Our Barometer of Trade (BoT) figures for October reveal a ‘strong food theme’ at our member garden centres (2023).
Eight of our 13 categories saw an uplift during the month as recorded by member centres, and the figures also revealed a positive year-to-date variance of +2.27%.
Strongest performing
Peter Burks, our Chief Executive, explains: “Catering continued to be the strongest performing category in our member garden centres during October with plant sales understandably struggling, given the very wet weather. But overall, an encouraging, albeit small, increase in sales.
“The strong food theme continued with food halls and farm shops up by 8.33% and it’s great to see a decent increase in Christmas sales, which we hear is continuing into November.”
Best category
The best category in October was catering up at +12.97%, followed by the miscellaneous, other items category up at +12.57%, then food hall/farm shop which was +8.33%, clothing at +7.07% and Christmas up at +4.78%.
Also performing well
Pet & aquatics also performed well at +3.02% when compared to October 2022, so did garden sundries at +2.97% and hard landscaping at +2.08%.
Down
According to October’s BoT results, furniture and BBQ sales were down by -29.03%, houseplants down by -7.64%, outdoor plants down -4.78%. Also recording a negative figure were seeds and bulbs -0.41% and gifts -0.06%.
