Business Barometer April 2007

These responses came from a March 2, 2007, survey and originally appeared in the April 2007 issue of Water Garden News.

Wet and Waiting
Pet and garden center in Pembroke, Mass.
At this point, as of March 1 in Massachusetts, there’s no business for pond supplies. Right now it’s raining heavily, when I wish it were snowing heavily. The snow would help our business in the wintertime. This still is considered winter out here. No one in this area is looking or thinking about anything to do with ponds – yet. It will take us another month or six weeks to get into the groove of having customers literally looking at buying stuff.

Open for Business
Garden and pond supply retailer in Lawndale, N.C.
I’m in a lull area, and I’ve been closed for three months. I just don’t have enough business for 12 months out of the year, but the telephone’s ringing off the hook about questions. We opened up on March 1, and I’ve already had around eight people ask about pond liners, pumps, gallons, hose and all this other stuff I carry for them to build their own ornamental ponds. Business is good.

Rise and Shine
Garden center in Sedalia, Mo.
[Business is] just starting to wake up from a very severe winter. Right now, things look very good. We’re just making sure that our shelves are stocked, our pricing is current, getting our displays cleaned up, everything is functioning and things like that. For water gardens, it’s usually May before anything starts moving around here. I really don’t have much feel for [what will sell best] yet.

Spring Cleaning
Water garden and pond supplier in Tyler, Texas
We’re just now opening the season, but it’s been looking pretty good so far. I’m ordering all of my chemicals, getting the shelves stocked, and getting the plants divided and propagated. This is our busiest time. Usually the pond clean-out kits and the algae stuff are real big in the spring, because the sun comes out, ponds start going green and everybody freaks out. Basically everything does well this time of year because it’s start-up; it’s clean-up time. This will be our best time.

Keeping Busy
Water garden retailer in Tualatin, Ore.
This time of year, there’s a lot going on. It’s just a matter of weeks, days before it starts. It’s the weather; we’re weather-dependent. I think we’re a little higher than last year right now, but I haven’t done the numbers in a week. We just got done with the garden show. It went really well. There was a positive response to everything. Right now we’re getting the signs out, the fountains going and the new plants in. Every year the pottery gets a lot better; it’s a big trend right now. Also, the fountains, like the concrete-cast fountains, do really well. The water plants hold their own.

Frozen Sales
Garden center in Centennial, Colo.
Right now [business is] pretty much at a standstill because everything’s frozen. It’s good in the summertime. We usually have a really good spring season. We have a whole pond area and sell all of it. We’ve got all of our pumps and all of the food in. We’ve got everything done and put on the shelves and are ready to go. We sell everything from the fish to the food to the filters to everything.

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Business Barometer April 2007

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