Sea Pop Ltd.   Garden centre development support

We do

Business Development support for garden centres. Our expertise is being part of trading format and built development change. Our purpose is to be part of a successful project that makes things better. Our passion is working in, as well as on, a project with owners.

·         Project management

·         Redevelopments

·         Feasibility

·         Succession planning

·         Concessions

·         Catering

For more information contact:
Tim Mason tim@seapop.co.uk  Tel: 07736 630334  
Tracey Mason tracey@seapop.co.uk   Tel: 07809 203441

Our thoughts in a little more detail

Sea Pop gives business development support to garden centres, providing confidence, knowledge and experience to help you develop and implement strategies to strengthen your business for the future. At times of change most businesses benefit from extra support. Find out if our work could benefit your business.

Built Development Project Management

·       Project cost kept in budget

·       Positive step change for business

·       New revenue on stream quickly 

Building a new garden centre, or even a modest extension, will be a major challenge for a business’s management team. Managed correctly, it will be exciting and full of opportunities to improve the business.  

Sea Pop has great experience leading or contributing to a team designing and managing garden centre built developments. We have in depth knowledge of the building issues from groundworks to fitting out a commercial kitchen. We understand specifying and tendering to ensure best value for the client.

If building projects are not your area of expertise, it is easy to get sucked into working on more and more detail in the project and spend less time working on your core business. Using Sea Pop leaves the garden centre management team free to develop their business.

Garden Centre layout and merchandising

·       Maximise the value of new space

·       Make the best sales per square metre of existing space

·       Add unique and bespoke features and character 

Our passion is seeing a development that causes a step-change. A built development normally ends with layout changes to maximise footfall around the centre and probably includes new categories and an expansion in catering. In fact, making that change is normally what drives the development.

Without the cost of redeveloping a site, significant increases in turnover are often possible by adjusting meterage of categories and shop refits. Traditional departments can often show growth in reduced space.   This leaves room for new categories or even concession businesses that will add to turnover, footfall and the bottom line.

We love finding innovative solutions with maximum impact from wall-filling graphics to designing hidden storage space into units. Shop fittings will normally be functional and relatively cheap, adding your own unique features is important to build your brand.

Concessions and partners on site

·       Help attract big brand partners

·       Negotiating contracts

·       Understand needs of both sides 

Sea Pop have extensive experience of negotiating with and managing concession businesses on garden centres. We are familiar with the various types of tenancy and the risks and benefits they may have. We must highlight that we are not able to give legal advice.

We have contacts direct with many retail groups and knowledge of what they require to ensure a partnership is most profitable for both sides. Often, pre-lease agreements can give the comfort that a planned development is viable.

What else can we do?

·       Budgeting, planning and development

·       Feasibility studies

·       Succession planning

Budgeting, planning and developing

We have produced many garden centre plans and budgets and maintain a keen interest in the garden centre industry ensuring awareness of retail developments that impact our business.  

Feasibility studies

We can perform a project or whole garden centre feasibility study to help expose and reduce risk, often this helps reduce the feeling of taking a ‘Leap of faith’ on committing to change.

Succession planning

You may plan to hand your business on to the next generation or ensure it presents well to third parties.  Business priorities often need re-focusing in the years immediately before a major change.  

Last thought

We believe the most valuable thing we can do is bring out the best in your ideas and support you to make sure your vision becomes a reality. We will be a constant friend, confidant and supporter. We will share our knowledge with you.