Blog Posts – Page 66

Lessons From Terrain in Attracting Younger Gardeners

At the recent Mailorder Gardening Association conference, I had the pleasure of hearing a presentation by John Kinsella, Managing Director of Terrain at Styer’s, the much-ballyhooed new garden center owned by Urban Oufitters.

I have not visited Terrain, so I have no basis on which to form a personal opinion of it. I’ve heard it touted as brilliant marketing to younger, newbie gardeners, and I’ve heard it panned as overpriced and overmerchandised. Terrain has expanded the traditional garden center and landscaping services to include (Click on the headline for more…)

Tips for Creating More Useful Financial Reports

At this month’s Mailorder Gardening Association conference, Al Bessin of Lenser gave an excellent presentation entitled Managing Your Way to Higher Profits: How to Turn Financial Reporting into a Useful Tool for Managers. He made a potentially deadly dry topic both interesting and actionable.

Al suggested creating a separate management P&L, reorganized to make it more useful. Among his suggestions: (Click on the headline for more…)

Make Your Packing Slips User-Friendly

As part of the Secret Shopper Survey that Tom Beddows of THB Direct recently performed for the Mailorder Gardening Association, he focused on packing slips. Among his findings: (Click on the headline for more…)

Secret Shopper Survey Reveals Missed Opportunities

Twenty-six Mailorder Gardening Association members recently participated in a Secret Shopper Survey to evaluate and benchmark their ordering systems. Tom Beddows of THB Direct performed the survey and reported the results at last week’s Mailorder Gardening Association conference. Boy, do we as an industry have some work to do!

A number of Tom’s findings represent significant missed income opportunities. For instance, for the telephone orders placed: (Click on the headline for more…)

Some Great Gardening Databases

At last week’s Mailorder Gardening Association conference, I learned of a resource of great interest to anyone in the gardening industry. Called Plant Information Online, it’s a tremendous database compiled by the University of Minnesota Libraries. Once a subscription-only service, it’s now available free, and includes, among other things: (Click on the headline for more…)

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