You may have already noticed but there is another story this week about a major manufacturer piloting another retailing innovation for specialist gardening machinery.

Husqvarna, hot on the heels of announcing their Battery Box trial in Sweden, have now announced the launch of a ‘pop-up store’ in a major Stockholm shopping centre.

In a statement, the company have said that the aim of the pop-up store is to “boost awareness of the brand to Swedish consumers, allowing homeowners to discover and be inspired by Husqvarna’s new, smart solutions for gardening".

Husqvarna clearly view this fancy indoor shopping mall as an effective means of entering the mass public consciousness.

The level of visibility which this store benefits from via its location next to high-end fashion brands or consumer electronics retailers is immense. It affords their battery products a level of awareness with mainstream consumers which is very difficult for specialist dealers to compete with. Inevitably, traditional dealerships are in industrial estates or out of town locations and just don’t have that walk past appeal.

Which is why if manufacturers are going to increasingly place their battery-powered machines into non-specialist locations, as does appear to be the pattern emerging, dealers need to do all they can to get themselves known.

Placing themselves into the mindset of consumers before they even leave their homes would seem to be a key means of achieving this – which is precisely what the organisers of the Garden Trader website are aiming to do for dealers.

I’ve been told by the website’s owner Duncan Murray-Clarke, who also owns Service Dealer, that over 500 independent dealers have now signed up to the site and are actively using its facilities. Apparently in its first full month of operation during April it received over 31,000 page views – which from a standing start of zero sounds pretty impressive to me (who has nothing personally to do with the site).

Duncan said to me, “We are delighted at how the launch of Garden Trader has gone. Our emphasis from the site’s conception was to create a platform which could promote the specialist trade direct to the public.

“We hope that we have generated a forum which brings the disparate network of independent dealers together. The intention being to increase the public’s knowledge of our vibrant, thriving sector.”

I asked Duncan how he expects the public to discover the site for themselves and he said that the team have been pro-active via social media channels to generate interest.

“We have been very successful driving clicks via Facebook to the new ‘Mow How’ blog we now feature on Garden Trader," he said. "The blog, which includes pieces written by ex-Pitchcare editor Laurence Gale, gives consumers useful content such as seasonal gardening tips and the like which will keep them returning. We also have a New Products section highlighting machinery developments.

“All these elements are there to help communicate clearly to the public the benefits of buying their specialist machinery from an expert, independent dealer. It’s so important for the industry to embrace these modern marketing tools, so they can quickly and easily put themselves directly in front of consumers who are wishing to purchase outdoor powered machinery.”

Hopefully Garden Trader will continue to grow, becoming bigger and better. Apparently the most recent statistics for traffic are showing 42,000 hits per month and rising.

With elements of specialist machinery creeping ever more into mainstream retailing, endeavours like this need to find success and wholehearted industry support.