When I took over the site in 1999 it had developed into a small plant based garden centre. Over the next few years I re-invested all I could to upgrade and improve the facilities. From my early days in the industry, with the Jardinerie group, I’ve always had a very strong customer focus and I actively encourage my staff to talk and recognize customers. This always creates ambiance and a comfortable shopping environment. We also set high standards when it comes to presentation which creates the basis of the success of the centre. We aim to make the customers feel that this is their garden centre. Although set in a rural location, the centre now has a strong turnover and is nicely profitable. It’s provided a great stepping stone for us to move forward with our new centre near Canterbury.

Tell us about the new Canterbury Garden Centre?

I’m very proud of Canterbury. I always thought we would buy an old centre and do it up, but when the site between Herne Bay and Canterbury came up the potential was self evident. The thought of building a totally new centre was a bit daunting, but with such a great location and road frontage I felt it was an opportunity not to be missed.

To create something a little different, I felt I needed to design the garden centre myself ! I used a lot of garden design principles with open view lines and vistas, and although we’ve still got some finishing off to do, the centre looks great and is performing well above expectations. My manager, Peter Cassell, has put together an excellent team of staff who are continuing to provide the high standards of service and presentation that we try to achieve at Tenterden.

Why do you believe garden centres have become and still remain so successful even throughout a tough economic year as 2009 and despite the British weather?

The recession certainly affected top end furniture lines but the mid range furniture performed very well for us. Garden Centres generally offer something different to the High Street and Multiples.

We can give service as well as provide quality plants and products in a comfortable shopping environment. I also firmly believe that a strong factor in the success of Garden Centres is that many own the freehold to their site, this provides an underlying strength to any business. In addition, a fair proportion of our customers are of an age where the recession had little effect on their lifestyles. Many people didn’t go on expensive holidays this year, preferring to stay at home tending their gardens.

This year we also benefited from the fact that the South East corner of the country had great weather all summer long.

As garden centres continue to expand on a retail level are there any specific products you are excited about for 2010?

Everyone would expect me to say ‘grow your own’. This is certainly an area to target, particularly because it is encouraging a new customer base of 30 something Mums who are keen to have a go. Gift, in reality, is one of our biggest growth areas and some of the volume sales figures we are achieving on certain products quite amazes me.

Canterbury is performing so well that 2010 can only be an exciting year for us ! … In addition, some further improvements at Tenterden should help bring this centre forward. We are already learning a lot from how Canterbury is shopped and this is giving us direction with regard to presentation and product range. I feel that we are going to do better at so many things this year.

Describe your customer base and how you compete with the multiples.

With the coast and tourist towns of Tenterden and Rye nearby we actually draw customers from a very wide area and we are regularly delivering all around Kent and well into East Sussex.

With Canterbury only opening last April, the majority of our customers are very local. All who come are very impressed and the word of mouth is excellent.

It will take time for people from further afield to find us and when they do we can only benefit. We are definitely getting a younger customer profile at Canterbury and we are taking this into account with regard to our product ranges for 2010.  

The Multiples have little effect on Tenterden with it being located in a rural location. At Canterbury it’s a different story and, I guess, we’ve got a bit of learning to do particularly with regard to our barbeque product range. But one thing they can’t compete with is the quality, service and presentation that we can offer. We are a family business with personality and they find it hard to compete with this.

Do you have an online platform?

At present we are not looking to actively sell via the internet. But we’ve just re-launched our website with an ‘Online Garden Club’. This will give us the opportunity to communicate on a regular and efficient basis with our customers. People are already registering so it’s now up to us to make a success of it!

Tenterden Garden Centre

01233 758510

TenterdenGC@aol.com

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