Garden stores flee forward

No precise data is available on the size of the domestic garden plant market, but experts’ estimate is that there are about 100 wholesalers in the country. Most of them are importers, but on an ad hoc basis they buy from Hungarian growers as well. The most important buyers are flower shops and retail chains. In Hungary there are about 400 permanent tree nurseries and they realise 70 percent of sales – the remaining 30 percent is by store chains. Klára Biza, the president of Makert (Hungarian Garden Stores’ Association) told our magazine that the organisation was founded in 1996 and has about 200 members. Makert takes steps to improve the situation of garden plant retail, for instance they launched the Excellent Store Competition with the objective of disseminating retail practices of countries with greater ornamental gardening traditions.

The competition is practically about what a perfect garden store should be like. For instance stores’ entrance area should be the most spectacular. When displaying products some kind of logic has to be used in organising shoppers’ route from the entrance to the cash register zone. There must always be cheap, medium-priced and expensive products in individual product categories. Products on the shelves must be changed according to the current season and probably the most important is that buyers should always be able to find a helpful shop assistant. We also learned that 76.5 percent of those who enter the store buy something.