AMES UK is reporting an uplift on 2018 of over 46% on a like for like basis across Kelkay, Woodshaw and La Hacienda.
Richard Pyrah, group sales director, has more than 30 years in the garden market. He believes this pre-season has been the best he’s ever experienced.
He said, “We enjoyed our best ever GLEE in September with significant sales and order growth. That came from our core garden centre customers. The new product ranges contributed. The most satisfying trend is the growth in our core categories from our loyal customers.”
Richard’s focus for the next few weeks is in the customer service arena. He believes there are opportunities to adopt some best practices from within AMES UK.
They’re starting with operational improvements in the way that point of sale is delivered to garden centres.
The aim is to provide a more flexible approach and to improve on efficiency in response to needs.
The business is also embarking on a programme of insight work into core landscape categories. The results of feedback from garden centres will help to shape developments.
Richard continued “We want to understand how our customers see the future of the category. We also want to know how they see the successful development of the business over the coming years.
“That’s why we will be focusing on the views and experiences of our garden centre customers. We’ll do that in a structured programme of insight research in early 2020. I’m looking forward to working with our customers on the next phase of our development.”
