Trends: X marks the sore spot, Part II
Now you'll hear the rest of the story... Boy, did I touch a nerve with the most recent e-mail about the challenges facing retailers wanting to market to Generation X! I heard from several of the "30-somethings" who subscribe to the e-ZONE, and they weren't enthralled that I suggested retailers aren't enthralled about dealing with their ilk.

Can I suggest that I misquoted myself?

Actually, I didn't misquote anyone. In our industry, where a lion's share of the customer base is composed of "50-somethings" who love gardening, marketing to a new generation that doesn't IS a challenge. A major challenge. A challenge that must be addressed by retail garden center operators throughout the country...

Which isn't to say that Gen X doesn't loom a major player in the future — and a positive one at that. In fact, Generation X continues to add style to an industry stubbornly stuck on same-old, same-old substance. Remember a dozen years ago, when you went into a garden center and asked to see the container section, and the staffer nodded to the stack of terra cotta pots in the corner? Remember when "dirt" came in a white bag with black writing on it and sat in another corner of the store? Remember when you simply talked "these plants and those decorative items."

Now, thanks to Gen X's yen for visual appeal, there is "pot"-pourri. There are displays for "growing media" of many varieties, each dressed in a colorful bag that begs for attention. There are display gardens that take all the parts and create a whole-ly satisfying package, which can be sold for a lot more than "these plants and those decorative items" by themselves. For a great insight on the Gen X garden and gardener, I recommend that you check out this essay by Xer Scott Calhoun.

Scott and his brethren's influence will grow as its members buy more houses and, in turn, begin to look for those "special somethings" that will convert them to homes. Will those items be the same things you sell now? Possibly — probably? — not. They will possibly — probably! — be cooler.

And that's not a bad thing.

Puzzling pictures
Jumble-aya... One of the pictures below is a puzzle. Find the correct one and then piece the product together again. If you are so fortunate as to accomplish this feat in less than one second, Guinness probably has a place for you in its book of world records... right beside that Chinese guy with the really long, curly fingernails.

What else is new?
Check the *BLOG*

Pick 'n Click
Chic seek... Do you need to find garden/gift items fast? These suppliers are RWaA (ready, willing and able) to send you the information you seek. Click the company for e-reader service.

Achla Designs Allsop, Inc. Alpine Corporation Aquascape Designs, Inc. ATLAS Glove Consumer Products, a Div. of LFS, Inc. Bamboo Accents Bar Harbor Cedar Bartlett Bench & Wire, Inc. BC Landscape & Nursery Association Benchmaster by Structural Plastics Best 1 Hummingbird Feeders Bio Organics Black River Nursery Bloom Master Planter Corp. Bowling Enterprises Brass Baron Fountains & Statuary, The Braun Horticulture Brook & Hunter Carruth Studio, Inc. Carson Industries Ceramo Co. Clean Air Gardening Collier Metal Specialties, Inc. Country Originals, Inc. Crescent Trading Group, LLC d'barro Pottery Daniels Plant Food Danove Corporation Deer Out DeWitt Co., Inc. Discount Pond Supplies, Inc. Dorothy Biddle Service DSD International Echo Valley Ecological Laboratories, Inc. Fabriscape Fafard Fancy Home Products Featherock, Inc. Fiskars Brands Foxgloves Gardenware Gifts That Bloom Good Directions, Inc. Hines Pottery Horticopia, Inc. Inca Imports J. B. Designs, LLC Kay Berry

Little's Good Gloves Macore Co. Maine Bucket Company, Inc., The Melrose International Michael Gordon LTD National Lawn & Garden Show New Creative Enterprises Novelty Manufacturing Co. Ohio Wholesale, Inc. Olds Seed Company Par A Sol Parker Davis Company, Inc. Perfectly Natural Solutions Pioneer Plants, LLC Plant Revolution, Inc. Poly-Tex, Inc. Pride of Place Plants, Inc. Principle Plastics Punxsutawney Glass & Tile Co. Radius Garden LLC Red Carpet Studios Riverside Enterprises Ruibal's Topiary Systems & Ironworks Rustic Natural Cedar Furniture Co. SATO Labeling Solutions America, Inc. Savio Engineering, Inc. SeedBallz Sherman Nursery Company Silcast, Inc. Standpoint (formerly N-Query) Stoney Creek Sunlight Supply, Inc. Tetra Pond Tierra-Derco International T-Mate-O Topiary Art Works & Greenhouses Tula Hats Unique Stone, Inc. Veldsma & Sons, Inc. Walter E. Clark & Son Wayside Fence Company Wellmaster Carts West County Gardener Winston Company Year-A-Round Corp. Zoe's Tropicals ZooBox International LLC

 

What else is new?
Check the *BLOG*

Oh, yeah, the riddle answer...
(OK, we got it right this time)... A record.

 
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