Trends: Water gardening
Give me a "See!"... My wife’s favorite plant/gift specialty store does a great job with its display gardens, overcoming a space-limitation issue to neatly package a variety of potential outdoor scenes. What it doesn’t do well — or, at least, what it didn’t do well — was find a way to sell PVC pipe.

Here’s the story: Years ago, the owners weren’t into the gardening thing; their business was a hardware store that did fairly well. Actually, it did very well, but the owners wanted to try something different, so they did some market research and determined that the area was sorely lacking a store that focused on three things: birding, organics and water gardening. "Presto! Change-o!," they converted the hardware store into a garden center, and, almost immediately, they made a name as THE source for the aforementioned specialty items.

Of course, there was the issue of leftover inventory. One of the appealing factors in making the transition from the hardware store was the notion that some of the hardware could be used in new ways with the new business. For instance, PVC pipe could be parlayed into a variety of water feature applications; the owners figured — logically — that the PVC pipe was the one holdover product line that could be moved quickly.

They also figured wrong. Instead of moving, the pipe sat in bins for months, until...

They came up with a great idea to create a continuous-loop video that showed how the items collecting dust in boxes on the shelf could, in fact, be integral to the making of a beautiful water feature like that in the store’s entrance. The video served two purposes, at least. Certainly, it showed just what could be done with the pipes. More so, it did some excellent marketing for the company, which was, after all, billing itself as the area’s premier water feature resource.

I’m a big believer in the visual. Maybe that’s because I can’t sing very well. More likely, it’s because I’ve seen what seeing can do to convince a potential customer to make an investment in your products. I saw what it did it at my wife’s favorite store. I would suggest you’ll see what it can do at your favorite job. For some help, you might want to check out a great visuals page on about.com’s gardening site (www.gardening.about.com). You’ll find pictures of water features that others have created — and that you can create or adapt to fit your customers’ tastes. When I last checked, there were eight great examples.

That’s 8,000 words you can save your staff, should you decide to do similar displays instead of having your salespeople try to explain how a water garden might look. Or, it could be just one word, the one your customer uses when she sees what you’ve done: "Wow!"

Puzzling pictures
Giving you fits... One of the pictures below is a puzzle. Select the correct one, then put the product together again. Then pass "Go" and collect $200. Or not.

"What really works" works — no matter what
Check the *BLOG*

Pick 'n Click
Data on that-a... We’ve created this list of links to the suppliers to help you find the garden/gift items you need. Please click the company for free product info.

Achla Designs Allsop, Inc. Alpine Corporation Aquascape, Inc. ATLAS Glove Consumer Products, a Div. of LFS, Inc. Bamboo Accents Bar Harbor Cedar BC Landscape & Nursery Association Benchmaster by Structural Plastics Brook & Hunter Carruth Studio, Inc. Charlie Cook Associates, Inc. Chicagoland Grows Clean Air Gardening Collier Metal Specialties, Inc. Danove Corporation Danove Corporation Deer Run Greenery Dekorra Products Discount Pond Supplies, Inc. Downeast Quarries of Maine, Incorporated DP Foods, LLC (Daniels Plant Food) Dramm Corporation EasyPro Pond Products EbioExpress International Echo Valley Echo, Inc. Ecological Laboratories, Inc. Fabriscape Fafard Fiskars Brands Friendship's Garden, Inc. Garden Market EXPO/CANGC Gardenware

George Little Management Gifts That Bloom Hines Pottery Horticolor Canada, Inc. Hydrofarm Imperial Ponds K&H Manufacturing Lawngrips Melrose International Middle Tennessee Nurserymen's Association Novelty Manufacturing Co. Novelty Manufacturing Co. Olds Seed Company Plant Revolution, Inc. Pride of Place Plants, Inc. Principle Plastics Radius Garden LLC Red Carpet Studios Riverside Enterprises SATO Labeling Solutions America, Inc. Savio Engineering, Inc. SeedBallz Shatley Farms, LLC Sherman Nursery Company Silcast, Inc. Stonesmith Garden Vessels Tetra Pond Tierra-Derco International T-Mate-O Vitamin Institute Walter E. Clark & Son Waterscapes Aquatic Plant Nursery Wellmaster Carts West County Gardener Winston Company

 

"What really works" works — no matter what
Check the *BLOG*

Oh, yeah, the riddle answer...
Who said this happened during the night?

 
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