Retailers seeking products of the future and the latest in-store merchandising ideas need look no further than the Retail Lab at Glee. Now in its third year, this inspirational feature area, in association with the Horticultural Trades Association, is bursting with ideas. In fact, 61% of Glee’s visitors say they will attend Glee 2019 as a result of seeing the Retail Lab last year. Here, we meet one of the sponsors of this year’s feature, Meadow View Stone, who brings over 25 years’ experience of supplying the widest range of imported and exclusive decorative aggregates and landscaping stone to the garden centre industry.
Meadow View Stone’s Marketing Director, Sarah Hill, said: “We’ve been a sponsor of the Retail Lab since its initial conception, and see it as a fantastic tool to not only showcase our products, but also view it as an opportunity to gain great insight into current trends/buying direction.
“For us, we view the Retail Lab as a great hub of inspiration, providing garden centre retailers and merchandisers with invaluable insight into how to display products in store to drive sales and provide effective cross selling opportunities. We strongly support this theory as we have similarly merchandised a selection of our key accounts with extensive lifestyle display gardens, which have inspired and influenced customers and as a result returned excellent sales growth for these accounts.”
Whilst the Meadow View Stone team are still deciding which products will feature in the Retail Lab come September, Sarah has confirmed that a selection of the company’s porcelain
paving and some of its exciting new product lines – yet to be released – will form part of the various displays.
With future trends such a key focus of the Retail Lab, Sarah shares some of the key trends that have been shaping Meadow View Stone’s business in recent months, and will continue to influence future ranges. She said: “The colour grey has been a major influencer on both our paving and aggregate collections. This has been proven over the past two years and is featuring heavily in our product selections and sales performance for the immediate future.
Looking ahead to the wider show, Sarah added: “We will be maintaining the same core elements of the stand, with our extremely successful Gin Bar and Innovation Hub, both of which were immensely successful last year.
“The Innovation Hub will continue to feature market leading insight into how garden centres can increase the sales value of their areas, whilst providing invaluable trend reports and case studies from customers who have embraced our stocking suggestions and recorded some excellent sales successes. The Gin Bar, undoubtedly, is now an established part of our stand and provides an excellent informal and relaxed social space, allowing us to conduct private meetings whilst rewarding our customers with a well-earned drink!
“Our POS and innovative display gardens will also feature as a means to show retailers how to inspire their customers and generate increased sales. With two new product categories also to be unveiled we have an exciting collection of products and merchandising to suit every garden centre visiting Glee 2019.
Find out more
To keep up-to-date on the latest Glee news visit www.gleebirmingham.com. To enquire about exhibiting at Glee 2019 call +44 (0)203 3545 9752.
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Don’t miss the new Glee app
In 2019, Glee joins the digital revolution with the launch of its new exhibition smartphone app, designed to provide an unrivalled matchmaking solution to help suppliers and retailers to get the most out of their time at the show.
Developed in response to the industry’s desire for such a tool, the new AI-powered event ‘matchmaking’ solution – from market-leading experts, Grip – will offer benefits for both exhibitors and retailers, utilising a platform that has already proved its worth at many leading events across the globe.
Visiting retailers will be able to better measure – and even increase – their ‘Return on Time’ spent at the show, through personalised exhibitor recommendations, and an easy to use meeting scheduling function. The Glee app will also include an overview of all of the exhibition’s wider educational content and seminar programmes, helping retailers to plan their trip around Glee all from the palm of their hand.
Glee exhibitors can also optimise their time via the app, as it provides a powerful new way to generate more leads, and manage meeting with new, potential and existing customers. Popular exhibitor focussed features of the app include the ability to filter and refine visitor recommendations via Smart Recommendations, as well as Meeting Delegation which enables management of meetings across the sales force. There’s also the Smart Meeting Link which makes it easy to invite existing clients to meetings, and an Inbound Leads section that highlights all the retailers that are interested in your company. The app is also fully integrated with Outlook, Google Calendar and Apple iCal, making it even easier for all parties to stay up-to-date on appointments.
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For more information, interviews or images please contact:
Kimberley Hornby, Glee PR Team, Hornby Whitefoot PR
Tel: 07851 610573 Email: kimberley@hornbywhitefootpr.co.uk
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About ITE Group plc
ITE Group plc was founded in 1991 and is now one of the world’s leading organisers of international exhibitions and conferences.
ITE Group’s strategic vision is to create the world’s leading portfolio of content-driven, must-attend events delivering an outstanding experience and ROI for our customers. The Group recently launched its Transformation & Growth (TAG) programme, which is designed to transform the Company from a geographic-led business to a product-led business that focuses on market-leading events, wherever they are in the world. ITE strives to run the best shows and offer the best service to its customers throughout the world regardless of location. By putting exhibitors and visitors at the heart of everything we do, we plan to drive sustainable growth for our shareholders.
ITE Group is a public limited company and has been listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange since 1998.