With houseplant sales in garden centres not tipping the scales, it’s definitely time to re-assess your approach.

Today’s consumer has changed dramatically from those of even 5 years ago, but have garden centres?

Do you still tell rather than sell to the consumer?

More than ever before, consumers need to be told why to buy – they are looking for something different and they need persuading to part with their cash. That’s the only way we will get the ‘not green fingered’ to buy houseplants. And given that on average less than 5% of customers buy houseplants it’s time to use point of sale messages to appeal to the 95%.

Simple…? Well actually it can be
We did just that at Fernhill Garden Centre in Athlone, Ireland on Monday 29th September 2008 with the first ever Plants are Lifestyle makeover.

The Flower Council of Holland took over the garden centre for the one day only event and showed how positive and focused communication messages can really get sales of houseplants going.

'Before' and 'After' photos

It’s all about getting customers to stop: look: buy
The centre was simply transformed by powerful messages that resonated with the visitors and the efforts of two top designers, Desiree Glasbergen & Florian Seyd.

The team used simple paper ‘skirts’ to wrap around display tables, interesting bases and other items were lent to the team by Fernhill to create easy to build and manage but striking displays. Banners were hung with the messages re-iterated on ‘stabbers’ that were inserted into the plant pots.

Colourful skirts, posters & stabbers send the messages to the customer	Jo Read explains the concept

With the transformation complete representitives of the garden centres were introduced to the day with a 5 minute presentation which highlighted that we buy the majority of our products because the p.o.s messages tell you to.

Examples were used from makeup (anti-wrinkle cream to make you look younger) to
fashion and home décor (to be ‘in’ and using the fashions within your home) to food (you buy because of how aesthetically pleasing it is rather than the raw material ingredients).

Displays were based on tried and trusted principles – movement, colour impact, height, blocks of plants, simple impulse pieces, ‘décor’ pieces… all surrounded by p.o.s that triggered interest and gave reasons to buy.

Simple. It’s just about putting yourself in the eyes of the customer and trying to think about what might make her stop, look and buy.

With Fernhill Garden Centre a living example, Eoin Reid has not only seen his centre transformed visually but already his houseplant sales have increased as a result. Evidence enough that to get sales it’s all about the message.