend is starting to emerge in the garden center trades. According to Garden Center Magazine, "Master Nursery Garden Center members will be able to make merchandise purchases through Home & Garden Showplace, a business unit of True Value. The alliance will directly and immediately benefit Master Nursery retailers by providing Master Nursery Garden Centers the opportunity to purchase from among True Value Company’s 60,000+ warehouse-stocked products. For current Home & Garden Showplace retailers, the alliance will bring the ability to participate in Garden Elements, a proprietary program of Master Nursery Garden Centers including both a branded annual program and a new line of organic plant foods." A program for independent garden centers is now being offered through a hardware store chain. According to Greenhouse Grower, "True Value’s Home & Garden Showplace is working closely with their membership to provide more products and information on how to run a profitable garden center. True Value also recently announced a licensing deal with the Master Nursery group to help their members with more efficient buying and give them access to the Garden Elements plant brand. Look for these hardware companies to open hundreds of new garden centers over the next several years." Hundreds of new garden centers over the next several years. These will be garden centers attached to the hardware store, not stand alone garden centers. This of course follows the trend set by The Box Stores with their own garden centers.

There may be something to this trend of garden centers as a part of a larger overall theme. As the nursery industry continues to real from the recession, and stand alone garden centers continue to close down, this trend has room to grow. In many locations across the country people want to garden, but not in the numbers required to sustain many of the stand alone garden centers that exist today. A return to the one stop, local hardware store/feed store/garden center may return. The key is in having a garden center that looks like it wasn't just an after thought to the main business of hardware. Does this mean the demise of stand alone garden centers? No, but it does foretell of a time soon when their are a lot fewer of them.

Why do we make social media so complicated?

I want to share a post done by one of the members of our IGC&N (Independent Garden Centers & Nurseries Group.) By the way, our group now has 287 members, and is growing every day! Ian Barclay, owner of The Desert Northwest and author of a blog by the same name wrote a great post on how not to use social media for your garden center or nursery. He writes about one garden center where he posted on their Facebook page, only to find his post's deleted, twice. Now if the garden center in question found a post that was derogatory or demeaning then I certainly could understand it being removed. His post's we're not, and when a garden center does that it shows they are not very open to having a conversation with people, but rather they are trying to control the message. These day's that doesn't work, but some garden centers, nurseries, and garden media continue with the illusion. I am concerned that some horticultural enterprises, who are jumping into the social media bandwagon, are following the wrong advice. Often this advice comes from the very people who tout them selves as social media experts.

There are no social media experts! Just people who have figured out how to use the various platforms available. Sure someone can tell you to push this or that button, or here is how to turn on this or that feature with Facebook or Twitter. But social media experts? I'm not a social media expert. I am a garden center owner that has figured out how to use some of the platforms available to get the word out.  What you do with  it after that is up to you. Do I need someone to tell me how to start conversation? No.

Simply being a IGC (Independent Garden Center) does not make you better than the local box stores. There a plenty of IGC's that don't get it, as Ian in his post points out. Why wouldn't an honest nursery, with honest advice not want to start a dialog about what they are recommending with Ian? Because they are trying to control the message. It doesn't work that way anymore. If your garden center or nursery that's get "it", and you want to hang with others that do, we have a community of like minded people here. Come join us.

Late blight, the box stores, and you.

The recent late blight problem has huge implications for the garden center business, and home gardening. The idea that one supplier can produce all the vegetable starts for all the major box stores is a bit scary. When things go wrong, as they did in this instance, it can affect millions of people. Of course the box stores have gouged and "pay at scanned" all the other players out of business. So we end up with a few, very large suppliers that can deal with the box stores. The choices of where they can get their plants are shrinking. Because of the late blight Bonnie plants has said they will not grow heirloom tomatoes nest year. You choice of vegetable varieties just shrank, if you shop at the box stores. Web sites should be used for getting information out to the customer. I checked out the web pages for the box stores, and I could not find any mention in their garden pages about the blight. Bonnie plants, where much of the infection occurred just changed a section in their web site this last week to address, "brown spots and yellowing leaves." The link takes you to a Teaxa A&M "Tomato problem solver".  No mention of their part in this mess. A huge opportunity to let the gardening public know what Bonnie did, and what it intends to do about this serious problem in the future. Why don't the box stores want to help their customers solve this problem, that was likely spread through their stores? Where are the press releases?

The New York Times article quoted a  John Mishanec, a pest management specialist at Cornell ,  who said, "agricultural pathogens can easily spread when plants are distributed regionally and sold by big-box retailers. Farms are inspected, greenhouses are inspected, he said, but garden centers aren't, and the people who work there aren't trained to spot disease." Now is he talking about box store garden center employees? If the box store garden center employees are not trained to spot disease, what are they trained to do? Makes you wonder what they would tell you when you bring that little plastic bag in with your problems inside.

I think this whole affair proves that box stores work at reducing the choices for the customer. Less choice means fewer suppliers to deal with. Few suppliers that become bigger, and bigger, and find that less choice (no heirlooms next year), means fewer problems. Of course when something does go wrong, it goes wrong in a big way. A huge potential for smaller garden centers to fill a niche. More choice, expert advice, smaller locally owned business, with numerous smaller suppliers.