By Greenhouse Grower staff|March 16, 2009

Marketing consultant Jerry Montgomery toured big box retailers across Central Florida last Thursday and shared his findings with us.

Introduction
It was a cool but sunny Thursday (March 12) with a night temperature of 40°F and day temperatures that ultimately reached 70°F. The traffic was brisk at all stores with a lot of activity in the vegetable displays. We did walk-throughs at 10 retail locations–three Home Depots, three Lowe’s, three Walmarts and one independent garden center.

It was interesting to observe the independent had the lowest prices but the least amount of traffic. So much for price being the driver of consumer shopping preferences.

Lowe’s
Lowe’s was the only retailer aggressively pursuing the increased vegetable demand offering a complete line of Bonnie Plant Farm’s vegetables and herbs along with a separate display on Bonnie’s Patio Harvest Vegetable offering. It also had a new program from Costa Farms: Spice of Life, a line of vegetables and herbs. The program includes a well designed label and a logo pot that did not add much appeal to the visual merchandising. Overall, though, it’s a well designed and timely program in the fastest growing category for 2009.

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It appears the Garden Club Select program has garnered more space and increased the number of items available in this premium house branded program. Lowe’s is also offering a generic vegetative program with 10 vegetative items in a bedding plant flat with a divider with five plants on each side. You basically have two strips of five plants that are dropped in the ground. The product is called Drop & Grow. It retails for $15.98.

Lowe’s is running a geranium promotion, offering three 6-inch geraniums for $10 or sold individually at $3.33. There was good movement with many shopping carts carrying Geraniums out the door.

The Home Depot
The Home Depot had a good selection of high quality products with an increasing emphasis on the 1801 landscaper tray retailing at $9.96 with less emphasis on 4.5-inch annuals. The Vigoro brand was widely used, and there were small quantities of Proven Winners. The Florida Friendly Plant brand had a large presence with above average quality. I also saw more color than usual, which will certainly drive sell-through. I noticed a small amount of VIVA! with ‘Lemon Zest’ petunias and a small amount of ‘Sunpatiens.’

Home Depot’s only emphasis on vegetables was Bonnie Plant Farm’s displays that were well stocked and, as usual, have prominence in the plan-o-gram. Seemingly, Home Depot is not racketing up its efforts on vegetable marketing–clearly a missed opportunity. There were no new programs visible for 2009, but it might be too early in the season

Walmart
Walmart had a very conservative inventory. Perhaps it had not yet restocked for the weekend. The quality was excellent and all prices were clearly marked. It seems Walmart is taking a more conservative approach toward the number of SKUs, offering a more back-to-basics approach.

Summary
The mood of the consumer relative to green goods seems to be very upbeat, and what I have seen and heard from others is this will be a very good spring. It would seem in some of the more economically depressed areas that a leveling off could occur, but nationally the outlook appears very promising. Vegetables are particularly skyrocketing in demand in both the seed and plants categories.

Plants are a great escape from the pressures consumers are facing in this economic downturn. What is more relaxing than a nice garden with lots of color and textures? When you walk into a garden center and view a sea of bright beautiful color, it is easy to think about taking that beautiful color home to enjoy. More color equals more sales.

The real key in every market is the weather. If you get good weather, your season should be strong.

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