Vol. 7, Issue 1 | March 2015
Hello from Germany!
By Jutta Lenz
Record attendance: Our winter conference with the title “Future of Gardencentres” in Münster from 17th-20th January 2015 was very successful with about 270 delegates. Martina Mensing-Meckelburg was voted for the new president of our association and replaced Eckard Heinemann.
Besides our conference day with very good speakers, we visited also 6 garden centres in the area of Münster. The garden centres Moubis in Billerbeck and Ibbenbüren are the first garden centres in Germany that participate in the “Intratuin” concept of the Netherlands (picture below).
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Martina Mesning-Meckelburg |
Intratuin concept |
Christmasworld Fair in Frankfurt (30th January til 3rd February)
Every year the christmasworld organisation advertises a christmas-competition. The winner in the category “Gardencenter run by its owners” is the Gardencenter Grönfinger´s in Rostock! Nominated were also the gardencentres Schlößer in Moers and Dinger in Cologne.
From left Grit Heinemann, Grönfingers, the jury member Martina Mensing-Meckelburg and from the Christmasworld team is Eva Olbrich (on the right).
Bee Stele: Bees play a very important role in our nature. Due to the large amount of information and, unfortunately, incorrect information communicated in the media world, the GREEN industry has decided to send a communication concept to the end user in the form of a Bee Info Center in the spring of 2015 to present at the point of sale. The Bee Information Center is to support the health of the bees and inform people about bees and enlighten. How can everybody afford his contribution to the health of bees. For this purpose, tips and tricks are given by the seed for planting bee pasture on good practices to proper conservation of plant health. Another important aspect is the creation of transparency in relation to pesticides.
The Information Center is equipped with the seed bags “bee pasture”, which are offered to the final consumer, as well as a free flyer on the subject. The “bee pasture” serves the active support of bee health, it is financed by the sale of seed bags. The VDG calls on its members to participate in this promotion of green organizations and to equip the POS accordance with bee-friendly plants and Info Centre.
Online Shop- Olerum: The year 2014 was completed with 40% sales increase over the previous year. The first two months of the new year once again developed above average. The necessary liquidity to operate an online store should not be underestimated. The growth on the one hand pleases us, at the same time requires more liquidity. Meanwhile, more than 10,000 products online and warehousing have grown accordingly. We have now enabled all members of the advertising platform Olerum. This means that each member is recommended on the website as the source with no additional cost. We expect around 1 million visitors on our Olerum-website in 2015.
Our members can also sell their respective vouchers through the online shop. Have been sold only to regional customers coupons before, the vouchers are now bought from distant regions for family or friends in the area of the garden center. Here it comes to increasing sales in the garden centers.
Jutta Lenz
Verband Deutscher Garten-Center e.V.
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