Gardening Grows through the Recession (Some interesting Mintel Stats)
By Alex N •
The market for garden products has been upbeat in 2010 and 2011, helped by increasing consumer interest in grow your own and the warm, dry weather during spring 2011. This has been partly sparked by enthusiasm for knowing the provenance of the food consumers eat, but is also to an extent spurred on by consumers wishing to economise on their weekly food bills.
Because of the harsh economic climate across the world, people are spending more of their leisure time at home which in turn has inspired more interest in refreshing their gardens and has been a factor in inspiring people to grow vegetables. In turn this has boosted sales of bedding plants and small ticket items. People are splashing out less on the really expensive stuff though.
In 2010 consumer spending on garden products grew by 1.9% to reach £5.48bn, and in 2011 we expect further growth, particularly as the warm, dry spring weather has brought more people out into their gardens and provided a welcome boost to sales at this important time in the calendar. (woohoo - we're pleased about this - thanks Mintel!). In 2011 sales will grow by 2.0% to £5.59bn. The outlook to 2016 looks positive and we expect 9% growth over 2011-16 to £6.11bn. Nice
The main factors influencing customer choice of where to shop for garden products are cheapest prices (53%), good selection of plants for immediate impact (43%), a wide range of gardening products (39%) and a variety of plant sizes (22%). Thisimmediate impact thing is kind of interesting. Because it's still really part of a consumerist, disposable gardening kind of mentality - rather than working with nature and planning over time. Perhaps this will change over time? Or will people always want to be able to pop out on a sunny weekend and buy 'some colour' for their front?!
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