Ian's Bits & Bobs: The Blog

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It’s OK Not to Know the Answers

Ah spring; the daffodils, the greening lawns, the plum blossom. And of course there is also the Bobcat that now won’t start, new truck drivers who don’t know your “before 10am” policy, the phones that didn’t re-charge overnight and the customers: oh yes, “them”!

Every year (like an ice-storm in Atlanta), spring seems to arrive as if it was a surprise to many. Garden retailers take in more on the first busy Friday than in the previous 4 weeks. By 11am on Saturday, you have already beaten the sales for the entire month of January. Yet employees are unprepared for the stress, hired and thrown in the deep-end (or allowed to continue set-up “task” jobs even as the parking lot is bulging).  The next ten weeks should pay a year’s bills; this is intense stuff and not for the fainthearted! Nor for the shy or the task-obsessed; the next few weeks are about people, specifically, customers.

After many years of walking retail garden businesses I am still amazed how easy it is to be ignored by the people on payroll that day. I don’t mean to suggest these people are lazy or disinterested; they are often busy, even overwhelmed, with a task list from their leaders, but somewhere in the training, orientation and mentoring, a crucial behavior becomes lost.

Mantra

So even with all the caveats about hiring earlier, selecting for character and training for knowledge and so on, here’s the Baldwin spring mantra for the next few weeks:

                It’s OK not to know

but it’s not OK to avoid customers because you may not know…

So, look up, catch eye contact, smile, welcome your wages coming your way. Engage with a non-invasive “Good morning! Sunshine (or warmth/cloud/rain) at last(!)”, and then pause to ‘read’ the customer’s  response. That’s all it takes, literally!

Been there, done that

I have been there. At 18 I remember lifting, carrying and digging my way through spring, keeping my head down and my eyes on the job, praying that customers would not approach me and ask me a question I was sure I would not be able to answer. “The boss knows everything, ask him,” I thought. “This is my first spring, how would I know when to plant sweet peas? I am just filling the tables with them; please, oh please don’t walk over here…”

Obviously, the more product knowledge and experience they have, the more confident the retail employee will be and the greater chance the customer has of being engaged by a smiling face, instead of looking at busy people with their heads-down. But retail is theater and is all about self-confidence. If you don’t like that moment on “thin ice,” don’t volunteer to go on-stage.

Fair Game

No one knows everything and never will. This industry and its products are evolving so quickly even the veterans have a hard time keeping up to date with PK (Product Knowledge). But employees in garden retail cannot let their own lack of knowledge govern their behavior towards paying customers, who don’t know or care if the employee has been there two days or twenty years. Anyone in uniform is fair game.

If this frightens you, retailing may not be a good fit for you.  If it encourages you, congratulations and welcome to a great industry! The day will be much more fun and the customers much happier if you look “open for business.” Spending your time avoiding customers’ eyes can add up to a long long day!

So for now, I wish you a “heads up and happy spring!”

Stay tuned here at Ian’s Bits & Bobs for the next installment: Anticipating the Customer’s Questions.

Mar 28, 2014 14 Comments
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Fall is for … Jingle Bells?

It was sunny, 85 degrees and Christmas was in the September air!

Those who know me will be the first to note that I am not exactly “Mr. Gift” (or Santa’s best helper,) so please know that this is NOT a strategic advisory to get into a big Christmas gift and décor category if you don’t already do that.  *(I also grew up in a culture that called the coming season “Christmas” and had a “holiday” in summer so forgive the odd dash of political incorrectness here.)

In the last few years several clients and local garden center (LGC) leaders have started selling Christmas merchandise in September, with “open house” kick-offs being brought forward into October.

This brings Christmas up against what the traditionalists would say was a classic gardening season as in the “fall is for planting” slogan of yester-year. Why, I asked, were they doing this? Didn’t they jeopardize a busy late Sept/October garden selling season? Did they lose significant fall and Halloween sales in the rush to get the glitter out? And what about alienating those loyal customers who shopped there precisely because they were NOT a corporate chain starting Christmas a few days after Labor Day? What about the “bah humbug” crowd who wanted nothing to do with that kind of creeping commercialism?

Well it turns out that some LGC owners, way smarter than me, had rationalized these very questions and decided to go ahead putting out their ‘holiday’ offer earlier than they used to, earlier than many of their own staff would have wanted. The results (this year anyway) have varied from a nice margin uptick to spectacular.  Hmmm!

The Reasoning

“Our fall planting used to be more than just replacing summer color with Mums and Kale. People bought lots of big ticket landscape products like trees and shrubs and we all know what happened to those lately. Fall is now about cheap decorating at best.”

“Halloween has lost its appeal to many of our customers, meanwhile it’s become a loss-leader  for every grocery store and gas station, so we had less and less customers looking  for it.” (Another nail in the fall coffin so to speak!)

“We already HAD the inventory, paid for and in storage, in some cases since July.  It was just a matter of rescheduling the set up and sales labor.”

“I am looking at the cost of doing business, making payroll, paying bills that are rising and a traffic count that was falling. But every day thousands of local consumers drive by, or Facebook each other; why not give them something to talk about?”

“The later we leave our open house the more we compete with our customers’ own busy lives. By Thanksgiving they all have their holiday décor picked out and we want them to buy it from us, so the earlier the better here”.  

“In this part of the country our fall is put away by November so some of our holiday customers never did see our beautiful outdoor plant material; now we get to show what we have”

“We have five chain retailers down the street discounting Christmas from the get-go; why not beat them to the punch and grab a few weeks of great margins?”

“As a third generation nurseryman I wasn’t thrilled, but this is a business and for now I love having the holiday money in the bank. If fall comes back for gardening, we can always change back again.” 

The Results (as of Nov 14)

One warm-climate local garden center I know had an early October open house (with no competition) and has been selling full-margin Christmas product for almost 6 weeks. Meanwhile, their gardening business continues as is and the place offers a dual-purpose visit for the consumer.

It could just be the year that consumers finally started spending again, but we know of several LGCs that have beaten all-time records for open house or first Christmas weekend sales volumes. Three more recorded new customer count records …  and no bah-humbugging!

Gross margins are also at levels not seen since before the recession. In a perverse way, the gloom in Washington DC seems to inspire some shoppers to treat themselves; for instance, buying a fully decorated tree as shown in the store.

A spike in Facebook and Pinterest mentions together with increased website traffic.

Early excitement from most staff (you know your bah-humbugger) happy to know they are working for a company that changes with the times.

The Final Word

As I said at the outset, this is NOT a recommendation to get into Christmas if you are not already in it (that is a subject for another day, another blog.) But if you ARE already invested and fall gardening has been flat for years, why not? This is a business decision about use of assets and paying bills. Just be prepared that you’ll be ready to kill the Christmas carol “musak” by early December…!

 

PHOTO CREDIT:  Roger’s Gardens, all lit up and selling … in October!

Nov 15, 2013 6 Comments
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Tales from The Trenches: “Price First, Then We’ll Talk About Everything Else” – Consumer 2013

Recently I was walking a garden center, looking at selection, pricing, silent selling, etc. to get a feel for their market position when a price stopped me in my tracks. I had an earlier “uh oh” feeling on seeing a basic 2 gallon ‘Knock Out’ Rose at $29.99 … and then a smallish 1 gallon Juniper ‘Blue Rug’ at $14.99 gave me the “oh dear” reflex. This was NOT a one-off, more I’d say the continuing default setting of most Local Garden Centers (LGCs).

Exposed!

After 5 years of recession, with every national retailer in the country using prices to drive traffic; with mobile smartphones able to access comparison websites on all manner of goods and services, why do so many owners still not get the message about selective mark-ups and pricing? The 1990’s position of “we need to make 50+% on every item” is being painfully exposed by this grinding recession.

Why do buyers persist in thinking that their store is a “special case” to the consumer, who will continue to pay more (often a lot more) for a known product because they are local and offer superior service?

When are owners (this has to be driven down from the top) going to connect the 12 years of declining customer count in the LGC channel with the public’s perceived image of “beautiful, knowledgeable but EXPENSIVE”?

When the economic tide was coming in from 1995 to 2007 and all boats were rising, few noticed the steady decline in customer count. Most companies more than made up for it with a rise in consumer average spend, and some owners were actually relieved that price-driven shoppers stayed away.

That was then and this is now

Price-driven shopping has become the norm. People at all levels of affluence boast about going to Costco. Social networks buzz with deals and offers. We have consumers of all earnings levels looking for bargains and, critically, judging an entire company’s image on the prices of the relatively few “Known Value” (KV) lines – like a ‘Knock Out’ rose.

The known value (KV) effect has been around for years, yet LGC owners and teams still apply department or category-wide mark ups to achieve the high Gross Margin they think they must get on everything. That makes a few things (the KV lines) way over-priced to the shopper while leaving dollars on the table with other less known or unique lines. Selective, volume-based, seasonally sensitive mark-ups have been the norm for years in grocery stores; when did you ever see all apples the same price, or a year-round price on Coke?

LGC owners’ peers in the family-owned local hardware store business have long since figured out how to compete on price-perception with the big box home centers.  Think about it: everything the hardware stores carry such as paint, electrical and plumbing – not just lawn and garden – is in a home center!

These hardware stores use competitively priced national brands to drive traffic, unlike many LGCs who shun them. Hardware stores might lower Gross Margin to 20% on a few carefully selected KV lines and get 60% on specialty, unique and local lines. Some hardware stores use 72 hour prices to further promote their competitiveness; others choose just one size of a certain product to get down and dirty with. Some use their marketing budget to “subsidize” the lost margin dollars on a deep price offer for a weekend special. And guess what? The hardware channel has (comparatively) had a very good recession – if there is such a thing!

Time for Action

So, as we hear about another large multi-generation LGC closing down, I think it is time for leaders in the LGC industry to wake up and smell the POS reports. Identify 20-40 Known Value SKUs (out of 5,000 to 45,000!) that create a price-perception to the consumer, reduce prices, budget for it and shout about it – loud! After 50 years of being seen as “pricey” this change in strategy might take several years to pay off, but now is the time to start showing your market that you are sensitive to their budget struggles.

My mantra is “get it where you can and give it back where you have to.”

I firmly believe that local garden centers have a great future as a resource for a consumer that is garden-success challenged. However, as the number of LGCs falls monthly, consumers are frightened away by a few KV prices before the company even gets a chance to show their relevance. So it’s time to copy our cousins in the hardware industry: get customers in the door with prices and retain them with service and success!

Americans are very generous to local causes and charities, but pretty unsupportive to the plight of a  local retailer. Unless you can achieve cult status (like Apple), it’s time to embrace and promote a KV strategy – or register as a non-profit!

Photo Credit:  a smart Known Value pricing strategy as seen at Petitti Garden Centers (OH)
Oct 16, 2013 21 Comments
Business Closed

Don’t Bank on These Guys for Help!

You may have heard about someone going out of business lately, shook your head and said “That’s a shame” and continued with your day. After five years of recession, consumer fatigue, stalled housing and increasing competition, we all knew a shake out was inevitable.

Most people assume that failing companies are badly run, saddled with debt and just not up to life in today’s retail fast lane. And there is some of that, no question –  owners unwilling or unable to change their strategies and operations. When the national lawn and garden market shrinks 20+% since 2007 and the sales of trees and shrubs drop by 46% in 4 years (National Gardening Survey), retail decisionmakers had better be nimble … or else!

But sadly, there is more to it:  garden centers that are making money go out of businesses too. We know of two (over 100 successful years between them) who are currently scrambling to stay in business despite positive cash flow, increasing customer count and on-time bill paying.

The reason? National brand banks are turning away from their traditional role of credit-line supporter. Maybe there was a bankers’ convention about the dangers of “exposure” to small family-held garden retailers. Maybe being awash in cash, large banks have decided they can afford to drop these relatively small accounts – they probably never were very profitable with low bonus opportunities for the top cats anyway.

Let’s Blame the Fed

We know an owner who was excitedly taken on-board with an aggressive pitch and very competitive terms by a national bank in 2007. The bank won all his business, loans, merchant fees and credit line effectively tying up all their collateral against long term construction loans. Now he is told that the yearly rubber-stamp for a winter credit line (always paid back on time in spring) has been refused and their application sent to the bank’s own “Graveyard”.

There, bean counters who know nothing about their customer, will declare the business too risky according to their formula. Even more galling is a bank tendency to blame this on the Federal government’s post 2008 lending guidelines. The retailer said to me, “Didn’t I – the taxpayer – just bail them out? This is what I get in return!”

After many years of providing local employment, creating wealth and running many millions of dollars in sales through the bank year after year it’s over; but you can’t fight it. Today’s reality is to learn and move on.

A “DUH!” Moment

This retailer was told that as their company didn’t make a profit last year, they couldn’t have a credit line. Well, DUH! It is a privately held company, of course they didn’t show a Net Profit on their Profit and Loss statement! But if the bank was interested enough (obviously not) to do an EBITDA calculation from the same documents and spend about 15 minutes on the phone with the owner (as I did), they would see that there was plenty of Net Cash Flow (a much more accurate measure) generated last year.

The kicker is that with the national bank holding the retailer’s collateral, no other bank will give them a credit line either. So, like others we know, this retailer is now schlepping his business around town to see how community-minded these local banks really are. The owners are cheered by the attitudes of managers they are now “interviewing” for the privilege of being their customer, so they feel safe, at least until that local bank gets amalgamated into another national “brand” with lush ads and silly mileage cards.

No names mentioned here (to protect our own Net Cash Flow!) but that same national brand name comes up a lot these days in this discussion. Clearly as they grew from regional retail and community bank to international investment and commercial banking giant, they forgot to read their own “Visions and Values” (I am being kind), or are simply dumping the small businesses that once were their life blood.

The Moral of the Story

The moral, if that word fits in a banking story, is to find a bank who knows that your business matters to them financially. Remember, your weekend cash flow is their source of loan money next week! Now is the time to be a bigger fish in a much smaller pond. Be prepared with true Net Cash Flow documents, not just your own P&L or tax docs. Find a bank (still one that is insured and tested by the Feds preferably!) with a few branches in town, where the decision maker might even know your store. Most cities do still have a few banks living by their original values without visions of grandeur. (Who knows, the manager might just show up for that seminar on herbs!)

If you’re not ready to hang out that “Closed” sign for good, your banker needs to be an ally for you, not an adversary. It’s time for you to practice what you preach to your own customers: SHOP LOCAL. 

photo credit:  Michael S. Richter via Morguefile
Sep 4, 2013 8 Comments
TieInsCropped

Tales from the Trenches: Go Figure!

Every year I spend some serious observation time in the trenches by the registers and out into the parking lot. It’s amazing what you see. Only last week I watched a lady struggle out to her car against a strong wind with a heavily laden shopping cart. She had just donated over $100 to the store’s cash flow that morning and no one helped her – but I digress. This blog is about an oldie but goodie: tie-in sales, AKA, add-ons, attachments, adjacency items, link sales (hello Brits! “Think Link”!)…. the list goes on.

The sad truth

For years I have done a non-scientific survey of tie-ins counting the number of units of ‘helper’ products that were in the cart with the “main” purchase – usually plants. Sad to say but nothing much has changed in 20 years of doing this in independent garden centers, though I suspect the Home Centers have really improved their “attachment” rate. In the early 1990s it was about 1 cart in 5 with any such items – even one little bottle – in the cart and in 2013 it is about the same.

I understand that some of those shoppers bought new gloves recently, own a perfectly good trowel or still have half a bag of plant food at home from last month’s visit. I also know that some of these customers were about to drive to the loading zone for their bags of mulch; but one tie-in for every five carts brimming with gorgeous plants? Come on, retailers, that’s just depressing. It’s not setting the customer up for success, but more importantly it’s not setting you up for profitability.

I am not advocating “loading up” every customer with things they don’t need, nor asking every shopper if they “want fries with that” like a fast food place. But we can do better than one in five!

This is not another nagging rant about cross merchandising, employee training or a finger-wagging to Think Like Customers (ooh I like that phrase) and give shoppers what they will need to succeed. It’s about cold hard business. It’s a numbers game.

And it goes like this

A garden center doing $2 Million in sales a year at $50 average sale has about 40,000 shops (Ka-Chings) a year.

At least half of those Ka-Chings (20,000 shoppers) will buy at least one unit of annual/perennial color, veg or herbs

  • If just 20% more of those 20,000 shoppers buy ONE plant food, that is 4000 extra units (333 cases): got your attention?
  • If 20% more buy just 3 bags of soil in a year, that’s 12,000 more bags of soil or mulch (or both!): truck-loads of the stuff – any takers?

At least 25% of the Ka-Chings (10,000 shoppers) will buy a tree or a shrub

  • If 20% more of them buy 1 plant food that’s 2000 more units of plant food
  • If 20% more buy just 3 bags of mulch, that’s 6000 extra bags

That’s not to mention repellents, gloves, kneelers, pruners, watering cans, soaker hose, stakes, support frames… need I go on! The shoppers will need this stuff anyway and will just go and spend that money in a competitor’s store when they discover they don’t have everything they need for the project. I am not advocating filling every cart with all the hard goods they will truly need to succeed, even I don’t buy that. But these are very conservative incrementals, just one bag/bottle or thingy for a few more shoppers.

Money is left on the table, bed or shelf every day by retailers and there are a hundred reasons why I’ve heard that “tie-ins” can’t be done. Maybe these numbers will finally appeal to someone to drive a tie-in culture down from the top?

Garden retailers spend millions of dollars and hours of work trying drive more people in the door but seem to roll over when it comes to driving extra sales from those already there. Go figure – literally.

Someone cheer me up and give me a tie-in success story, please!!

 

Jul 30, 2013 9 Comments

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