MELLOW FRUITFULNESS The best season to be a dealer?
If the forecast is correct, we are about to plunge from summer to autumn in double quick time this weekend.
Last week, many of us were sweltering in + 30C temperatures. Over the next few days, autumn gales are due to sweep the country.
Just as spring, masquerading as winter, disappeared overnight in May to be replaced by a half-decent summer (well, better than that really), so the seasonal transitions now appear to be more defined.
All of which, gives our industry the opportunity to be nimble, alert and on-the-ball. Lawnmowers are about to be replaced by leaf blowers, vacuums, clean-up equipment et al.
And the beauty of being an independent is that reaction time can be so much faster than major retail operations. For there is no guarantee that an early onslaught of autumn, wont be followed by a glorious Indian summer.
Autumn is, or should be, a season of real opportunity for garden equipment specialists, better sometimes than early season.
I well remember Ken Salt of Bob Andrews, then the Billy Goat distributor, saying to me many years ago, “You know, young man (I was then), our trade starts every year worrying about the weather. Will the grass grow? Will there be a hose-pipe ban? Nothing they can do about either. Yet, I can tell you with absolute certainty, come the autumn, the leaves WILL fall off the trees!”
Stunning, simple logic. The mower season is far from done and dusted, but now is the time to mix things up - and compete with products that are very much a 'specialists speciality'.
