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Ponderable Reflections with Rick

A Bright Outlook for the 2012 Pond Season

By Rick Bartel

The pond and water feature industry is showing significant growth during the last part of 2011. This is a good sign that things finally might be turning around and improving our odds for a successful 2012 season.

Several major manufacturers report an increase in early buys and advanced orders for this year over what they achieved this time last year. Many distributors are moving significantly more product during the last quarter of 2011 than they had at the same time the last three consecutive years. Some retailers report the same jump in year-end sales, which are completely unexpected and out-of-character for our industry during this time of year.

Pond and water feature installation contractors normally experience a slowdown in business and prepare to shut down for the winter months. However, many are reporting a pick-up in over-all business in many parts of the country.

For the past three years, the Savio Water Feature Institute conducted a series of industry polls through several groups including White-Brighten Polls, Survey-Monkey, FaceBook and LinkedIn. This year we see a welcomed trend heading our way.

At the end of the calendar year 2011, 950 professional landscape and water feature contractors were polled nationwide, of which 687 responded. Of these responses, 549 reported increased sales and over-all revenue over the past year. That is nearly 80 percent across-the-board reporting higher gross revenue this year over 2010, and more than two-thirds reported this jump in business activity during the last half of the year, despite a slow beginning to the season.

Many parts of the country were inundated with long months of heavy spring rains and severe weather that seriously delayed an already short season. But the season seems to have recovered nicely for most of us and seems to be showing signs of a really great start to the rapidly approaching 2012 season.

What has been your personal and business experiences? We enjoy hearing from you.

Let’s hope that we are in for a long-awaited season of growth, prosperity, profits and success.

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A Bright Outlook for the 2012 Pond Season

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Our business has also shown some signs of an improving business future if not the economy as a whole. Our pond installations are up over last year but the big difference has been with our disappearing water feature installs. They are absolutely through the roof for the latter part of 2011. A near 20% jump in installs over 2010! It is nice to hear that this is happening all around the country. William Burnison Outdoor Design Concepts Atlanta, Georgia William Burnison, Atlanta, GA Posted: 12/29/2011 6:51:42 AM