Garden Retail Market Update Q2: fluctuating online trends in the garden retail industry

The latest Garden Retail Market Update from Garden Connect shows visitor numbers on websites of garden centres and nurseries are improving in the second quarter of 2023, after a difficult start to the year. Demand for houseplants fell 5%, garden furniture was searched for 2% less, and searches around garden centres in general were 2% higher than in 2022.

"Every quarter, we analyse online trends in the garden industry. Almost all figures in the first quarter of the year showed a decline, but in quarter two, on average, things look a bit better. The increase in visitor numbers on webshops and online turnover is a good sign," explains Edwin Meijer, one of the founders of Garden Connect.
 

Analysis of search behaviour and trends

The Garden Retail Market Update analyses a group of 550 keywords divided into several categories. "We do this analysis in 5 countries, and we see a cautious increase everywhere. Spring started off cold, but from the end of May and throughout June, temperatures were perfect for gardening. There was less rain and more sunshine hours in 2023. Partly because of this, the number of searches around garden centres increased. For example, queries increased by 9% in Ireland, which had a positive impact on the industry."
 

Benchmark of garden centre websites

Besides Google searches, a benchmark is also made from the data Garden Connect itself has: "We get a lot of questions about benchmarks, so we also share this information with our contacts via the Garden Retail Market Update. For example, on average, more than 22,000 visitors came to the websites of Canadian garden centres in the second quarter. This varies enormously from one website to another, but it does give an idea of whether an individual garden centre is doing well."
 

E-commerce is variable but continues to grow

The growth in the number of online purchases levelled off in quarter 2. "We see outliers up and down. The average quarterly sales of the British online shops on our platform are 11% higher in Q2 2023 than last year. The average purchase amount is £198.53, which is just above the amount it was in the same period in 2022. In general, sales are steady with a slow decline in high ticket items like furniture and barbecues."
 

Download the full update

The full Garden Retail Marketing Update includes information benchmark data from the Netherlands, Belgium/Flanders, the UK, Ireland and Canada. Besides information on websites & webshops, it also shares information on Pagespeed, Apps and the most popular (garden) plants by country.

Download the new Garden Retail Market Update for free here!