What you need to know
The garden products market was worth £5.15 billion in 2014, up 7.8% compared with 2013, helped by good weather and improved consumer confidence. Spend is expected to grow by 4.3% in 2015 to reach £5.37 billion, helped by a real upturn in personal disposable income which should boost consumer confidence further. The long-term trends are for market growth, but individual years can be volatile, affected by the weather, particularly in the key spring season.
Garden centres are reducing their dependence on seasonal sales by expanding their ranges to include non-garden goods such as clothing, homewares and Christmas merchandise, as well as developing a sophisticated restaurant offer to attract leisure shoppers. There is also more investment in online and multi-channel retailing by the major operators.
Products covered in this report
There is a very broad definition of gardening used in this report, covering everything from growing stock, gardening tools and sundries to those consumer products bought for the garden such as furniture, barbecues and sheds. The main categories and their broad definitions break down as follows:
Growing stock – plants, shrubs, trees, bulbs, seeds
Gardening equipment – lawnmowers, other power tools, hand tools, irrigation equipment
Garden buildings – conservatories, sheds, greenhouses
Garden chemicals and growing media – compost, peat, chippings, fertiliser, pesticides, weedkillers
Garden furniture and barbecues – furniture, parasols, patio heaters, cushions, barbecues
Enhancement features and sundries – statuary, aggregates, etc.
The report also makes reference to other products stocked and services provided by garden retailers (such as Christmas decorations and cafés) to develop footfall and counteract the inherent problems of seasonality in gardening.
