Pam Danzinger, top gun at Unity Marketing recently published a newsletter about the 'Home Furnishings' marketplace.

The value of the marketplace ($264 Billion) certainly caught my eye, but she didn't include the service side of the lawn and garden industry ($45 Billion).

OK, so the total is a $309 Billion dollar of products and services marketplace called 'Home and Garden'.

 

WOW !

Digesting that number, knowing that we are ineffective at advertising our products and services (to get an earned share of consumer discretionary spending). That number exists even so.

To clarify, when I say ineffective, I’m not blaming our businesses. The advertising vehicles our businesses have had in the past have not been measurably effective. However, we have no excuses going forward because of the Internet.


Here is how Pam describes it:

"But the real power of the Internet comes from its ability to influence the shopper. Home shoppers turned to the Internet first when they wanted to learn about new items to buy to decorate or remodel their home.  The Internet ranked ahead of in-store displays and sales associates, word-of-mouth and magazine ads in terms of influencing the shopper.  So the Internet plays a much larger role than many marketers may suspect simply from looking at raw online sales data alone."

Here is another part of her newsletter:

“The big take-away?  Home furnishings and decor marketers must offer a robust online presence, packed with data that includes price, product details, brand information, and customer reviews and feedback.  These elements are part of the 'new customer service' that the Internet offers and which truly influence purchase," says Danziger.

As manufacturers, we have to get over the desire to have all product information and eyeballs come through the manufacturer web site. This product information needs to be everywhere consumers are looking. That means the web sites of the retailers, publisher marketplaces, search engines, etc.

Retailers (more than 50% don't have web sites) need to engage the web and find ways to give their web audience what they are looking for.

What are they looking for?

"data that includes price, product details, brand information, and customer reviews and feedback."

This is no small task I know, but it is a lot easier than we know. MANY marketplaces are already doing it.

It will be done - the consumer is demanding it. The question is: Who in our industry is going to remain on the island of non-participation?

Steve

TMP has recently released the results of their "Local Search Usage Study" conducted by comScore.

In a nutshell it says that people use different resources based on what they are searching for.

As for the 'Home and Garden' category, the study suggested that the users are using IYP's over search engines. IYP's are 'Internet Yellow Pages'.

The amazing part of this is that IYP's typically have only 11 categories for the 'gardening' part of the equation.

Therefore, there is NO WAY someone can look up information about 'Perennials' on an IYP.

This data supports the mission of my company 10-20 Media. We have created a  'Home and Garden' marketplace platform for 'Interactive Publishers' interested in new revenue from the "Home and Garden' categories.

The end user (consumer) will be the big winner at the end of the day. They will actually be able to find information about 'Perennials' and know where to buy their new favorite locally.

Here is the link to a summary of the report.

Steve

We recently scrubbed some data in our 'LawnandGardenSearch.com' database and found that in any given region, less than 50% of garden centers have web sites.

Obviously it made me scratch my head in bewilderment. I guess most garden centers are not getting this research data:

(IYP = Internet Yellow Pages)

Searches with geographical modifiers are on the rapid rise. Yes, believe it or not, people are actually figuring out how to use the search engines effectively.

This second chart shows that the number of searches per user has risen dramatically over the same period of time.

All the data says that local consumer spending is SIGNIFICANTLY influenced by search. To say it differently, the consumer is searching on the web for products, then going to the store to buy.

Multiply that by the increased frequency of local search and you have the perfect storm for advertising your businesses on the Internet.

I wonder when our industry is going to figure it out?

Any thoughts on this?

For your consideration,

Steve Cissel