Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

The businesses that aren’t content to lose business to “this economic downturn” are getting creative. I read, the other day, of a bath-and-perfume shop which turns itself into a late-night jazz club once a week…great way to get the folks most likely to use their products in for another reason.

This plant nursery is on my everyday travel path. For, literally, 6-8 years I never turned into this business, although I buy a LOT of plants (mainly because I neglect and kill a lot of plants.) Take a look at this place of business…does it look approachable to you?

A big, always empty coquina shell front lot. Parked cars, indicating customers, was almost hidden. No sign of a cashier/ check-out shed. It looks to me like a wholesale nursery. I don’t see any signs like “Begonias just in” or “Special on Date Palms” nor do I see signs or price tags on the greenery. So, for many many years I figured it was to-the-trade only.

Well, they finally wised up. They DID do a lot of wholesale selling, but they figured out they were missing out all us retail plant-murderers -lovers. Business is truly hurting in our neck of the woods, and especially anything to do with real estate…such as landscaping companies. So this nursery HAD to do something to survive.

And what they did was SO simple, I’m sure they are kicking themselves in the asparagus ferns. They simply made a gate with signs. How simple is THAT for a solution? Now the 40,000+ cars that pass this place a day feel welcomed.

Next step, in my opinion, is to park a few employee cars nose-in on either side of the gates, to get that whole “community-acceptance” thing going.

Are YOUR gates open? Does your location appeal to the drive-by folks who “never knew you were here”?