The strength and convenience of a large company
'A brochure is a customer enticer, and must not be seen as a turnover maker only'
Laurent Vandevelde, Business Advisor for the PGB
“Profit through cooperation while maintaining diversity”: that is the PGB
The Belgian Promotional Group (PGB) is made up of 30 garden centres in Wallonia and Flanders. These garden centres make use, under their own name, of the purchasing, promotional and advisory facilities that are offered.
Since 2008, this group has made use of the collective logo “Groen Expert” - “Expert en Vert” [Green Expert], creating a strong promotional cooperation. They are not truly a franchise because they keep their own names.
The following activities, among others, are planned for 2009:
Promotions
- 14 brochures, available in Dutch and French, which can optionally be supplemented by 4 pet shop pages
- Jointly organised distribution
- Involvement in choice of articles for brochures (promotional committee)
Advice
- 3 regional meetings with visit to garden centre
- 2 rural meetings
- visit of business advisor by appointment
- benchmarking
- advice about renovations, routing and product supplements
Laurent: “Via a supplier, I met an entrepreneur who wanted to turn his nursery into a garden centre. But ‘How do you start a garden centre?’ was the question...”
The entrepreneur had sufficient knowledge of plants, but you cannot build a garden centre on that alone. He learned about GRS from his customers/garden centres. He came to us for our knowledge in the areas of routing, concepts, choice of suppliers, etc.
In order to start a good promotional participation in 2008, and to give a place to new product groups in the garden centre, a routing plan was drawn up and implemented during the autumn of 2007.
The entrepreneur would never have thought of selling fish and pond products, or of integrating a spacious pet shop department with live animals, without that “push” from GRS. The decorations department is now a reflection of assortments from various suppliers, which the entrepreneurs present thematically.
This garden centre has been chosen as the PGB’s garden centre of the year for 2008.
