In my last post, I mentioned some of the ways Terrain at Styer’s, the Philadelphia nursery owned by Urban Outfitters, is expanding their market. One of the key elements in their program is events, including those that reach far beyond the traditional gardening how-to offerings. Their July calendar includes the following: (Click on the headline for more…)
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…)
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…)
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…)
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…)
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…)
Last month’s issue of Internet Retailer included a feature on GourmetGiftBaskets.com, which ranked as the fastest-growing web-only merchant in the annual listing of the 500 largest online retailers. GourmetGiftBaskets grew 172%, from $4.4 million in 2007 to $12 million in 2008 – pretty impressive for what was a tough year for most companies. Interestingly, they [...]
One of our most popular blog posts was on the topic of What’s a Good Email Open Rate? Email marketing service provider MailChimp offers (Click on the headline for more…)
Ever wonder what’s involved with advertising on Facebook? Here you go, in five easy steps: (Click on the headline for more…)
There are loads of sources for clip and and other images, but many of them are pretty limited and/or amateurish. Our designer reports that her hands down favorite source, based on both quality and quantity, is ClipArt.com. In addition to clip art, they offer photos, illustrations, fonts, web graphics and sounds. And what’s more, it’s all royalty-free. With 10 million files to choose from, they’re likely to have what you’re looking for.
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