Post-Brexit export growth has created new ways of cutting costs

Since Brexit, there has been a significant growth in the number of fruit, vegetable and plant producers exporting goods into Europe (and beyond). That’s the opinion of Waller Transport Services. Read more - open to all

Paul Rolfe, Waller Transport Logistics

5 special care tips for retailers to maximise poinsettia sales in-store

The poinsettia experts at SfE are here to give five top tips to help you, your staff, and your customers care for poinsettias correctly, so they can be enjoyed throughout the autumn and winter months. Read more - open to all

Choosing giftware for your garden centre

Garden centres have become destinations in their own right. With this in mind, here are three tips for selecting giftware for your loved ones that you may not have considered. Read more - open to all

New website helps retailers with The Ecommerce Explosion

Online sales have been slowly but steadily growing ever since the first transaction in 1994 by a student who sold a CD of Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales album to a friend in Philadelphia. The friend used his credit card to pay the $12.48, plus shipping costs in a transaction that, for the first time ever, was protected by encryption technology. Read more - open to all

Garden Connect helps you to sell more plants

Garden centres and nurseries (both retail and wholesale) are always searching for the best way to sell plants. Garden Connect is exhibiting at the HTA National Plant Show to help wholesale nurseries and garden retailers to sell more plants. Read more - open to all

How to increase your sales

It's human nature to want to grow your farm shop and increase sales but we can quite often be left feeling at a loss on how to achieve this. There are several low cost and effective ways that your farm shop business can increase average basket spend... Read more - open to all

Benefits to diversifying

One of the big questions that many rural businesses ask is why should they diversify, and are the benefits of diversifying their land and/or buildings worth the investment. These are important questions to be asking yourself when thinking of expanding your rural business, as diversification does come at a cost both financially and in time and commitment. Read more - open to all

Using search engine optimisation to promote your event

Imagine you’re bored on a rainy Sunday morning, wondering what to do with the kids today. How big are the chances you’ll Google for something like “Things to do Bristol”? Well, you may not search literally for this, but many people are using Google to find something to do “today”. And that opens opportunities to drive traffic to your events via SEO.

Read more - open to all

How could you diversify?

Whether you own a farm and have some empty barns you are looking to convert or a country estate or existing farm shop or food outlet looking to expand, there are many different options and ways you can diversify and create extra revenue. Read more - open to all

Social media for the garden industry

There is a myriad of social media platforms these days which can be confusing and overwhelming to those not familiar with it. The garden industry can be conservative with the majority of garden retailers having always sold, promoted and interacted through bricks and mortar. The rise of social media as a PR and marketing tool cannot be ignored. Your customers are using social media and as a business so should you. Read more - open to all

Do you like your own coffee?

Do you like your own coffee? Do you go to the same bathroom as your customers? And where do you park your car? Three questions that might seem strange, but to get online attention, there is nothing quite as powerful as a weird pick-up line. Read more - open to all

Do you know how customers are making purchase decisions?

Do you know how customers are making purchase decisions? A look at the customer journey of garden consumers. Read more - open to all

How Bonnington Plastics beat substitute sellers on Amazon

Bonnington Plastics offers to share with other manufacturers the tactics it used to beat the substitute sellers who were costing the company £50,000 a year. Read more - members only

Customers responding to this advert wrongly believed they were buying the genuine product

Be aware: the ROBO customer is coming your way!

Behaviour of customers is changing these years more than it ever had: since thousands of years people gathered together in city centres to trade and purchase products – or more recently they visited a garden centre to purchase products. The internet is changing this but luckily the ROBO customer is coming to you soon – if you have a proper website in place. Read more - open to all

Unmanned Concessions – Getting Started

Unmanned Concessions are a relatively new format for garden centre retail but the concept has existed for years.  Also known as the ‘Department Store Concessions Model’, Unmanned Concessions are a new way to introduce ranges and brands in a cost effective, manageable, well merchandised way. Read more - open to all

Notcutts hits record customer satisfaction levels at the close of 2023

Over 8 years Notcutts has doubled its customer satisfaction score (NPS) to the level of Excellent.  Notcutts CEO, Nick Burrows outlines how the garden centre group has achieved this. Read more - members only

Underage knife sales could cost retailers up to £1m

New sentencing guidelines relating to underage knife sales have been published and are due to come into effect on April 1, 2023.  Legislation covers a broad range of of bladed articles including axes. Read more - open to all

Ensure you are registered for business rates relief

Malcolm Scott Consultants have issued a reminder to retail, leisure and hospitality operators to update themselves on the various rates relief policies in place across the UK as they attempt to recoup some of the losses resulting from the Coronavirus pandemic. Read more - open to all

Andrew Burton

Gardenex advice on our transition from the EU

Brexit -  What are the concerns if there is a free trade deal?... What are the concerns if we revert to World Trade rules?... The key messages for UK exporters are explained by Gardenex. Read more - open to all

PR – a necessity or nice to have?

Why not give us a call to find out more. No obligation. But give PR a chance. Your business’ reputation deserves it. Read more - open to all

Marc Rosenberg, Cassie King, Kimberley Hornby and Robbie Cummings.

Content marketing: the next big thing in online marketing

The next big thing in online marketing is content marketing. Sharing knowledge and information helps to get more followers on social media, gain better Google rankings and ultimately attracts new customers to garden centres. Read more - open to all

We use content marketing on www.gardenconnect.com to attract attention from garden centres.

Why is a feasibility study important

If you are thinking of diversifying your business the best thing you can do to ensure your best chance of success is to have a solid plan in place. This is where a feasibility study comes in. Read more - open to all

Three ways to use social media to promote your event

Running an event is a challenge on its own, but nowadays, you have to use social media to promote your event. But what best practices are there to squeeze the most out of your social media presence and to get people from the web to your event? We’re happy to share three ways to promote your events via social media.

Read more - open to all

Branding is more than just a Logo

There are so many things you have to consider, plan and do when you are diversifying your business, you have so many things to think about that one thing that is often forgotten about is the branding of your new venture. Branding is a very important part for your new business. Read more - open to all

Brand new look for Premier

Premier is excited to launch their brand-new collections at GLEE this year, which includes eight fresh ranges, over 500 brand-new products – plus over 140 offers to tempt consumers the entire year-round. Read more - open to all

4 things you can learn from Amazon's new stores

You’re aware that your customers are behaving a little bit different than 10 years ago and that’s mainly because of the internet. For every purchase, Google gives us 100 alternatives and at least 25 shops to order from. Read more - open to all

5 tips to get the most out of your loyalty card!

The loyalty card is dead - hail to the loyalty card! The old fashioned plastic card is making a come back and offers garden centre a wide range of opportunities. Here are 5 tips from Garden Connect to get the most out of your loyalty card. Read more - open to all

5 things you didn’t know about e-commerce

The UK is the number 1 online shopping country of the world. Brits are spending more online than any other population in the world so there are plenty of opportunities for you to make that next step forward. In this article Garden Connect shows you 5 things you might not have known but can be very valuable for you. Read more - open to all

Mediation

Mediation is an effective tool for tackling a wide range of property and commercial
issues. It involves a neutral third party, assisting the conflicting parties to reach a
conclusion to their dispute themselves. Read more - open to all

Maximising advertising results

Results from advertising can often be disappointing. How can garden centres improve the response levels from their advertising? Read more - open to all