Sell lawn and garden products throughout the store

E OR MANY home centers, the f lawn and garden department is off to one side, often outdoors or in an adjacent building. Impulse sales are low because such setups mean lighter floor traffic. Customers won't near the front of the store, especially at the start of gardening season.

Some retailers line up larger outdoor products, such as wheelbarrows, mowers and barbecues, along the front of the building. And ment is a great place to catch the eye of the female shopper. Include live plants, planters, plant hangers, pails, bins, even potting soil or weed preventers.

Hand and power tools can be displayed in the lawn and garden as well as the tool department. Place outdoor lighting in the electrical section. The plumbing area can also house sprinkler systems, components and accessories; drip watering and irrigation kits; garden faucets and valvest garden hose couplings and connectors, and swimming pool accessories and chemicals.

Story at a Glance

Bring lawn and garden prcducts out of the nursery to lure custe mers in... displays, sidewalk sales, cross merchandising plant ideas in shoppers' minds.

[&G departments aren't the only place to sell outdoor products.

just pass through the nursery on their way to the hardware section. Those in the nursery are there specifically to buy lawn and garden products.

The trick is to plant the seed of lawn and garden sales when they come in the store for another reason. An excellent starter is an elaborate gardening or outdoor living display sidewalk or parking lot sales of lawn and garden products are often more convenient to stage due to where and how they are already stocked.

Small objects, including packets of vegetable and flower seeds and even wild bird seed, at the checkout make high margin impulse items.

Cross merchandising leads to addon sales. The housewares depart-

The lumber yard is another selling area for trellises, lattice, gates, Iandscape timbers and kits for gazebos, outdoor play equipment and picnic and leisure furniture. Position deck stain, brightener and water repellent nearby as well.

More fashion-oriented items make for eye-catching displays at the end of any aisle. Merchandise mailboxes. weathervanes. bird houses and feeders, flags and flag poles, and lawn ornaments throughout the store. And a hanging plant fits in about anywhere.

HE TALK is niche marketine. Specialization is the key to success in hard times, they say. Sterling Pacific is proof positive.

Sterling Pacific Building Materials, Costa Mesa, Ca., sells a wide range of building products. It even has its own mill in neighboring Santa Ana, producing the entire millwork package solely for Sterling Pacific. Yet 6001, of the business is wood windows.

The splashy new 60,000 sq. ft. building combines retail showroom, selling warehouse, backup warehouse and sales offices. An outside sales force of 20 is responsible for a large percentage of sales. But the capstone of the new headquarters is the beautiful 7,000 sq. ft. showroom. Mock rooms were built to show what the windows look like on the outside and from the inside of a home. Garden windows, corner windows, curved glass, full circles, round tops, the spotlight is on windows. Complementary entry doors, hardware, mouldings and other millwork are also shown.

Story at a Glance

By concentrating on high end window, millwork and other building products, this specialized firm sen es an affluent area with care fully chosen products. attractive showroom serves architects, contractors and cFi-yers.

"The showroom is designed so it is inviting to builders, a place where they can see the products in the proper setting," says operations manager Bill Matthews. Other executives are general manager Clay Gallion and controller Lou Black.

Two plush conference rooms with drafting tables allow designers to discuss options with homeowners, inches away from the actual products. "They're places an architect would be glad to bring his customers into," Matthews says.

A small retail section to the side displays hardwood flooring, door locks and hardware, architectural ornamentation, skylights and millproduced stair systems and mantels. Like the windows and entry doors, there is no inventoryt everything must be custom ordered. A small