Since the first lockdown exactly one year ago, the garden industry has been experiencing a new heyday. Spring was just around the corner anyway - as is currently the case - and DIY stores and garden centers were conveniently allowed to keep their doors open in many places. The urge of many people to make life a little more beautiful, at least in their own garden or on their patio/balcony, remains unbroken.
Geographically, it is interesting to know where the target group for higher-priced garden tools, for example, is to be found. Garden owners with a high affinity for brands tend to have a high income, and a large garden is a good prerequisite. Nexiga has the data.
The big winners are ...
The cheering news came on March 9, 2021: "Many households have spent more money on gardens and balconies in times of working from home and travel restrictions. According to preliminary figures, the German horticultural industry was able to significantly exceed its original expectations in the coronavirus year 2020." A record turnover of around 20.7 billion euros was achieved, with an increase in turnover of more than 9 percent. These pleasing figures were announced by the German Garden Industry Association (IVG). The main winners were DIY and home improvement stores, which now account for more than a quarter (27.1 percent) of the industry's total turnover. In contrast, the market share of nurseries and florists, often smaller businesses, saw a downward trend.
With such a boom, it is therefore also interesting to see which brands are particularly trusted by gardening enthusiasts in Germany. Here, the traditional manufacturer Gardena from Ulm in particular benefited in the trust ranking, as reported by Wirtschaftswoche. In issue 45/2020, the business magazine wrote under the title "The basic suppliers" that Gardena - part of the Swedish Husqvarna Group since 2007 - experienced a strong increase in demand in the first half of 2020 during the crisis months - with an increase in sales of more than 10%. But that's not all: at the same time, the company's reputation also grew. The brand with the characteristic connectors enjoyed the highest level of trust in the "garden and power tool manufacturers" category. A valuable asset for success.
Garden lovers with an affinity for brands
Last year, due to the onset of the pandemic, the home garden was a newly discovered vacation paradise for many. A similar trend is likely to emerge as spring begins: Swimming in your own pool, children's activities in the bouncy castle at home, or at least lots of time on the balcony or in the garden.
An exciting question from a marketing perspective: what characterizes gardening enthusiasts with a high affinity for branded products? With the Score Visualizer, we show where brand affinity for gardening tools is highest in Germany. At a glance, you can see which characteristics are over-represented among brand-affine garden tool buyers (significant characteristics). To put it in a nutshell: Garden owners with a high brand affinity tend to be high-status or high-income (often self-employed and homeowners) and accordingly also have a high index for luxury cars: the luxury brand Porsche stands out (index value 404), as does the company car driver type and luxury cars in general (index value of 235 in each case).
Solar energy is at the top of the heating type list. So what does the index value mean? A value of 285 means that almost three times as many people in this target group own a solar system compared to the national average. The combination of Building with a (large) garden, Porsche and solar roof is therefore a good indication of market success for suppliers of high-priced garden appliances.
The Score Visualizer offers an interactive map (e.g. a mouse click on a Zip code area shows further information) and can also be filtered using sliders (customizable value ranges for score and index). The tool thus offers the possibility of combining a wide range of characteristics from the market and product areas of target group typologies and analyzing these in more detail for marketing and sales planning.
Land of the great gardens
Regions with many large gardens are a good place to sell high-quality branded products for the garden and leisure equipment segment. Just think of smart gardening and mowing robots that can be controlled via an app and whose prices can easily be in the lower four-digit range. Or swimming pools (for installation or installation) with many additional products.
The Nexiga market data package Garden type and garden size can be used to identify potential nationwide, for example at zip code level. Our map shows the proportion of buildings with large gardens per Zip code. These are defined by the fact that they cover at least twice the area of the building. The potential for small and medium-sized gardens and communal areas can also be shown.
Looking only at this characteristic, and ignoring other factors such as purchasing power, the most lucrative sales regions tend to be in the lowlands such as northern Lower Saxony, western Saxony-Anhalt and eastern Brandenburg and Saxony. In the west, the plains north of the Ruhr area stand out, as do the northern Eifel and northern Württemberg. The local climate also plays an important role in the sales potential for swimming pools - similar to convertibles.
Data about Building and garden: Interesting for many industries.
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Manufacturer of garden tools: planning of sales territories, acquisition of specialist dealers.
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Building and leisure markets / DIY: product range and sales planning, regional advertising measures.
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Garden centers: Assortment and sales planning, regional advertising measures.
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Manufacturer of leisure equipment: Identification of sales regions, dealer acquisition, regional advertising measures...
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Consulting company: Product range and sales planning for manufacturers, roll-out measures, expansion planning.
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Out-of-home media: Planning of advertising campaigns for products in this segment, analysis of target groups.
The "garden" example shows how Nexiga data can be used to define individual target groups for sectors and products and process them geographically. This provides spatial information that shows where the target group or sales potential is particularly strongly represented. Target groups can be displayed throughout Germany at various spatial levels such as zip codes, municipalities or at a detailed spatial level for residential areas (neighborhoods) or Micro postal code (subdivision of a Postal code).