MIMI AND I were members Of GCA. Garden Centers Of America is a group of independent Garden center owners that meet monthly to discuss matters pertaining to not only the everyday issues that come along with owning and operating garden centers and growing operations but also the rules and regulations provided by the government in Washington. The group consisted of hundreds of garden center owners, big and small, that would let their guard down and relinquish their experiences and talk about their dollar numbers they were driving towards and how they planned to get there. That is the part we found so interesting is how similar all of our issues are.
At garden centers the shopping experience is unique in so many ways. The customer is outside shopping and will be handling very heavy product so we have to be close by to help facilitate those purchases wether it be a few shrubs or some pottery, soil and bags of fertilizers. Most people are not accustomed to that kind of shopping where the products are loaded into their vehicles for them. We are offering shopping outdoor in the elements and sometimes with uneven ground to push and pull wagons and carts over. I think some people are surprised at how physical it can be just to shop the garden center, get loaded up with our help then to get home to have to unload and deal with their purchases on their own. Our challenge as nursery owners is to keep everyone safe, while we educate customers on the project at hand, logistically keeping the flow moving in a way that the customer doesn’t get frustrated and finally the checkout process has to go smoothly. In our minds the checkout process has to be the cherry on top of a hopefully great shopping experience. Everything can go go perfectly up until the checkout and load up part where the potential for the ending to go badly or even just boring. That is true with any retail experience.
My least favorite thing when I’m buying something is to have good luck finding what I’m looking for and having a pretty good time doing it only to get to the cashier part of it and find someone there that doesn’t care or puts a frown on the money exchange part of shopping. That last part is the impression that I leave that place with. Mimi and I decided a long time ago that we would focus on the checkout process to be one of the highlights of shopping with us. That is a time when any last minute questions can be handled, deliveries can be set up, phone calls can be answered after our customers that took the time to drive up there and are looking us in the face are satisfied. Once we realized how important that check out is to the total experience we began hiring the right people for that job. We wanted three checkout people that were friendly, knowledgeable and able to handle a very tough load on their feet during the times that they are in between flushes of customers standing in line in the heat waiting to be rung up after just experiencing a fairly physical time getting what they need. The ladies that we have working in that area are far more than we could have dreamed of. They are masterful at keeping an otherwise wild scene at checkout calm and positive and organized in a way I never would have thought possible. They are also responsible for the displays around that area, keeping the nearby houseplants watered and neat and just about anything else that comes their way all the while keeping a helpful attitude and a smile on their faces. I think they love their jobs there and the vibe of that can be felt. I call that area the heartbeat of the place. If that part goes badly, to me the whole experience that we shoot for up to that point has been ruined. We feel so lucky to have each of these people that genuinely care so much about those details. They keep the whole place running smoothly.
We always felt like there is more to say to our customers that have done everything it takes to reach the point of checkout and load up. We felt like the customer is a captive audience at that point and it gives us an opportunity to finish the deal with some extra added value wether that be with more information about what to do with what they are purchasing or information on upcoming events or sales, anything to keep it fun and interesting until we shut the car door for them and watch them drive off. My favorite part of being a member of GCA is that twice a year all of the members would pick a region of the country to tour the biggest and the best of the garden centers in the country. We would have 3 or 4 buses filled with nursery owners from all walks of life, giant nurseries to small ones just starting out to some that were 6th generation businesses. The vibe on these buses is that your experiences as owners are ones that are similar to the others no matter what part of the country you are coming from and their is no harm in relinquishing what would normally be private information to fellow nursery folks. We learned more riding on these buses full of people with 60 years experience under their belts and who are willing to tell you anything you want to know about how they got there.
Mimi and I were on these buses every year for 8 years gleaning anything we could and realizing that we knew a thing or two about a thing or two ourselves since we are part of a third generation family owned business that has been rolling in the Jackson area for over 60 years. With that much experience we were able to help some folks out with our answers to the day to day issues that arrive. One year we decided to focus on those peaks and valleys that come along with running a seasonal business. Many garden centers only open for the peak times and shut them down for the valley times. That sounds smart but we can’t figure out how to keep great people working for you when send them home for three or four months then expect them to be available to return when the next season comes around. We are not about closing our store off and on during the year so we have to figure out how to keep those dog days viable. We heard about lots of reward and incentive programs that other nurseries weren’t implementing to keep loyal customers coming back no matter the month. We were able to hobble together a few of the incentive program and come up with a hybrid version for our selves that has been the answer for us. In 2001 we implemented our first version of our frequent flower miles, we call them Bonus Bucks.
The program started off a little slow but has become one of the most important aspects of our business. At first we had to work a few kinks out of the system and the customers had to get over the doubts that it was somehow a ripoff or just some more paper being handed to them at checkout that they would just have to be thrown away once they got out of sight from us. Customers had doubts as I do every time someone hands me a “rewards card” when I’m checking out somewhere. Their doubts quickly diminished when Bonus Bucks redemption time, July and august, came around and they realized the Bucks really do spend like real money during those two months. Very little has changed about the original program that we implemented. When a retail purchase is made we give you one bonus buck for every ten dollars that you spend with us. We start giving them out the first day of September until the last day of June. At that time you can bring in your Bucks and spend them on anything in the store, except anything that is already on sale. The Bucks are good for up to half of anything you purchase. If by July first you have 100 bonus bucks, which tells you and us that you have spent a thousand dollars with us over the course of a year, a good way to track your spending on garden stuff, you can purchase $200 worth of products for half price when applying your $100 in Bucks. It’s a perfect opportunity to get soils, fertilizers, gifts , pots, fountains, plants, mulches at up to half the price. We benefit by having a little cash flow in some otherwise slow as molasses dog days.
We also benefit by clearing out items that are seasonal and will soon be replaced by the next season. Our customers have grown into loving the deals and begin scouting out the things they will pounce on the day Bonus Bucks redemption time comes. We have even discovered items that have been hidden so no one else can get it before July first when they will come back to get it at half the price. We love that kind of excitement, it has turned into a fun game and a fun time at Garden Works. Our dog day months have now turned into very busy months for an otherwise dismal scene that has the feel of the Maytag man twiddling his thumbs like we used to do. Getting people to come into a nursery in Mississippi is a daunting task and is usually done with sales but we were hoping to make it a little more fun and love to be able to reward our loyal customers with some great deals. We keep a fresh crop of bedding plants grown specially for this time and we keep a full store so that if someone wants to come in and knock out their Christmas gift shopping at half price it can certainly be done. The only thing we don’t offer bonus bucks on is landscape and delivery services, it has to be a retail item. We date the bonus bucks every year so only the Bucks garnered during that year can be redeemed so any from the past years hiding in some of the drawers can be thrown away. We hope Bonus Bucks give you one more reason to shop with us as much as possible since there is some added value to your purchases. If a customer purchase their fall plants in September or October, gets their christmas tree and gifts, then does their spring purchases at Garden Works that person will likely have a wad of Bucks to spend on the entire stores inventory. It’s so much fun to feel the excitement that our customers have, it’s like Christmas to a gardener.
I hope you’ll come in and try out or program, their is nothing to sign up for, you just have to make a purchase and the ladies at the checkout desk will hand you 10 percent of you purchase back to you in the form of Bonus Bucks. You will get a Bonus Bucks envelope to keep them in your glove compartment or your purse so you will be less likely to forget to spend them when the time comes. We try to remind you as best we can by social media, our ads this article and we remind you at checkout that it’s time to bring them in. We intentionally kept it old school and didn’t go with the credit card size card that can be scanned and we keep up with all your spending habits and history. We feel like there is enough of that sort of thing in our world today and that the card would just wind up in a big wad of other Cards that would just get lost in a sea of “deals” from other stores.
The other thing on my mind this week is the devastation of the island of Grenada and Caricou from recent hurricanes. I lived and worked on these two islands for 3 years growing and shipping Papaya fruit. I have some long standing friendships and memories from my time there as a Peace Corps Volunteer. It looks like both islands were flattened and the agricultural standpoint will have to start all over. I will see if Peace Corps is looking for any returned volunteers to come help with putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. I would jump at the chance to get an opportunity to get involved with some cleanup. My heart goes out to that entire area affected by that hurricane. Hopefully we don’t have to deal with any hurricane stuff this year, what a mess.
We hope to see you coming in to spend the Bucks you’ve earned by spending your hard earned money with us. If you haven’t got in on the Bucks fun we hope you will give it a try this September when we begin giving them out as you make purchases so you can come in next July and August and have a little fun with us getting yourself something special at a price that will make you feel good.
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