Curb Appeal at Retail Garden Centers a Marketing Must

Curb appeal is a powerful real estate tool which helps sellers differentiate their home from the competition.

From Zillow.com, “The term “curb appeal” derives from real estate sales and home design. For years, buyers have formed their first impressions of homes while standing in the street or sitting inside the car, just beyond the curb”.

With garden centers looking to attract customers whose sole purpose for visiting is to increase their homes curb appeal, shouldn’t garden centers be leveraging the same principles for their exterior locations?

Tired and dated facades are no longer acceptable by today’s demanding consumers, and they’ll shop from one garden center to the next until they feel satisfied with the atmosphere being created.

From the Kangan Institute, “Possibly the single and most important reason to engage and inspire your customers is to encourage them to buy more of your products, increasing your sales, margin and return on space. This engagement process begins even before they have set foot in your store.”

Creating an appealing entrance into your garden center is critical, as first impressions can prevent a customer from ever making it inside your store. Your entrance should be inviting and aesthetically pleasing as soon as customers pull into the parking lot. It’s important that customers are able to see your products before ever stepping foot outside their car.

Create landscaping and planting beds along the exterior of your store or along the street – highlighting seasonal plants, shrubs and flowers, as well as any garden decorations you have in inventory. This immediately provides homeowners with gardening ideas while capturing the attention of those who frequently pass by your location.

If you have glass windows facing a heavily traveled roadway or sidewalk, make sure to fill them with flowers and decorations from your inventory to further entice passersby.

Here are some other things to consider when implementing curb appeal at your garden center:

1. Add additional focal points throughout your garden center by creating lifestyle settings that resonate with homeowners. By using an old door, outdoor seating and rugs, lanterns and flowerpots filled with your inventory, you’re providing customers with design inspiration which will increase sales at the register. These are commonly known as visual merchandising techniques.
2. Make sure everything is neat and tidy. Shrubs and flowers planted around your location should be meticulously trimmed and maintained, and any dead plant material should be removed immediately. Also, weeds should not be growing taller than your flowers.
3. Adding landscape lighting may not seem like a curb appeal advantage during the day, but it will at night when drivers are heading home from work or extracurricular activities. Landscape lighting allows you to highlight your curb appeal efforts, calling attention to your location rather than allowing it to fade into the darkness.

Curb appeal at garden centers is an opportunity to further differentiate and market your location. The only real limitations are in your imagination.