water garden retailing: Five Challenges, Five Solutions

Jennifer Zuri

Why does one garden center turn a profit while its competitor across town struggle to survive? Our recent economic environment across all markets shows that playing with a strategy in mind helps companies rebound and become profitable once again, while those without a plan—well, they languish and fade. Some will add new products and services in order to prosper, and some will struggle to get their new category to perform.

Water gardening remains a strong trend and can prove to be a good addition to your product line-up—if you to do it right! But that’s easier than you might think. By and large, water garden retailers share the same challenges when it comes to succeeding and prospering with water features. Here’s a list of the top five. The solutions are simple and easy to implement.

Challenge 1: Same Old, Same Old

Consumers are tired of the same old stuff. In today’s economy, consumers need to be inspired to make a purchase. If your water feature displays have remained the same for a year or more, you shouldn’t be surprised when your customers walk away empty-handed. They need to hear the water running, see the beauty of a waterfall cascading over stones, and stick their fingers in the cool water.

The solution is as simple as building new water feature displays. If it costs $800 to build a new display and a customer purchases a $1200 kit after interacting with it, wouldn’t it be worth the investment? You might even sell five or more kits after creating your new water garden display. Your customers will buy if you inspire them with new, creative displays—an Aquascape poll shows that 83% of pond consumers purchased their pond after seeing one on display.

Challenge 2: Sorry Signage

Let’s say you take care of the first challenge and you’ve installed some breathtaking water features at your garden center. Do you also provide adequate signage so your customer knows you actually sell these water features and they aren’t just part of your decor?

Provide signs that give the water feature a name, along with a price range—one price for the product only, and another price for product and installation (if you offer installation services). Ideally, your pond supplies should be located nearby. If your store layout restricts you from placing the products directly next to your water feature, be sure to include a sign next to the display that informs your customer where they can find the pond supplies. Simple signage is the most economical and enduring salesperson that a retailer can employ.

Challenge 3: Where’s the Champion?

You wouldn’t attempt to sell livegoods without a few experts on hand to answer gardening questions, so why would you try to sell water features without knowledgeable pond champions? If your staff is trained on water features, they’ll not only be better equipped to assist customers, they’ll also be more excited about water gardening. If you host a build-a-pond day at your store to create an on-site water feature display and have your staff assist with the installation, it will give them valuable hands-on experience. Or let your employees purchase a water feature at cost, so they’ll have daily interaction with water gardening at home.

Retail water gardening seminars for your employees are also available across the country at a reasonable cost. As a business owner, you already know the importance of investing in your staff’s education and training. So if you offer water features or are thinking of adding this category to your business, make sure you properly train your staff. Have more than one pond champion in the store so there’s always someone on the clock who can answer important water gardening questions.

Challenge 4: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Quite surprisingly, consumers often don’t even see pond products when they visit a garden center that carries water features. The garden center has failed to take the pond out of the box and put it front and center where the customer can stumble upon it and envision this refreshing feature in their own yard. Garden centers sometimes focus so heavily on live-goods that pond supplies get relegated to ‘ the back of the store, where it’s difficult for customers to find these hidden gems.

Move your water garden display to the front of the store. Or, better yet, put the water feature near the curb so anyone driving by will be tempted to pull in and take a closer look.  You can use the surrounding landscape to show off ornamental shrubs, perennials, annuals, birdfeeders and anything else you sell. What better way to attract attention to your livegoods!

Challenge 5: Minimal Marketing

Most of us are familiar with the old adage that it costs more to acquire new customers than it does to keep current ones. However, numerous garden centers fail to market to their current customer base on a regular basis. In today’s electronic age, there are many ways to market to customers at little cost. Electronic newsletters can easily replace the high cost of print. What’s more, you can track the number of customers who open the e-mail, as well as count the number of click-through on links to your website.

E-marketing is an economical and efficient way to announce new products or sales. Offer a printable coupon and you’ll have yet another way to gauge the amount of traffic generated by your marketing efforts. You should never be too busy to market to your existing customer base. Regular communication with your customers helps build and strengthen your relationship with them and ensures they’ll return to you when they want to add a decorative fountain to their landscape. Include an article on aquatic plants or water treatments and your customers will recognize you as the local water gardening expert.

Jennifer Zuri is marketing communications manager for Aquascape, Inc., St. Charles, Illinois.