John’s Blog

Switzerland may only have 8 million population, but this small landlocked country has four official languages, German, French, Italian and Romansh and a thriving horticultural industry. On first impression, it seems to be a DIFM (Do It For Me) rather than a DIY (Do It Yourself) society as the landscapers seem too far outnumber the garden retailers. In late November, I was in Switzerland by the invitation of Jardin Suisse,

Norma Burnson is the author of a book “Sustainable Food for the Globe, Everyday People Producing Food in Abundance” Norma interviews seventeen entrepreneurs from around the world who are developing ideas and creating projects to grow food. The book takes you from Canada to the USA, Pakistan to Switzerland, Uganda to Pakistan and New Zealand to the UK. The book covers areas such as kitchen gardens, eco-villages, food share schemes

Food tourism: A practical marketing guide, by John and Linda Stanley – reviewed by Annals of Tourism research. This book is a new welcome addition to food tourism practice and literature. The book has ten sections, divided into four parts. In the first part, the authors present an introductory chapter followed by a chapter titled ‘‘The Changing Tourists’’. This chapter clearly explains the current food tourism playground in terms of the recent changes and

I was meeting a potential client in Chatsworth in New South Wales whilst on the road. I arrived early and decided to have a coffee. I had a range of coffee shops to choose from. The one that grabbed my attention was Lid and Jar. Why?… They had decided to take the “high” ground with the signage on the window. I walked in and the team also decided to be

The Growing Chefs Program in BC is where growers and chefs encourage school children to get engaged with growing and cooking local produce. Whilst I was in BC there was a fundraising dinner for “one-of-a-kind.” Local chefs worked with local growers, and the little chefs from the local school, to produce a meal created from local produce. It raised $25,000 in one evening. An winning formula that created a truly local

Those of you that have been to one of my presentations lately will be aware I do a session on Millennials. I picked this up from the Buzz magazine in the USA. It adds another piece to the jigsaw. Make it fun! That’s what Millennials are saying when responding to a nationwide survey conducted by Colloquy that asked about loyalty programs. In a survey of 1,000 consumers, 34% of Millennials

Cache Creek…where is that I can hear you asking. I asked the same question when I recently had the opportunity to work with a retail client in the town. Cache Creek has a population of 1,040 people and is situated 354 kilometres north east of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. It was mid-October when I was asked to work with the client and I rented a car and travelled up

Parklets was a new word to me, but a great concept. Parks are more important at weekends and roads to move traffic are less important. Therefore cities like Rio and San Paulo close specific streets to traffic and create parklets or “pop-up” parks for the weekend. You find the locals taking a walk and using the streets like they would a park. This is a great idea other cities could

There are two styles of retailing that we discovered in Rio. The top end retailers are displaying with flair and the salespeople are very engaging. Then the rest of retailing in my opinion has some challenges. Many retailers have arrived at what I believe is the final promotion,”70% Off”. Once you arrive at that promotion strategy I do not know where you go next. You have a cost driven campaign

What skills do you need to keep customers engaged? I have been to a number of conferences over the last few months where almost every speaker that is focused on marketing trends has talked about “customer inclusion” or providing a “remarkable experience” as part of the journey to grow a business in this changing world. The challenge is putting these ideas into action in a business in front of a

Many pundits would argue that the garden centre model of the sixties will not work in the future. There are number of reasons for this, these include: The move to urban living rather than suburban living and the need for garden centres to be near the consumer, especially as this consumer is not prepared to drive to the fringes of the city to purchase plants Peri-urban land, where most garden

During August I presented at the Petfood Forum China in Shanghai. This was my fourth visit to this region, but the first time downtown as the conference was held at the Expo site. I arrived the week that the stock market crashed in Shanghai although if you read the China Daily you would not have suspected anything important had happened. As a visitor, if you do not leave the main

One of the major topics on workshops these days is online shopping and its value in retailing. Views in audiences are varied and some retailers think online will never effect them while others believe it is part of the future The following Australian Sensis report makes interesting reading: Men are the big spenders. – Basically men are the big online spenders, but what will happen in the future?

If you have attended a retail of business conference over the last year, I suspect at least one speaker has addressed the need to get to know the Millennial shopper. I am one of those presenters that has been promoting the need to respond to a new consumer. 2017 is the year when the Millennial shopper starts spending more money in the retail environment that the Baby Boomer and we

One of our newsletter readers in the UK, Neil Grant, sent me this information from The Guardian on female shoppers and how to attract them to your business. Thanks Neil this is worth reading: Win over women, and the men will follow, with women controlling 85% of purchasing decisions, focusing your marketing efforts on them will pay off….      

A book that is about to be a launched that will be of interest to a number of our readers is “The Cancer Survivor’s Garden Companion” by Jenny Peterson. This will be an inspiring book and a book that many of you will want to read. Synopsis THE BOOK IN 19 WORDS: A CANCER PATIENT DISCOVERS THAT GARDENING IS GOOD MEDICINE – AND FINDS A POWERFUL HEALING PARTNER IN HER OWN BACKYARD.

Retailing is constantly changing and that is part of the fun of being involved in the sector. Imagine dropping in to your local fashion store for a coffee and snack. That is now becoming more of a trend. In London you can enjoy a coffee or champagne in Regents Street at the Burberry all-day cafe in their Flagship store. Gents are invited to have a gin and tonic when purchasing suits

In August I spent a week working with a number of clients in Denmark as well as travelling for two days with the International Garden Centre Congress. There were many highlights. One store that really caught my eye was Bolia, a Danish lifestyle store. Their merchandising was some of the most imaginative I have seen in sometime. The following pictures help tell the story…  

The big story this month is from my wife. In 2010, Linda walked the 1000 kilometre Bibbulmun Track from Albany to Perth in Western Australia. This is the second longest walking track in the world after the Appalachian Trail in the USA. She did this solo over two months. Linda’s new book Grandy’s Long Walk, is a children’s book based on the track. It is illustrated by Viv Burrows and is

Many years ago I was travelling through South Africa and stopped at a small town where I noticed they had a small plant nursery. I went to look at what they were doing and was greeted by the plant manager. To him, I was another customer. As we walked though the nursery he picked a leaf of a plant and said “Taste it”. I chewed the plant leaf and wow,

The World Expo in Milan opened in early May 2015 . The focus of the expo is food and the advancement of food technology around the world, the theme being “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”. One of the features of the Expo was a supermarket of the future built by the Italian supermarket retailer Coop Apart from the 6 month Expo site, Coop Apart has 1,190 stores across all

In February 2000 Stephen Kaufer, Langley Steinart and a few friends sat in an office in the USA and invented a website that they could use to swap travel reviews. Fourteen years latter it was voted the most trusted travel website in the world. Plus it owned 24 other travel branded sites including “booking buddy”, “holiday lettings”, “holiday watchdog” and “independent traveller”. TripAdvisor is the world’s largest travel site. It

The Italian Co-op built a supermarket of the future, complete with robots checking the fruit. The one area that grabbed my attention was the point of purchase digital boards above all products which could be changed from a central office. The shopping carts were also made of degradable cardboard. I have seen these before in Italy and I am convinced we will eventually see them around the world.

I expected to see promotional posters that highlighted the importance of the farmer. In Australia and some other countries we tend to focus more on the chef as the hero. In Italy the farmer is an equal hero and something I believe needs to be promoted in other parts of the globe.  

Expos are always great places to discover the weird that can be introduced into any retail or marketing situation. The Milan Expo did not disappoint with “funky” ideas that can be adapted to other locations. These are some of my favourites.