I n t er v i ew B u s i n es s
business. He explains: “Craigmarloch was brilliant to me. When I nished college, I went back and worked there full time. I became their buyer, which I absolutely loved. The owner of Craigmarloch, rew Mc arlane, was brilliant, I learned a huge amount from him. It was during this time at Craigmarloch that Colin opened his eyes to the garden retail market. Having had a lot of dealings within the industry, and networking with many people that worked in garden centres, a business idea was formed. I met a lot of people in the garden centre industry, so I got to know them. t the same time, I always knew I wanted to start my own business. I was looking out for a site to do that. I was out on a walk one day with my wife, Mandy, and we saw an empty walled garden. We approached the owners to see if they would lease it to us to build a garden centre. This led to the creation of Mugdock Country ark, our rst garden centre. We started the business as a plant centre – not selling gifts, no coffee shop, just plants. It’s funny starting a business from scratch, you have no customer base and you really appreciate every customer that comes through the door. The importance of our customers and the people that have helped us along the way – they taught us a lot as we’ve gone on to grow the business. xactly 20 years later, the group has expanded to seven centres and the business is going through a planning application for a new garden centre on a site they’ve purchased. It’s all been organic growth too – Colin puts this down to hard work and determination, and by taking opportunities that present themselves. He says Our second garden centre, our irkintilloch centre, was
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previously a londyke Garden Centre. That was a great opportunity for us – the centre didn’t quite t with the londyke business at the time, but we could make it work. Within two years, the company had two centres. Its routes to opening could not have been more different, although the irkintilloch centre was considerably changed after moving in.
Our customers and the people that have helped us along the way – they taught us a lot as we’ve gone on to grow the business Signi cantly, Caulders haven’t ever been in the position where they could just throw money at refurbishments or acquisitions. One thing we’ve done pretty much all the way along is working with tight budgets. We’ve done it all ourselves with a small amount of support from the bank. We’ve had no outside investment, so money’s always been quite limited for us. We’ve had to work hard and make the best of things. The two most recent centres in the Caulders portfolio were purchased from obbies. We took two obbies centres that, again, didn’t quite t within their business Colin explains. They were too small for them. They t very nicely with what we do – our centres range from 900,000 to million. Two of the largest groups in the market also have their base of operations north of the border – but does Colin feel as though he has to compete with obbies and londyke He explains
o, not particularly. I don’t think of the competition as competition. obbies are doing very well with what they’re doing on a much bigger scale. londyke, just by watching what they do, we learn quite a bit – we do that with a whole lot of the other groups too. We’re always keen to see what other people are up to. We learn a lot in terms of systems and procedures from watching all the groups in the market. s we’ve grown, we’ve needed to put systems in place that work for us as a group rather than as individual centres. We’ve always had very good relations with londyke, he also notes. avid ardley, the chief executive of the business, is a good friend of mine. Given we bought a centre from them early on, I’ve known the londyke guys for an awfully long time. s those two Scottish businesses have crossed the border into ngland, Colin doesn’t think that will happen for Caulders. Whilst he’s in charge of the business, any future expansions will be in Scotland. Technology s the market has expanded, businesses’ needs for innovation have grown. lthough Colin says he doesn’t have a personal interest in technology, it has made a huge difference for his business. bout six or seven years ago, we put oS into our centres, which has been brilliant for us. It makes a huge difference to the business. It’s great for influencing our buying decisions with the sales data. rom a garden centre point of view, oS is such an important technology. But it’s a simpler form of technology that Colin feels has made the biggest difference. Since we started in business 20 years ago, the biggest change in technology has been email! It allows us
Garden Centre Retail December 2019/January 2020
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