Not many garden centres feature a 30ft by 10ft sandy beach, complete with buckets, spades, scampi and chips. But entrepreneur Neil Grant decided to recreate the fun of the seaside at Ferndale Garden Centre, Dronfield, Derbyshire, to drive footfall and sales to his seasonal business.
“You have to keep coming up with ideas to keep people coming in,” says Grant, who has seen unseasonal weather – even during its peak spring trading period – take its toll on the business in the past few years, forcing the retailer to slash prices.
“We run the sandpit from early July to October to offer a place for families to go [during the summer holidays],” he says.
“I’m an ideas person. I’m constantly coming up with ideas, trying new things and thinking: ‘Why don’t we try that?’ I’m also open to suggestions from the team and from customers.”
During the winter, the 56-year-old decided to extend the garden centre’s cafe by 60ft, creating a seating space for 200 people. It was also refurbished with an eclectic mix of quirky accessories, such as recycled furniture, church chairs and a log burner. The investment has paid off, with the coffee shop achieving growth of over 30%.
Grant, who co-hosts a BBC Radio Sheffield gardening programme, is keen to inspire the next generation of young gardeners and has developed numerous children’s campaigns, around national gardening week, allotment week and nest box week, for example. The centre also runs children’s activities such as how to create a miniature garden and the cafe hosts a play modelling event for children once a week.
Having set up the business in 1982 with his wife’s parents and her sister, who have all since retired, Grant has also brought the centre into the GrowthAccelerator programme, a government-backed scheme that helps thriving SMEs to grow.
His creativity and drive rubs off on the rest of his 50-strong team, says Victoria Middleton, a garden centre assistant. “It’s contagious, because he passes down visually how he wants things to look. He always tries to show you that vision and help you replicate it across the garden centre. He has really good ideas to help draw the younger generation in.”
Even when the weather is on his side, Grant is still planning ahead. In the pipeline are mini wooden chalets that could be rented out by local businesses, and the centre’s own television station airing gardening tips that customers can view via Bluetooth on their mobiles as they sip a latte in the cafe.
Faye Smith, owner of Keep Your Fork marketing, who nominated her client for the category, says that Grant’s business acumen and innovation have enabled the business to remain resilient when it’s been hit by the poor weather.
Having seen sales shoot up by 46% in the past five years, Ferndale Garden Centre is clearly reaping the rewards of Grant’s entrepreneurial vision.
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