April 2023 - 16

MERCHANDISING
Pottery displayed in a color wave at
Sunnypoint Gardens in Wisconsin.
But it's not all about looks, she says. " We also have to
make sure that we're putting things in a display that grow
well together, so the customer ultimately has success if they
purchase from a specific display. "
And timeliness matters. " For us, it's about creating a
display that will have high turns. So if a flower is flowering
right now, and you know it's going to be in its prime
flower that weekend, we put a display in a high traffic
area so that those things move the quickest. Displays and
merchandising have to look good, but also need to create a
want in the customer. "
Signage as a Silent Seller
Fairview Garden Center's signage plays a role in not only
merchandising but also standing in when a staffer might not
be immediately available.
" With our green goods displays, we always make sure that
we have proper signage with the plants that are in those
displays so, if a sales associate isn't right there to explain to
a customer, they can easily read the tag and the sign to know
exactly how they can use it in their garden. "
Rollins says they also use signage for cross merchandising
as " silent sellers " for related products, such as the proper
fertilizer for vegetable plants.
" We have signage around the store that says, 'This is
your recipe for success.' We have those in our perennial
department, in the greenhouse and in the nursery. The
signs say, 'If you're buying a plant, you need to get these
three products to go with it in order to ensure success when
they're planted.' "
Keeping It Fresh
Kori Zawojski, owner of Sunnypoint Gardens in Door
County, Wisconsin, with her husband Tony, works with her
team to update green goods displays in the spring.
" We're fairly small in size, " she says, " so we don't have a
buyer, or a merchandiser, like some bigger garden centers do.
It's pretty much me creating and then our team makes the
display changes we've decided to do.
" We have a running joke, especially later in the season,
called 'Merchandising Mondays' - which is me walking
around the garden center, looking at the displays and
deciding what we're rearranging. Then the team will spend
the day or however much time it takes to update all the
displays we're changing.
" For green goods, we try to keep our displays fresh and
updated every week, especially in the spring. Once we
get to the summer and things start to slow down, they're
changed either weekly or biweekly, depending on if we're
having any promotions, what plants are looking fresh,
or if we're moving things around to accommodate new
inventory or specific inventory that we want to make sure
the customer focuses on. "
Shaking Things Up
Last year, Zawojski says they became a Proven Winners
destination " and it shook things up a bit in terms of how a
whole section of our perennial shopping area looked. It was
a really good experience for us, and we especially noticed
how customers interacted differently with our displays in the
destination shopping space.
" We created displays that were lifestyle or feature
focused, " she says. " Deer resistant or pollinator plants were
our biggest feature displays, and we also did displays mixing
perennials and shrubs that were either color blocked or
showed specific color pairings.
" This season, we plan to take things we learned from our
destination space and use them in feature displays located in
our high-traffic areas. We want the first benches customers
see in each department to be displays intended to get their
attention or inspire them. Mixed plant displays that focus
on a specific feature, like shrubs for shade, or native sun
perennials, are a great way to slow customers down and
encourage them to browse other benches nearby. "
Zawojski says she also likes to have what she calls " the
buffet shopping spaces, where we have larger benches filled
with our entire selection of a particular plant, like daisies or
heuchera, or an area filled with our entire rose selection, for
April 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2023
