News
Positioning houseplants as a lifestyle purchase

March 27, 2009 – As
an industry we tend to think horticulture when selling plants and yet
barely 10 per cent of customers in garden centres are horticulturalists – and
those that are invariably are more focused on outdoor than indoor
plants! Houseplants are a lifestyle purchase and you need to sell them as such.

As
an industry we tend to think horticulture when selling plants and yet
barely 10 per cent of customers in garden centres are horticulturalists – and
those that are invariably are more focused on outdoor than indoor
plants!

Houseplants
are a lifestyle purchase; the majority of houseplant buys are for
lifestyle reasons (however diverse they may be), so it is not rocket
science to suggest that you will have greater success promoting them
with lifestyle images and messages than dry horticultural data.

We
strongly believe that if you want to sell more houseplants you need to
dump the prevailing horticultural messages and replace them with images
and messages that strike a chord with the customer; that stop the
customer from walking past the houseplant display; and that are of
greater relevance to the shopper than to the RHS at Wisley!

The
Flower Council has developed this over the last couple of years with
presentations and displays in Rotterdam in 2007, and at the Hortifair
in Amsterdam and at the Fernhill Garden Centre in Ireland in 2008.

In
each of these we have developed one-off designs and messages, not as
definitive ‘right’ ways of doing things, but as stimulants (we hope) to
encourage retailers, large and small, to create their own p.o.s along
the same principles.

And in case you are wondering what those
principles are please remember the mantra – customers must be persuaded
to stop, look and buy.  In that order.

Here are some ways you can position your plants as a lifestyle, care of the Flower Council of Holland: