Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Garden centre chain Dobbies has partnered with specialist plant care app SmartPlant.
Dobbies is working to digitise its entire indoor and outdoor plant ranges for Spring 2020.
The retailer said: ‘Following our recent retail acquisitions in 2019 [it acquired a total of 37 garden centres from Wyevale Garden Centres, increasing Dobbies’ estate to 69 centres, taking annual sales to over £300 million and making it the largest garden centre operator in the UK], and the ongoing development of dobbies.com, this signifies a continued ambition to merge our online and offline offering, adding value to the customer and offering a unique experiential retail environment, particularly with regard to supplemental and relevant plant care information.’
Dobbies will work in conjunction with its suppliers to add their plants to the SmartPlant app, to help promote their suppliers’ provenance, brand and specialist care tips. Many of Dobbies’ growers have signed up to support this for 2020 and plants in-store will be activated in the SmartPlant app, giving Dobbies customers ‘an unprecedented digital plant care solution’.
The SmartPlant app, which launched in 2017, allows customers to instantly unlock deeper variety specific content with the scan of their mobiles. The initiative enables them to receive plant content in-store or at home such as set up instructions, automated monthly care tips and reminders, plant and pest identification and expert chat.
Dobbies horticulture director Marcus Eyles commented: “The SmartPlant Partnership is tremendously exciting for Dobbies garden centres, both from an online and offline perspective, and we see enormous potential going forward. This will help us to better inform and engage our customers whilst learning from unparalleled customer insights.”
