The Garden Consumer Guide 2025

Every year, we release the Garden Consumer Guide. A 150-page document to cover a garden subject. The 2025 Guide will be released in autumn 2024 and will talk about the future of plant distribution… 🤔

The Garden Consumer Guide

Since 2021, we have been offering you a complete analysis on a seasonal subject.

In 2021 we chose the findings from the “Post Covid” garden. The following year, we dealt with employee – company – customer relations. And in 2023, last year, we were discussing the future of plants.

This 150-page book provides figures, analyses, testimonials and findings gleaned in the field and at your points of sale…We spend 6 months working on this subject.This year, we are helped by our partners who are teeming with ideas…This is the case for PhS, Philippe Simon’s company, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.Verdir s also there, the producers’ union is well placed to talk about plants 😉!We will benefit again this year from Nielsen GFK analyses, JdC support the salon well known to all and to Mauryflor for the technical part.Other deals are in the works, but we’ll tell you more during the summer!

The future of plant distribution

After having dealt with the future of plants last year, it seemed logical to us to then understand the distribution of this same plant.To tell the truth, it was while writing previous interviews with producers that we realized the changes to come…Several questions arise: do garden centers and Lisas still develop plants? Aren’t the ranges changing in favor of products manufactured by specialists? Don’t producers, who are fewer and fewer in number, have an interest in creating their own distribution?Are online sales sites sufficient for consumers when they are looking for that rare gem? Which other points of sale will add plants to their range?You see there is something to think about. And the answers begin to arrive through meetings… 🧐So to give you a taste of our upcoming content, let’s start at the beginning…

Dilemma

Being a producer is not a simple thing. The end customer demands a quality product, in bloom and ready to place on the garden furniture table.We agree, not everything is on the table, there are also trees and shrubs, but overall, the request is clear: the product must be in perfect health and in the best possible shape!In addition, it can be used to avoid somewhat zealous disputes from department managers looking for margin…But with increases in energy prices, personnel difficult to find, the cost of raw materials exploding… It’s difficult to meet the specifications of previous years! This is where the problem lies.Distribution, or at least part of it, does not see it that way and asks to remain within consistent values, or even in certain cases, to lower prices.Should we accept? The dilemma is there.Everyone defends their piece of fat, but if you are a small producer, it is not easy to accept this negotiation. The temptation is to say to yourself that it is better to sell directly to amateur gardeners!

And after ?

It’s a synthetic summary, I grant you, but all the same, the tension is palpable.Well, once the decision is made… Well, all you have to do is choose an opening date!Except that the obstacles are still numerous. You will have to, in bulk, adapt parking and customer traffic, have authorizations, convince employees, smile, start selling, put up displays, have the patience to discuss with novices, get started with place of the customer… In short, a new profession!And then there are the others, the DIYers, the hypermarkets, the super stores, the city center boutiques… Many people have understood that plants could be a source of additional income. These distributors see plants as an interesting product, perhaps a little neglected by the garden center which has left to explore other avenues…What is reassuring is that plants make you want them. It is acclaimed by consumers and by communities, by businesses… It will still have a bright future ahead of it. But where will we find it? That’s another story.And to find out more See you in September 2024 for the release of the 4th Garden Consumer Guide!

Roland Motte… Gardener!