Inspiration & cases

May is one of the busiest and most commercially important months of the year for garden centers. Yet new consumer research suggests that many sales may be lost at the bench, simply because customers do not have enough clear plant information at the moment they are ready to buy.

In today's digital age, online reviews are not just feedback but a powerful tool that you can leverage to understand customer sentiment and improve services. As you accumulate thousands of reviews across various platforms, manually analyzing them becomes an unfeasible task.

Many foreigners from the industry have been visiting Dutch garden centres and noticed pallets with soft drinks stacked in a corner and wondered how that was working, practically and financially. Why would you do that? What’s the added value to your business? And are customers buying it?

Colleague Jen Polanz recently chatted with someone hoping to help you solve your plant photo and description issues using the power of AI. Here’s what she gathered from her conversation.

As Dutchmen, we’re blessed to have so many wonderful and professional garden centres. Multiple times a year, I receive questions about stores that are worth visiting. That’s a difficult question since there’s no clear answer. Do you like big & bold? Low budget and discount? Plant-focused, or lifestyle & events? To help you plan your next garden centre road trip to the Netherlands, here’s a curated list of the best stores you shouldn’t miss.