Quote:
Originally posted by LandArts
I bet most garden centers make big money three or four months of the year and struggle to break even the rest of the time.
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Yes - its true December/Jan are really not good for us and I think that as a stand alone we would be losing money in those days in our current state if this were the case. However for 10 months a year we make a healthy profit, but due mainly to our highly aggressive attitude to overheads at the retail site. Since labour is so expensive here everything we do is organised to maximise sales and look of the garden centre without making it stupidly high maintenance.
However.. were we stand alone we would adapt and change... but we aren't. And interestingly, running landscape and retail businesses in parallel under our supervision umbrella, they have developed a strangely well adapted symbiotic relationship.
In March Arpil on-wards the landscape side is fed tons of work by the retail site (I mean really crazy amounts...) then in winter when our contracts flow through yet the retail dries, the landscape repays this debt by continuing to draw on plant and product stocks in reasonable volume.
We still keep very careful track on where we are making money, but they are so far developed in this way now that I fear separation would be impossible.