UK Ecology

The largest retail channel for all garden products is the DIY Multiples sector with estimated garden product sales of approximately £1.7bn in 2005. The next largest channel is the specialist garden centres, with annual sales in the region of £1.3 billion at RSP. The DIY Multiples have increased their share of the garden retail market in the last five years as they have expanded their range of products and increased the shop-floor space devoted to the garden and outdoors products generally. The major grocery retailers have also increased their garden offer but mainly in growing media and smaller garden furniture items, not so much in gardening equipment. The Morrisons chain, which likes to position itself as a sort of indoor town market, has many stores with their own garden centre department.

The catalogue and mail order channels remain strong in areas like seeds and seeds, bulbs and growing aids but are relatively minor players in the equipment segment.

The online / web channel is relatively small compared to some other consumer sectors due to the older demographic of gardening products consumers, but it is growing rapidly as 'Silver Surfers' and others realise the cost savings and ease of use that the Internet offers.

Garden Centre Retailing in the UK

There are over 1,100 garden centres throughout Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the vast majority single store independent operations. There has been some consolidation over the last ten years but the largest chain, Wyevale, with 115 stores, has a market share of less than 5% for gardening products as a whole. The sale of non-garden related products is becoming increasingly more important for garden centres and now accounts for approximately 20% of their revenues. Amongst the more popular marketing promotions in garden centres has been the introduction of coffee shops or cafeterias, special discount days for over 60s and help with loading the shopping into the car. The centres have been successfully attempting to make shoppers stay longer and buy more by creating a whole day out 'experience' whilst there has been a commensurate trend away from low margin volume products to higher value niche products. The largest 'super' garden centres can turnover £10 million in a year but an average would be closer £1 million to £2 million.

The DIY multiples market is relatively concentrated in the UK, with 'The Big Three' (Homebase, Focus and B&Q) accounting for some 75% market share in this sector. All the major DIY stores have expanded more into gardening and garden products over the last five years and gradually usurped Garden Centres for market share in power tools and garden furniture although they still lag far behind in terms of share for market segments such as greenstock.