(This article appeared in the Sept. 2006 issue.)

The Appeal of Gift Merchandise
The secret to selling gift merchandise is to match the products with the customers
By Scott and Ann Springer

On a warm summer day in Spring Valley, N.Y. the breeze blows through the windows at Matterhorn Nurseries Inc. and the wind chimes begin to dance and sing in the eye line of customers perusing French milled soaps, gardening books, and other gift apparel.

Barbara Matone, the manager of the gardening center's gift shop, sees sales go through the roof as the peaceful sounds sell themselves to watergardening customers.

"Having the gift shop be a part of the garden center is ideal for us," say Matt Horn, owner of Matterhorn Nurseries. "It's an extension of our business."

Gift merchandise can supplement sales during the slower months in the winter. "Gifts are a vital part of our industry," Horn says. "People will come in to buy a plant and then say, 'Oh, I need a housewarming gift or a gift for so-and-so.'"

What's Hot?
Chimes, lotions to help repair worn-out gardening hands, and ambient candles are the three biggest sellers at Matterhorn. "Women tend to be our biggest shoppers and they love to buy the aroma products," Matone says.

Outdoor art that is mounted to the side of the house has been flying off the shelves in stores across the country.

"Some of our biggest sellers are rusty barn stars," says Sue Spece, owner of In The Country Garden and Gifts, a retail shop in Independence, Iowa. "One person has them and then everyone is looking for them."

Celestial suns, clocks, and larger-scale garden art have been selling successfully at garden centers. "The bigger the better," Spece says about these items made of everything from resin to bronze.

Cast iron is a popular material in gift merchandise because it feels heavy and high end, but is less expensive than brass or bronze, which are also big sellers, says Rick Gwatkin, co-owner of Enchanter Gardens and Ponds in Orange, Conn.

Weathered items continue to be trendy indoors and out and also make excellent gifts, Spece says.

Mythical creations such as gargoyles, mermaids, and ferries make great gifts for the perennial gardener. "We sell a lot of those items because people really like mythical creatures in their gardens," says JoEllen Johnston, Gwatkin's partner at Enchanted Gardens and Ponds.

Artisan pieces tend to be top sellers, too, Matone says. The nursery goes to great lengths to find lesser-known artists, either locally or internationally, and to sell their original garden pieces in the shop.

"People come in and say, 'I've never seen anything like this before,'" Matone says. For example, customers may swoon over specialty lamps made out of inverted flower pots designed by an out-of-state artist.

CDs with recordings of outdoor sounds, jewelry, bird houses, and clocks have also seen huge sales this year, Horn says.

Narrowing Down the Search
Even though you've scoured the booths at the trade shows and poured through magazines and catalogs to get ideas, it can be a guessing game to gauge which items will be hot sellers this season.

A lot of retailers purchase items that suit their personal tastes to create a streamlined style and theme.

However, the danger in this personalized approach is that you may not diversify your inventory enough to appeal to a broad enough range of customers, Matone says.

Start out small and order a few items if you are unsure if something will sell well in your area, Matone advises.

"It's always safest to buy a few items and restock than to buy 100 of something and have to eat it," Matone says.

In a radius of less than 5 miles around Gwatkin's shop lay a half-dozen big-box or mass-merchandise-type stores that compete with him for sales.

"We have to find stuff that is unique that you won't find in any store," Gwatkin says. "Larger stores typically go through the same distributors and all have the same product lines."

Another helpful tip is to remember what motifs your regular customers prefer in decorations and buy according to their tastes.

"We've become astute at knowing our customers, such as what their living arrangements are like and what colors they like," Horn says.

This extra effort can pay off. Matone went out on a limb and ordered several specialty pieces that she thought one of her regular customers would love and she sold more than $1,000 in inventory on her intuition.

"We've built our inventory by listening to our clients tell us what they think we should carry," Horn says.

Holiday Happenings
Fourth-quarter sales of gift items are always up because of the holidays, but Horn doesn't concentrate much on buying specialty holiday items.

"Holiday items can only be sold at the holidays and gifts can be sold all year," Horn says.

During the holidays Spece steps up her gift inventory to 75 percent of her floor space from the 10 percent of inventory that she typically has year round. She also sticks to mostly non-holiday items.

"I don't want to have the overhead of gift merchandise in the spring and summer months when our main business is the nursery, plants, and watergardening products," she says.

Gwatkin agrees that it can be hard to make a profit on holiday-specific items. "I've thrown in the towel on pure Christmas items," he says. "There are just too many large garden centers selling inexpensive garden items."

Merchandising to Move Inventory
Even shops with limited square footage can find creative ways to display gift merchandise.

Signs with catchy sayings or phrases, clocks, and outdoor art can all be displayed in dead space on walls. "There's a lot of wasted wall space," Horn says. "You can hang signs or clocks in between displays of fertilizers or put flowers between lotions or candles."

Create a vignette of like items. "It really gives visual impact," Matone says.

For example, place a book about pruning with a set of gloves and pruning sheers together to create an easy gift idea.

Change displays frequently. "We are always moving things around," Horn says. "Every two weeks we change it up and it makes something that has been sitting on a shelf somewhere else looks like it's new."

Make small changes everyday. It only takes a few minutes and you could attract the attention of a new customer by changing it up more frequently, Johnston suggests.

Don't worry about stocking your gift inventory too deep. "A lot of small shops try to mass merchandise like a big store," Matone says.

Instead, start small with a few items and when someone comes in to buy an item you can sell that item is sold out, Horn suggests.

The idea of an item selling out "creates a mystique and a market for an item, even if you only had two of the item to begin with," Horn says.