News Extra
NOTTCUTTS PIONEER
DISPLAY GARDENS TO DRIVE SALES
GCR spoke to Nicky Dulieu, chairman of Notcutts, about the process of creating the company’s new instore display gardens, and how they help to promote link sales Why are plant displays important for a garden centre? There are a number of reasons: for one, it’s a great way to display your expertise as a garden centre. At Notcutts, we see o rse es first and foremost as a plant garden centre rather than a collection of concessions, so using the display garden to showcase o r now ed e and rofi en is important to us. There are also commercial reasons – the display garden drives footfall and gives customers another reason to visit. Hopefully, those who see it will enjoy it and tell their friends and family to come and take a look for themselves. The display garden changes throughout the year, which encourages repeat visits from
customers who want to see how it is evolving. It’s not a show garden such as you’d find at the he sea ower Show, it’s a real garden, and we planted it to show off a s ess on of d fferent owers all year round. A third key reason is to inspire our customers and show them what they can do in their own gardens; when they see large groups of plants looking great together in our display garden, it encourages sales of those plants. Where did the idea for your Notcutts Display Garden come from? We were asked last year to do the feature show garden at the Royal Sandringham ower show e abso te loved creating the garden
You can see people getting inspired, and we’ve found that customers will discuss the display sections they love with our staff, asking how they can recreate it in their own garden
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Garden Centre Retail September/October 2017
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the fin shed rod t was absolutely stunning and won a gold medal – but the show was only open to the public for one da a n s ent fi e months ann n the arden and fi e long, hot days building it, dismantling it after 24 hours was heartbreaking. We were thinking about ways we could celebrate Notcutts’ 120th anniversary this year, and considered do n another ower show but then thought: “Wouldn’t it be so much better to have gardens that all our customers can enjoy, all year round?” orw h was the first of o r Notcutts Display Gardens, but we’re planning to have 18 in total eventually, one in every Notcutts garden centre. How long did it take to create, from the idea to the display garden’s opening? e anned for abo t fi e months with a great team within Notcutts, including the head of visual merchandising, the senior plant buyer and the Norwich garden centre manager. After pooling our
ideas and selecting the site in the garden centre – which dictated some of the choices and themes because of the site ond t ons we fina sed the design and got started on the build, which took about three weeks. We had up to eight staff members working on the garden each day while it was being built – it was quite a labour-intensive task! Do ou find that lant displays encourage link sales, with customers buying all or part of the display? Absolutely. In the sunny area at the front of the garden we mixed together a tapestry of different-coloured Heuchera with bright orange Geum and Sa a nemorosa aradonna which looks stunning. We have seen so many customers put that combination of plants into trolley after visiting the garden, which is brilliant. You can see people getting inspired, and we’ve found that customers will discuss the display sections they love with our staff, asking how they can recreate it in their own garden. w
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31/08/2017 09:45