We asked survey participants to describe theirseason in 300 words or less and here are some ofthe best responses, in no particular order. Thereare a number of similarities as well as differ-ences, but overall, some really good feedback.Remember, they are anonymous so no locationsare mentioned.

•“Overall, it was a good season. We were soldout of 6-inch red poinsettias the last days of theseason; this hasn’t happened for many years. Wesold a lot of the Fantasy Poinsettias, the blue andlavender were the most popular colors.”

•“My season was down by 15 percent. It startedlate, and a lot of people were concerned about thehigh cost of automobile andheating fuel. I don’t feel theyspent what they did the previ-ous years.”

•“Excellent! We ramped upnumbers, dramatically raisedprices and sold out.”

•“Sales were soft but stillhad a good season consideringthe weather. We had an excep-tional poinsettia crop, whichwe sold 70 percent wholesaleand the rest retail; averageprice for a 6-inch was $25.”

•“Our season was good. Wehad a slow start and then inearly December we picked up.Most of our sales were in silk

stems and giftware. A tough year for artificialtrees; however, we sold every fresh-cut tree wehad. Fresh greens and memorials were up.Poinsettias were break even, lights were flat andribbon was a good item this year.”

•“Our Christmas season went better thanexpected; tree sales were up by 20 percent. Thereason being four tree lots within three mileswere not opened this year. Poinsettia sales wereeven or a little below last year.”

•“We have been doing Christmas for 17 years,and this was the very best year ever. The sell thruwas the best in our history; it will be a joy to startout with new and fresh ideas for the 2006 season.”

2005 Christmas Season Overall

Once December 25 passes, most people thinkChristmas is over, and by the middle of Februaryit has become a distant memory as they look for-ward to spring. Well, anyone who feels this waydoesn’t own a garden center that was open dur-

ing the holidays, because those of you who do a good Christmasbusiness work at it all year. In fact, our latest Christmas survey showsthat most of you are already working on your 2006 purchases.

To help you plan, we’ve conducted our annual Christmas review tosee how some categories performed in 2005. As you may have noticed,this year we did something a little different: We thought is would bemore beneficial for you to see actual figures from some garden cen-ters than just a few quotes from five or six. Lawn & Garden Retailer sur-veyed garden centers that were involved in the 2005 Christmas season.We got about 115 responses from garden centers all over the countrywho wanted to share their results with you.

This is the first year in a while that we have gotten such positivefeedback on the season from retailers, and the national reportsconcur. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), retailindustry sales (which exclude automobiles, gas stations and restau-rants) for December 2006 increased 5.7 percent unadjusted overlast year. That is pretty good considering the low consumer confi-dence at the end of the year.

Now remember, these results are not statistically significantbecause they did not come from a truly random sample.However, it should give you a good idea of how some gardencenters performed for the 2005 Christmas season.

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CHRISTMAS RETAILER

Find out how your peers did this past holiday season and how itmight help you plan for your second most popular season.

By Catherine Evans

‘Freedom Red’ was one of the most mentioned varieties in the bestpoinsettia variety/painted color category.

Retailer HappinessWith bad weather, big box competition, low consumer

confidence and high fuel prices, retailers were not as upsetabout the 2005 Christmas season as they could have been.Although more than half of respondents (54 percent) saidtheir 2005 season was worse than or the same as 2004, aclear majority (66 percent) were happy with how the seasonturned out. Ifthese numbersrepresent a yearthat was sup-posed to havebeen bad forretailers, what isgoing to hap-pen in 2006when conditionsare expected toimprove?

2005 Season Compared To 2004 Season

*Christmas review 1/30/06 9:18 AM Page 46

Christmas Buying Visiting the gift shows is one of the best ways to find a lot of the things you

need for the next holiday season. There is practically a gift show in every mid-level city in the United States. The question is this: Do you travel to one of the

major shows or stay local? Most of ourrespondents seem tohit the major shows.Among the list of“other” shows attend-ed were Seattle,Denver, Columbusand Minneapolis.Another way respon-dents said theylearned about newproducts was throughtheir local reps andvendors.

Gift Markets

Best SellersGarden centers offer a variety of items during

the holiday season. Sometimes items sell a lot bet-ter than others. Some people said cut tress weregreat while others said artificials were the winner.Holiday décor seemed to be flat as well, but thesurvey results show an OK response. One thingthat went surprisingly well was the gift certificatepurchases. What do you think will happen 10years down the road when indecisive youngergenerations do most of the shopping? Will mer-chandise even leave the floor during the holidayseason or will it be sold much later in the yearwith the gift certificate?

*Multiple answers given per response.

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CHRISTMAS RETAILER

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Best-Selling Christmas 2005 Items

Staffing Up Adding holiday help is a must for most industries. In

garden retailing, spring is the time to add more employeesto the store, not Christmas. Though the season gets busyfor many garden centers, our respondents overwhelminglysaid adding staff in not necessarily top priority. �

Added Holiday Staff

Other Good SellersOther things respondents thought did well were:

•Grave blankets•Garden gifts/accessories•Floral arrangements•Birding accessories

*Christmas review 1/28/06 10:42 AM Page 47

Best-Selling Poinsettias This country is full of traditionalists, and

the survey responses really show that. Redpoinsettias are by far the best sellers at gar-den centers; however, after traveling aroundthe country this past season, I noticed thatpoinsettias are changing. All of the new nov-elty colors and hot-ticket painted poinsettiasare starting to catch peoples’ attention, soit’s no surprise to see that many garden cen-ter owners are planning some variety fornext year. These questions will be interest-ing to watch over the next few years. Areyou thinking about shifting color prefer-ences or planning the same mix?

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CHRISTMAS RETAILER

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Popular Poinsettias• Jingle bells• Blue painted• Purple painted• ‘Prestige Red’• ‘Freedom Red’• ‘Shimmer Surprise’• ‘Cortez Burgundy’

Christmas Special EventsOne of the main difficulties with retailing Christmas is that

garden centers are not necessarily top-of-mind duringChristmas. Most consumers think spring is the only time tocome into the store, and that is about it. To combat this per-ception, more and more garden centers are hosting events atChristmas. This kind of promotional strategy is a great way toattract customers to your store during Christmas. The mostpopular event seems to be some kind of combination openhouse/food event. But many garden centers get pretty creative.Other popular events respondents listed included seminars,give-aways, gift exchanges, wine tastings, onsite massages, treelightings, ladies nights out and onsite radio broadcasts.

*Multiple answers given per response.

Do You Offer Holiday Events?

Which Poinsettias Sold Best In 2005? Which Poinsettias Will You Increase In 2006?

CHRISTMASCONTRIBUTION TO ANNUALSALES

Experts say Christmas isbecoming the second-best sell-ing season for garden centers.For those that don’t close inthe winter, Christmas can bepretty profitable. We askedrespondents to tell us what per-centage of annual revenue

comes during the Christmas sea-son. The range was 0-90 percent,

but the average amount was about20 percent.

Live Goods vs. Hard GoodsWe have never been surprised to hear about garden cen-

ters focusing heavily on live goods (poinsettia, greenery, cuttrees, misc. plants) during Christmas since product distribu-

tion is the same duringspring. So why do manygarden centers focus somuch product attentionon nonliving holidaydécor and decoratingmaterials? The resultsfrom this year’s surveyshow that some peopleare doing big businesswith hard goods and/ornon-living gift items.

Live Goods vs. Hard Goods

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selection of larger, living pottedtrees. With the extended tree line,offer complete decorated and light-ed packages with delivery.”

• “Donate this year’s and previ-ous years’ ornaments that have notsold to local thrift stores or to thelocal humane society. Start with a

Catherine Evans is managing editor ofLawn & Garden Retailer. She can bereached by phone at (847) 391-1050 orE-mail at cevans@sgcmail.com.

new clean slate/new shop for myfaithful customers. Do a bigger/bet-ter Christmas open house.”

• “More budget watching formaximum profit edge. We may trysome new ways to decorate poin-settias through paints and othertechniques.”

LearnMore!For more information related to this article, go to www.lgrmag.com/lm.cfm/lg 080503

M A N A G E M E N T

CHRISTMAS RETAILER

DIFFERENT NEXT YEAR

When respondents were asked,“What do you plan on doing differ-ently in 2006?” we received a varietyof answers. A number of respon-dents said they wanted to increasepromotions for the season withevents, fliers, E-mails, etc. Otherssaid they will increase their greenery,wreaths and cut trees while almostan equal amount said they woulddecrease them. I guess it all dependson demographics, location and whatyou have to offer. Below are somemore things that respondents areplanning on doing differently in 2006.

• “We plan on opening a weeklater. We were busy for three daysafter we opened and then it justdropped off for a week. Some ofour evergreen items dried out. Wehad our store staffed and ready tobe busy the week after weopened, and people were just notin the mood to purchase Christmasmerchandise that early. So we arethinking of opening around the16th of November in 2006.”

• “Provide more seasonal livegoods like poinsettias, liveChristmas trees, paperwhites, etc.,as well as Christmas ornaments andgardening gift baskets.”

• “Build up on the greens areaand bring in more silk stems. Wedropped Department 56 and will nolonger carry the villages. We arelooking for new items to replacethis category.”

• “Put Christmas displays upabout two weeks earlier than in2005 — this year ours went up thesame time as the box stores; in2006 I would like to try to getahead of them and see if this willincrease traffic.”

• “Market a corporate gift line;let them know a cool plant in a nicepot is much more fun than a penset. Offer more nontraditional holi-day color — push fun, hip bloomersand architectural plants. Reducepoinsettias; why bother having niceplants when the big box offers themway, way below cost? Offer wider

Customers tend to enjoy some live music at the holidaysand 18.9 percent of respondents said they offer it.

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