Lessons from Dubai

On my journey North I stopped over in Dubai and stayed with Danny Powell who is a client and the manager of Dubai Garden Centre. In my conference presentations I have been promoting the fact that in today’s world garden centres need to excel at plants and gardening, but also need extra categories. Dubai Garden Centre excels at this and is one of the most vibrant garden centres around at present I went on a Friday, a traditionally quiet trading day in the Middle East and it was buzzing. Consider these as extra categories Danny and the team have introduced: Fishing tackle Art gallery for local artist Juice bar Coffee shop Cushion making Carpenter making outdoor wooden garden features and Stray cat home care. Yes, once a month a voluntary group who collect stray cats come to the garden centre and customers purchase stray cats to take home…now that is thinking outside of the box!