Things haven’t slowed down for DeWayne and Tina Lee. For the past 15 years their business has been on the fast track thanks to continual improvements and unusual merchandise. Garden Center Magazine caught up with last year’s Innovator Award winner to learn the latest developments at the store. Tina Lee gave us a recap on strategies they are pursuing and plans for the future.
For more: DeWayne’s Home & Garden Showplace, 1575 Industrial Park Drive, Selma, NC 27576; (919) 202-8471; www.dewaynes.com.
Q. You’ve made a lot of improvements to the store over the past few years. Which has offered the best return on investment?
A. We’ve put up greenhouses, installed new bench systems, purchased new shopping carts and installed a racetrack through our nursery. Of all these things, we feel the best bang for our buck was the benches from Bench Systems.
In 2004, while installing our new greenhouses, we invested in new benches for all our plant material in the greenhouse, front patio and part of the nursery. It was a significant investment. However, it gave us significant returns. We increased our plant sales over 29 percent from 2004 to 2005. We realize the greenhouses, benches and carts together gave us the overall increase. But we feel the benches had the most impact.
Q. You do exceptionally well with non-garden gifts. Why does this category work well for you?
A. We try to give our customers the ‘wow’ factor in our gift shop. We carry unusual things that a typical garden center doesn’t. We’ve just added Onesole shoes and Pandora jewelry. Vera Bradley is still No. 1 in our gift shop. We’ve just doubled its sales area.
Many garden centers only stick with garden-related gifts and that is their downfall. You have the ladies in there. Sell them the ‘wow’ factor. I think the gift shop structure itself is a huge part of why we do well with gifts. Many garden centers are selling gifts out of a greenhouse. It’s hard to get the appropriate atmosphere in there.
Q. There has been a lot of talk lately about the abundance of plant introductions hitting the market each year. Do you have any opinions on this?
A. If a plant is new and in Southern Living magazine, we want it. That is not saying we agree with so many offerings. But it is hard to say we don’t carry that when a customer comes in with magazine in-hand asking for it. If we add new offerings, we do try to cut back on previous selections to offset the new.
Q. You recently launched a loyalty program. Was it easy to set up?
A. It’s up and running. We’ve signed up nearly 3,000 members in three months. We started in November to allow our Christmas customers to sign up while in the store. The program has been well received.
Now that our new POS system is in place, we’ll begin phase two of the program. We’ll send out a mailer to our existing customer database asking them to become part of the program. Until now it has just been in-house signup. Also, with the preferred customer program, we can target certain customers with product-specific mailings.
The setup of this program was fairly easy. As with any initial setup, it had its quirks. The hardest part was switching all of the preferred information from our previous POS system to our current system.
Q. What advertising strategies have worked best for you?
A. Over the years we’ve tried many advertising mediums. 2007’s marketing budget includes direct mail, local magazines, Internet, e-mail, billboards and very limited newsprint.
We were very pleased with a recent response to a billboard. We changed our board from a general ‘this is who we are’ message to a very specific message promoting Pandora jewelry. For the first time we had customers come to the store looking for Pandora because they had seen the billboard.
At ANLA Management Clinic we heard mention of several companies focusing most of their marketing dollars in-house on store signage and store atmosphere. We are exploring this idea as well.
Q. Do you have any big plans in the works for the coming years?
A. This question always scares me because I’m always nervous to hear what my husband is planning next. I know if he says it, it’s probably going to happen. And more than likely within the next couple of years.
This is what we’ve decided together. We’re currently exploring the idea of an in-house fudge shop. A covered outdoor-living shopping area will be in our future. We added outdoor furniture in 2006 with great success. The problem is the space to display it is limited. If 2007 sales are profitable, we’ll be looking into covering the front section of our Outdoor Living Yard.
We need a coffee shop. We would love to buy into a Starbucks franchise and place it on our property next door. Our visibility from the interstate is fantastic, and I know people would exit quickly if they saw the Starbucks logo from the road.
DeWayne has a vision for a ladies boutique and children’s shop in the far future. We would locate this on our new purchased adjacent property. At present, we’re using this facility for meetings, office space and warehouse space.
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