This time of year is a quieter one for our business so it always gives us time to look back on what’s gone before.
Time to be proud of our successes from the year just gone by.
And, of course, to use the benefit of hindsight and identify the not so successful parts to avoid in the year to come.
To build a successful brand you have to evaluate and this is our time of year to do just that.
And, in hindsight it’s been a brilliant year – a year in which we’ve moved The Garden Furniture Centre brand forward in leaps and bounds through hard work and determination as a team.
So we thought we’d share the highlights with you – our current and potential customers – after all you are, fundamentally the reason we’ve got a brand in the first place.
2015 – Our Best Bits …
The Trade Shows:
2015 really has been the year we perfected a winning formula at these and their huge popularity over the past 12 months back this up.
In fact, we won Trade Stand Awards for presentation at all the RHS Flower Shows - which says it all really - and that’s not taking into account our other successes for example at The Boat Show and The Ideal Home Show.
You can see the full round up from our UK Trade Stands and get a sneak preview of some brand new additions for 2016 here.
The Media Spotlight in 2015:
Just where do we start with this.
We guess the first thing that springs to mind is the Brand Endorsement that we received from Kerry Katona when she spent a day in our Warwickshire Showroom to help launch our brand new Silvertex Range of outdoor furniture.
She was an absolute delight and we’ve lost count of the amount of press we received coverage from both online and in print, not to mention the huge exposure across Facebook and Twitter, of course.
You can read the full low-down on this amazing day here.
However, the media coverage doesn’t by any means stop there.
Alice Smellie, regular columnist for The Daily Mail, reviewed our fabulous Athena LED Patio Heater for a full page feature and then approached us again later in the year to review some of our Firepits – a feature which is pending publication as we write this.
And as if that wasn’t enough this novelty patio heater has been highly sort after as a competition prize throughout the year by a number of high profile media outlets not least The Sunday Post.
Jon Haimes, director at The Garden Furniture Centre, said of the Athena LED …
“We invested in this LED patio heater because of its novelty appeal and the fact that it’s based around the original and very familiar Athena Plus Gas Patio Heater Design – which is still our best-selling patio heater by far.”
Definitely one of your better investments, Jon!
On the Telly again in 2015:
Yes, you might have guessed it, that LED Patio Heater’s involved again …
The Gadget Show also took a liking and featured it in Episode 10 of their 2015 Series which was filmed at the very impressive Brinsop Court in Hereford, just down the road from us, in fact.
However, the real highlight was our second appearance on ITV’s Love Your Garden with Alan Titchmarsh back in August.
You can see the full round up here.
This is just such a fabulous programme that consistently helps very worthy causes, making it an absolute pleasure to be able to contribute something to the proceedings.
Our first appearance saw us donate an Apple Day Bed and a very touching Engraved Bench for a garden dedicated to Alice Pine.
New partnerships for 2015 and beyond …
We’ve also been busy making some new business friends throughout 2015.
The English Garden approached us half way through the year and we now offer a subscription incentive to their beautiful magazine with every order we receive.
However, perhaps the best partnership opportunity we had – one which we grabbed with both hands – was the chance to offer a £60 Naked Wines Voucher absolutely free with every online order placed – we imagine this helped a few people out over the festive season just gone!
And watch this space in 2016 as we have a couple of other little things in the pipeline as well.
And not forgetting the further business expansion …
2015 also saw us put further measures in place as part of our business expansion programme.
We invested in a brand new, state-of-the-art Stock Management and Back Office Sales System, aptly named ProfitPlus.
We now have brand new warehouse premises currently being finalised.
And we updated our 10,000 square foot Showroom in the Midlands on the stunning Yew Tree Farm Shopping Village.
All in all – a pretty good year …
