Action - reaction

Looking back on the 2024 season, we could be forgiven for fearing the end of garden retail is nigh, given its disappointing results... but that’s not our style! Fortunately, there are grounds for hope and avenues for improvement...
A look back on 2024
What an ordeal... We were just emerging from a very disappointing 2023, with a 3% overall drop in the market, and, with our optimistic outlook, we were expecting good weather to get back into the game! The rest is history: rain, rain and more rain! For an outdoor hobby, that’s not exactly a dream scenario. And the figures testified to this wet year: -6% in value over the first half of 2024 (source NielsenIQ & GfK in garden centres and LISA stores). A series of garden centre closures followed, both in France and abroad. Even at Dobbies in the UK, 17 outlets shut down for good. To get through this difficult period, a decent cash reserve needed to be accrued beforehand, but given the difficulties of 2023, it wasn’t easy to anticipate this new gloom...
After the rain...the sun will reappear!
And this seems to be the case. If the confidence index is anything to go by, the summer and early autumn of 2024 showed a steady improvement. INSEE, which does the measuring, is predicting an increase at the end of 2024, even if the end result will not reach the upper end of the averages. In short: things are better, but not yet back at the top. And in the garden market, we’re still hoping for a spring like we saw during the last lockdown, with fine weather and consumers ready to do anything for the most beautiful garden in the world. But a word of caution here. The garden is very down to-earth, and we’ve inherited that quality. So let’s be prudent: plan for the worst and hope for the best. Time to think ahead and find solutions to keep the business ticking over. How? Here are a few ideas gleaned here and there.
Out of the comfort zone
In garden centres, the core target is the garden, and that's still the case. But over the years, to cope with seasonal variations that can catch us unawares, we've invented additional sections such as pet care, local produce, clothing, home decoration, etc. We’ve expanded into DIY, a horse department, a farmyard animal section, a home hygiene department, a paint department... But how far will we go? The risk of moving into other areas is losing your core target. And yet, we have to find turnover somewhere.
To get round this obstacle which can become a handicap, some of our colleagues have developed not new departments, but new customers. We are seeing shop managers and assistants out on the road talking to corporate customers about plant hire, wholesale prices for Christmas, aquarium maintenance, replacing plants in offices, and so on. Others head for horse riding stables, kennels, bee-keeping clubs... That’s what getting out of your comfort zone means!
Source: Météo France, 2024
The readings confirm the wet season in March, April and May 2024. With an unusual 45% rise in rainfall (compare with 1991-2020 averages), the spring of 2024 was the fourth wettest spring since measurements began in 1959, behind the springs of 2001 (+57%), 1983 (+52%) and 2008 (+47 %). In Poitou, Charentes, northern Alsace and Lorraine, and on the Riviera, for example, there was twice as much rainfall as usual. Over the season as a whole, it sometimes rained 10 to 15 days more than we were used to!
Our loyal customer!
It costs an arm and a leg to go out and find new customers. So why not capitalise a little more on loyal customers? They already trust us! If we treat them with consideration, there's a way of developing a substantial turnover.
Our "Bonjour" survey in the "Guide des Consommateurs Jardin" is published every year. It reports on the "hellos" received by a mystery shopper who visits garden retail outlets throughout France. The finding is that the shopper gets a “hello” 40% of the time. This means that 60% of employees walk past without a thought for their customers. It is possible to do better, but it requires an everyday commitment. The manager's discourse should not be limited to management, but also include how to greet people, have a friendly attitude and display empathy. 
Saying hello is a way of triggering a Wow effect. Immediate buy-in. It's how a product, a service, a section in a shop or a salesperson can genuinely surprise our customers. The Wow effect has a direct impact on our emotions - in this case, surprise and joy.
The Wow effect conditions our customer experience and puts us in a good mood for the remainder of our visit.
“Bonjour 2024" survey – Guide des Consommateurs Jardin (Garden Consumer Guide).
Our investigators walk around the aisles and count the employees they meet and how many say hello:
• 73 points of sale visited in 2024 across all chains (garden centres and LISA stores).
• 397 employees encountered.
• 164 greetings received.
An average of 41.31%.
• The best experience: 6 hellos out of 6 employees encountered.
• The worst: 1 hello out of 15.
Management and dealing with emotions
In order for our teams to be ready to join in, take the initiative in creating “wow” zones in the store, spontaneously say hello to customers, show a little more empathy during a sale... to reach this level, it’s the manager’s attitude that will make the difference. We already know that new generations need to be listened to and given meaning in order to have fun in their working lives. But if we take emotional contagion into account, the manager’s attitude is the key to success...
Recent experiments have shown us that a few hours working together is all it takes for all the members of a group to share their emotions in a fairly strong way. In short: if there is a negative atmosphere, if the pressure gets worse in the company, everyone, including the most positive people, will end up in a bad mood. If the mood is upbeat despite the difficulties, everyone will let themselves be carried away by these positive emotions. 
In this scenario, the role of the manager becomes crucial. From the moment you arrive in the morning, your attitude will determine the team’s performance.
This work on the contagion of emotions is a subject that is developing more and more in the elite sporting world, where performance is at the heart of group motivation. 
Smile, and customers will smile, it’s as simple as that!

What else?
For as long as garden centres have existed, they have constantly evolved to find new solutions. Every difficult spring, every economic crisis, we’re on the lookout for the product that will bring us the turnover we’re looking for. Originally, the garden centre of the 1970s and 1980s had just three sections: plants, potting soil and pots. We’ve opened up these areas so much that calling it a garden centre doesn’t do it justice. When we talk about business, hello, the wow effect, leadership, the kicker is all about management - managing people. For years we’ve been concentrating on the product, the margin and results, but what if we obtained these results mainly thanks to how we manage people at every level of the company? Might this be an avenue worth exploring?

Rolant Motte…