Gardening supplies are essential to growing a garden. Recently Mike Sutterer, President and CEO of Bonnie Plants, one of the largest producers and suppliers of plants and herbs to Home Depot, Walmart, and Lowes, said that there are “16 million gardeners who have entered the market” since the pandemic started last year. With both new and existing homeowners who are currently planning projects, there were 16 million new gardeners in 2020. Every one of them goes to the grocery store, probably more than once a week.
While there isn’t an irrigation store in every town, there are more than 42,505 supermarkets in the United States. In the past few years, the US Supermarkets & Grocery Stores industry has grown 0.6% per year on average over the five years between 2016 – 2021. Grocery stores are looking to cash in on the gardening explosion by expanding their floral departments to include tools, seeds, plants, and, yes, even irrigation equipment. So imagine shopper’s excitement when they see they can purchase a garden irrigation kit with their basil plants.
There are almost 2800 Kroger Co grocery stores in the United States. That’s more stores from one grocery chain than all the SiteOnes, Ewings, and Horizons combined. Safeway has another 1,300 locations, and Whole Foods has 500 nationwide. That is a total of 4,600 store locations just from those three. There are more than 18,000 grocery stores in the nation. This compares to 2,300 Home Depots and 2,200 Lowes.
Homeowners: Gardeners Sheltering In-Place
According to Chris Sabbarese from Corona Tools, 51% of Homeowners are planning more projects during the pandemic than before. Today many are using the shelter in place as an opportunity to improve their homes and outdoor living areas.
This includes working in gardens. Reports from garden centers, garden tool makers, and nurseries suggest business is booming. People are hungry to create something beautiful and valuable in their homes. Gardening during stressful times is excellent therapy and rewarding. It is hard to beat the flavors of homegrown vegetables. You can read this article here about Victory Gardens.
Gardening Supplies As Seasonal Displays In Grocery Stores
Most grocery stores are already implementing point-of-sale displays to increase sales for gardening products. This encourages more people to grow food, making gardening accessible to everyone.
QR codes For Gardening Supplies in a Post-COVID world
To make it easier for every customer, gardening tools now have QR codes that display instructions on how to use specific tools. This eventually helps newbies and also improves the knowledge of seasoned gardeners as well.
Grocery stores that implement this type of change are keen on helping their customers. Not all grocery store employees would be able to answer questions about gardening and irrigation tools, but hiring a few leaders like we see in produce and liquor sales will make a huge difference in sales. We have seen stores like Walmart venture into grocery sales and now we are seeing the grocery stores expand into additional products. I think the grocery stores have a good chance to be successful and I am confident the home gardener will benefit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9Ms-3Frn80