#45 TRAILBLAZES * (revised 6/4) "give it away"

If we believe that every product in our stores has to be sold at a price, we are fools.
We will end up paying the price for that attitude.




“I would rather burn it than sale it”

A large garden store owner in Missouri
when asked about his specials and promotions

“For years I have placed a nice order each spring for garden seeds and some supplies from my favorite mail order catalog. My reason is a little silly. I could probably buy the same stuff from my local garden store for less money. You know why? Because when I open that box, they always send me something for free. It may be a dumb little measuring spoon or a ruler, or a handy pocket knife for cutting. But I use them and I look forward to what kind of neat prize I am getting this season!”

A gardener from
North Dakota

“I took my truck and trailer down to my favorite garden store and stacked it heaping full with bags of bark for my flower beds. There were two old broken half bags sitting in the corner. I asked the manager if I could buy those bags at a reduced price to add to the load. The manager, who help load the order, refused and would only sell me the bags at full price, saying that he never discounted anything. You know what? There is something that I will never do. I will never return to that store again.”

Homeowner
From Nevada

“Ten years ago, my wife and I moved to this town in Colorado. It was a new house and we needed a lot of plants for landscaping. I just picked a garden store at random, looked over their selection and started buying right then and there. The Manager was kind enough to extend to us a small discount on the purchase which helped. But when we got to the cash register, a funny thing happened. The owner, seeing the large purchase, approached us to thank us personally for choosing her store. Then she pointed to the selection of flowers and said “Please pick out a couple flats of Geraniums for your home, as our gift to you.” We were delighted. This has been our garden store for ten years because of the kindness of the owner. We would never shop anywhere else.”

Retired homeowner
from Colorado

We believe in a strong partnership between our gardeners and green garden gates. Our customers understand that we must receive a reasonable profit for our plants and plant care products. We understand that is it our responsibility to insure that they are successful in their gardening and landscaping efforts. But, no one likes to get nicked. No one likes to get nickeled and dimed in the process. Our employees are trained to understand this. If a customer has just purchased four expensive hanging baskets and needs one more of those cheap wire hangers for another pot at home, GIVE IT TO HER! If a large purchase is made, show appreciation for the sale by GIVING SOMETHING BACK! If there is a major chip in a decorative pot, don’t stand there holding to the marked price, REDUCE THE PRICE! And don’t blame it on the computer for preventing a reduction in the price or the giving of a plant, cut through the red tape and make it happen.

There is just no substitute for showing your appreciation to your customers with a little extra that is unexpected or even expected. This kind of approach at green garden gates to the partnership pays off in spades time and time again.

#44 TRAILBLAZES * (revised 7/3) "be there be gone"

In 1853, the California gold rush was in full swing and everyday items were in short supply. A young 24 year old German immigrant arrived in San Francisco with a small supply of dry goods with the intention of opening a branch of his brother’s New York store.

Shortly after his arrival, a prospector wanted to know what he was selling. The young merchant told him he had rough canvas to use for tents and wagon covers. The prospector said, “You should have brought pants!” saying that he could not find a pair of pants strong enough to last the rough and tumble work of the gold fields.

The young German quickly had the canvas made into waist overalls, but the miners complained that the canvas tended to chafe. He substituted twilled cotton from France. Later the pocket stitch design was used and a patented process was introduced of putting rivets into the pants for extra strength.

The pants were called “blue jeans” and the young immigrant was Levi Strauss.

The mass of fortune from the Gold Rush was not won by the 300,000 prospectors who toiled along the many California rivers and streams. It was those merchants who went where the miners went, anticipating their needs and offering their services. It was Levi Strauss who saw opportunity and turned his wagon covers into pants.

be there.....

So many owners of garden stores will not accept that the marketplace for plants and plant care products continually changes. They wait each spring for the same customers buying the same products. They ignore that plain truth that the floor has moved from under them. They harp that those products purchased at “other places” are just not of good quality, which is generally not the case. They get angry and frustrated. They just put their heads in the sand. Others get down on the tracks each day, put their ear on the cold steel and listen for the train roaring toward them.

We, at green garden gates, go where our gardening customers go. We will be there, anywhere, anytime.

When the snow and cold keeps the gardeners away from their flowers and they keep busy thumbing through the mail order catalogues that flood their mailboxes, green garden gates will be there with similar catalogues and offers.

When the farmers markets open in the communities, we will be there with products and plants.

When the backyard hobby growers put out their open signs, we will be there by partnering with them both at their locations and at our stores.

When the garden clubs offer fundraising seminars and events, we will be there with sponsorships and promotions

When the big box stores are ready with their garden departments, we will be ready with similar “deal busters”.

And we are prepared to take full advantage of the most revolutionary method of purchasing, interaction, and information in the history of retailing: the Internet. We, at green garden gates will find and develop every possible avenue to introduce ourselves to our customers in this now well established world of commerce.

Levi Strauss went where the miners went. He saw the need.

We will go where the gardeners go

be gone......

The other side of being there is being gone.

"Over the years, I have come to understand a truth about operating my garden store.

I believe that there are changing seasons in people. They look to us for the spring, the newness of it all, when the sun and ground warms.

I believe that we just have to understand that, in the eyes of the consumer, we, as the sellers of plants, are not far from a orchardist who sell his apples in the fall, or a fisherman who sells her catch on the docks after the morning run.

There is a natural rhythm to this, a time that the customer looks toward us for their gardening needs. When the plants are in the ground, they look away and elsewhere for the other goods that they need in their lives".

Erik Divisar

garden store owner

Upstate New York

Many garden store owners can become wildly intoxicated with the springtime crowds flocking to them, showering money over them from every direction during those exciting and heady weeks of “the season”. They are bulletproof, convinced that the song will never end. It does end. The gardeners have planted. When suddenly, so suddenly that it happens almost within minutes, the spiket stops streaming money into the pocket and starts drawing money from the pocket, the owner’s thoughts turn to the remaining months until the planting returns.

Faced with the burden and dilemma and what to do with now with the employees and bolstered by their sheer invincibility, they make the choice to do it again, to re create the spring all during the year. After all, our customers love us don’t they? They will follow us anywhere, won’t they? They will buy anything we offer, won’t they?

So they commit the checkbook into turning spring into summer, fall, and winter. Out go the petunia tables, in come the barbecues, the little wine coolers, the fancy outdoor furniture and playground sets. These are followed in the fall with bundles of wood and wood burning stoves.

Then to the granddaddy of them all, THE CHRISTMAS STORE. Some garden stores in the United States have been successful, some very successful to the point that Christmas, for example, is larger than springtime. Sadly, however, most stores fail miserably when they turn their attention away from plants and plant care products.

The answer is simple.

After the planting is done, your customers don’t even give your garden store another thought. In fact, they are quiet surprised that you are even open for business. They don’t need you. You have served your purpose. They have moved on. All of those products that now fill the little garden store can be purchased from merchants who have far better selection, more expertise. They just know the game with these products.

“A business consultant to a garden store owner ran headlong into an owner who almost violently insisted that his store would always stay open during the winter and would always sell Christmas trees and Christmas gifts. The consultant, armed with an excel spreadsheet convinced the owner that he could close down the store after November 1^st, pay his retained employees a handsome bonus and lay them off until spring, turn off the lights, shut down the heat, lock the gates, return the next spring and lose less money than attempting to stay open and sell all of that stuff. The consultant was shown the door. Two years later, the owner closed the store after November 1^st, paid his retained employees a handsome bonus, laid them off until spring, turned off the lights, shut down the head, locked the gates and returned the next spring.”

We, at green garden gates, follow the gardeners. We are open every day, including holidays, from about March 1^st until about July 1^st. (some stores close on Sundays and Holidays during the spring planting season. That is so ridiculous. The salmon are swimming up the stream and the owner tears a hole in the net for Sundays and Holidays!)

We close on Sundays after July 1^st and have shortened summer hours. We re-open with regular spring hours during the fall planting season and close the store for the season about October 1st, returning again on March 1^st. The exact times and hours depend on the geographical location of our stores and the planting habits of our gardeners.