Case Study Garden Centres

Trelawney Garden and Leisure

Customer Profile

Trelawney Garden Leisure are a family run business that was originally built up from a nursery by Mr Frank Danning and now run by the two Davids, being David Danning and David Symons. They have continued to develop the site at Sladesbridge near Wadebridge in Cornwall into a major retail premises , servicing both holiday traffic and the local trade. Although the majority of the product range is classic garden centre plants, trees, and shrubs the shopping experience is more like a department store.

Business Solution

Trelawney feel that as a tourist destination they need to maintain a year round custom and also need to maintain and develop a local base of customers that would last beyond the holiday season. They also need to compete against the other attractions and so decided to offer a high quality carvery restaurant. Like all garden centres they need to move the seasonal stock quickly and so use a variety of promotions to ensure older stock gets cleared.

The outside areas and goods inwards storage are away from the main sales area and the staff need to be directly involved with products and customers. To overcome the need to be constantly walking between office and sales area the whole centre has been provided with radio coverage so by using mobile handsets the staff are more effective.

System Benefits

Garden Centre The customer base was registered for loyalty and the epos system allows their customers to trade and accumulate loyalty points at either outlet. The whole of the shop stock and outside plant areas are barcoded for epos and the system produces horticultural labels for outside use. The solution supports the restaurant using a cafe serving version of the till program.

The tills use a range of promotions such as multibuys on bedding and plants , as well as kit sales on ranges of furniture. The beauty of it all is that product changes go into the till and sales come back during the working day giving them an uptodate stock position. The rolling stocktaking via the radio handsets and full reports pack of 150 plus reports means they are in full control of the business for sales, margins and stock levels.

Quote

“This system works, I can believe what it tells me. Previous systems have promised, but not always fully delivered, but we are confident that by investing our experience in helping build this system, we will be giving something back to the garden centre industry as well as improving our profitability. Open Retail also do our restaurant too and our Ashford centre near Barnstaple.”

David Danning - Trelawney Garden and Leisure