Our Barometer of Trade (BoT) figures for May (2023) showed a huge leap in sales of seeds & bulbs and outdoors plants.
Member garden centres recorded seeds & bulbs up by 113.59% last month when compared to May 2022 and outdoor plants were up by 24.94%.
Pent-up demand
Peter Burks, our Chief Executive, explains: “We saw a very strong set of figures returned for May, especially considering the weather didn’t improve until mid-month. It certainly shows what a bit of sunshine, coupled with some pent-up demand, can do.
“Eleven out of our 13 categories were very positive with furniture & BBQ the only one significantly down at -10.76%.
Good performers
“The other good performers in May were catering, up by 20.16%, and our food hall/farm shop category at 16.97%. Clothing sales saw an uplift of 14.08% and garden sundries 8.02%. Pet & aquatics came in at 6.08% and houseplants were up by 5.62%.
“In fact, it was a very strong month for gardening overall, with food and catering still doing well too. The only real concern remains furniture but that has definitely improved with the warm weather. Our May data has helped to close the year-to-date figures right down.”
May’s BoT returns also revealed gifts were up 1.25% and hard landscaping up 0.38%.
Positive sales
Overall sales for the month came in at 12.31% with a year-to-date variance of -2.39%.
“By region, the North East (1.55%) and Wales and the West (1.09%) are both now recording positive sales for the year. While all our other regions are posting negatively, they aren’t too far behind with South Thames at the bottom of the table at -3.48%. So, things are looking much brighter all round.”