Pet product sales become more important to garden centres
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Pet accessories are becoming an increasingly important source of sales revenue for garden centres suffering from the effects of the bleak weather.
The recent PATS Sandown show saw an upsurge in garden centre visitor numbers with many exhibitors welcoming the interest shown from this sector of the market.
Pedigree Wholesale's sales director Stuart Hendry said: "A number of garden centres and plant nurseries visited our stand at PATS.
"Due to last year's poor garden season and this year not looking too good so far because of the cold and snow, these outlets are increasingly looking at other allied revenue streams. Pet care is an obvious one that is very aligned with garden centre consumers and provide all year round sales, which are not necessarily weather dependent."
Meanwhile, Ray Foard from Pet Rebellion said: “Eighty per cent of the visitors we’ve seen are new customers, which is great. We’ve talked all day, and we’ve seen a lot of garden centres, who are the main focus of our business.
"We’ve taken bigger orders today than ever before at PATS – two to three times bigger in fact. It’s by far our busiest show ever.”
Steve Buxton and Matt Hammond from Trago Mills Garden Centre, Cornwall, were impressed with the selection of pet products they saw at Sandown. “The pet trade is a cosy, intimate group of people and PATS suits that profile. We’ve returned to the show after missing last year and pleased to see a good variety of new products.”
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