Annual P&L Study 2021 - Part 2

by Tim Quebedeaux

For the second year in a row, the Best of the Best group is needed for comparisons for this year’s P&L Study.  The difference this year is that they replaced Best Practices in the far-right column as the top numbers for comparison.  Remember, they are the top ten in profitability among those who filled out all 5 parts of the P&L Study.  This year they increased profitability from 18-25% to 19-31%.  Nine of the ten Garden Centers in 2020 repeated this level of profitability in 2021… Perennially Profitable Garden Centers!

In 2021 we had 78 Garden Centers report to the study, and 47 filled in all 5 parts.  If you didn’t fill in all parts, please reach out to us, we can help you improve your accountability to be able to report to all 5 parts of this remarkable Study.

The Gold Standard - Gold, Hallmark & GMROII

by Danny Summers

Gold has been a highly-valued precious metal throughout recorded history. Gold hallmarks originated to show the purity of gold in a piece of gold jewelry and included the mark of the certifying office that guaranteed the purity as well as the fineness or caratage of the gold. Later, trademarks that showed which goldsmith had manufactured the product were added.

Hallmarking gold jewelry was Europe's earliest form of consumer protection, dating back to King Louis IX of France and Edward I of England in the 1200s. As craft guilds sprung up in these two dominant markets during the Middle Ages in Europe, state-appointed assayers examined precious metal goods. Their prescribed mark, and subsequently marks for individual goldsmiths and production dates, became a pre-requisite for gold items offered for public sale.

Annual P&L Study 2021 - It's Beyond WOW!

by Tim Quebedeaux

P&L Study 2021, after the WOW year of 2020, we were prepared… and the results showed it.  But how did the pandemic and the eventual supply chain issues eventually affect our readiness for 2022? The numbers show the story.

Let’s start with the number of High Achievers (5-10% Adjusted Profit) and Best Practices (10% plus Adjusted Profit).  Both of those percentages are adjusted if you are a Retail Grower based on the amount of grown product sold.  With a record-tying 78 participating garden centers, the total number of High Achievers and Best Practices also set a new record, with a total of 65, outreaching 61 in 2020.  And even more Best Practices – 47 in 2021, three more than 2020.

Growing Numbers

by Danny Summers

We are in a world of Growing Numbers. This beautiful spring photo from Longwood Gardens exemplifies where we are in Garden Retailing today. Each beautiful flower in this photo could easily represent your guests (customers). If we take a minute to think back over the last two years it will reveal this title.

In 2020 Group Centers recorded their largest single-year gains in Total Sales with over +20%, created by a 60/40 split of Transaction Counts and Average Sale. Centers reported seeing upwards of +25% new guests with many or most being young, first-timers to gardening. Overall, the 2020 Annual P&L Study results posted new levels of performance in almost all areas of benchmarking since the P&L Study began in 2004.

How Will You Measure Up - The 2021 P&L Study is Coming!

by Danny Summers

You may have first seen this image last year as I shared some expectations of the Annual P&L Study from 2020 only a week away at the time. If you were there for the March GROUPtalk LIVE session when Steve Bailey and Tim Quebedeaux shared the results, you know the numbers from 2020 P&L Study were pretty incredible and set a new bar for our total Group as well as our Best Practices Centers.

Success... by the Trailer Load!

by Danny Summers

For everyone who has attended The Fall Event, you know one thing you can count on is recognizing the most successful performing Garden Centers from our two financial sharing programs, the Weekly Department Review (WDR) and the Annual P&L Study. During the first day of The Fall Event 2021, we did just that. In fact, this year we handed out more awards than ever before!

When Steve and Tim sent me the reports for both the WDR and the P&L Study, I knew there would be a lot of awards this year. But it was when I picked up all of the plaques at our trophy supplier that it really hit me just how many more there were this year. In fact, we had to rent a U-Haul trailer for the trip to Wilmington – for the first time ever!

Annual P&L Study 2020: Best of the Best Awards

by Tim Quebedeaux

Raising the bar… In the 2019 P&L study the top line comparison was changed from the High Achievers and Best Practices Group to only the Best Practices Group.  We wanted to show a standard above what had been presented in the past.  Not only did this give everyone a higher standard to aim for, it gave those who were profitable, but wanted more, a chance to raise their own standards.

Well, 2020 blew that out of the water!  We had more than half of the reporting centers achieve Best Practices and a whopping 82% report above High Achievers status. Once again, the need to keep raising the bar arose thus, The Best of the Best Group was born.  In looking into this group, we will find out what it takes to capitalize on the opportunity in 2020.  What did the KPI’s tell us about how they realized the highest level of profitability (18% to 25%)?  As we crunch those numbers, we will compile a new report that allows those who reported to compare their performance to this group.  This will be available during The Fall Event 2021 in Wilmington, DE.

Annual P&L Study 2020 - Best Practices

by Tim Quebedeaux

Inventory turns, GMROII and the Best Practices Group all go together like rice and Gumbo!  You hit your goals for those first two, you are almost always in the last one.  The largest Best Practices group in the P&L Study history with 44 Garden Centers increased their Inventory Turns and GMROII, but was it what we thought it would be? We will visit this topic during The Fall Event 2021 in Wilmington!

Annual P&L Study 2020 - High Achievers

by Tim Quebedeaux

Today we will reveal who is in the High Achievers Group defined as attaining between 5% & 10% Adjusted Profit in 2020. A slightly smaller group this year, going from 18 to 16. They were able to navigate through all the challenges of last year to achieve an average of 8.3% profitability.

Annual P&L Study 2020 - Best of the Best

by Tim Quebedeaux

The Best of the Best group from this year’s P&L Study really stood out.  Who are they… you will find out, but first what defines Best of the Best?  They are the top ten in profitability from those who filled out all 5 parts of the P&L Study.  They performed to the tune of 18-25% Profitability… WOW!

Annual P&L Study 2020 - It was a WOW Year!

by Tim Quebedeaux

For the P&L Study 2020, one word is being used to describe it… WOW! Even with our expectations of a great year, we were still amazed at what was reported.

Let’s start with how revenues increased year over year. The previous year revenues increased 2019 over 2018 at 2.2% compared to 25.1% increase for 2019 over 2020. Amazing! This graphic below illustrates how the 5 year trend of a typical Center with $1 million in sales has grown over the period and the dramatic affects of the 2020 year results.

Measuring Up

by Danny Summers

Will your Center measure up? We know your Center most likely had one of its best years ever in 2020, despite the operational challenges of the pandemic. I bet you served more customers and helped many new ones discover the joy of gardening and plants. But back to the original question...

How does your Center's performance in 2020 compare to all the others in The Group? We are about to find out as we see the results of The Group's Annual P&L Study for 2020. Steve Bailey and Tim Quebedeaux have been crunching all the numbers from reporting centers over the last 2 weeks and this Thursday will be the unveiling of the results from one of the most unusual years ever.

Category Growth Strategies: Moving Toward Improvement

By Steve Bailey and Bill Calkins

The following is the Part 4 of the series... Category Growth Strategies: Moving Toward Improvement. This was originally published in the June edition of greenPROFIT magazine and can be seen HERE. If you missed the Part 1, you can see it HERE, Part 2 - HERE, or Part 3 - HERE.

Earlier this year, Ball Publishing's Bill Calkins approached Steve Bailey about co-writing a series of articles that could lead garden centers through the basics of analyzing category performance and some of the measurements developed for The Garden Center Group Clients through the Annual P&L Study. The result is a series of four articles published in Ball's GreenPROFIT magazine in this spring.

The Journey of Lifetime Learning

by Tim Quebedeaux

It has been almost a year since I started work with Steve Bailey. During that time, I have done onsite visits, attended Fall Event as a service provider, compiled the WDR weekly, and helped complete the P&L Study. I have gained a great appreciation for accountability in numbers and in the resolve of Garden Center owners to succeed. From those early Garden Center days to today, I recognize valuable information that I could have used 20 years ago, when I started managing Garden Centers.

Time to Get Back to Work – Part 3

by Sid Raisch

This is a Challenge for 2020 to become Exceptionally Exceptional

Double GMROII of Perennials in 2020

Time to Get Back to Work – Part 1

by Sid Raisch

You came, you saw, you heard at the Fall Event 2019, then you went back to doing pretty much the same thing so far, didn’t you?

Profit - It’s All About Change

by Steve Bailey

All of you joined The Garden Center Group for a reason. Maybe it was for the camaraderie of networking with peers, possibly to work more closely with Service Providers within The Group, to access the financial tools such as the Weekly Department Review and P&L Study, or any of the other numerous reasons there are to be a part. Most likely the underlying reason was you needed Change and all of the above enables you to enact it.

Building Our Team!

by Steve Bailey

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was in March 2001. I was trimming the boxwood in front of our house. Bonnie and I had just sold our garden center the month before, and I was still considering my options for employment over the next fifteen to twenty years. That’s when Bonnie came to the front door and said, “Robert is on the phone and wants to talk with you”.

The Pulse of the Garden Center Industry – Part 2

by Steve Bailey

Besides Revenues, what’s the most important ratio for a business selling a product? I’ll answer that one for you; it’s the COST of the product being sold.

Revenues and Expenses by Steve Bailey

The basic function of any Profit & Loss Statement is to measure the performance of an entity, in the form of Profitable or not. But most P&L’s are not exactly like the one you find in The Group’s Profit & Loss Study. In most cases, the P&L your CPA or tax reporter gives you is geared toward tax reporting, and not business management. The Group’s Profit & Loss Study measures Operating Profitability, allowing a direct comparison to other garden centers in a like mode of operation and/or size. Better yet, it allows your center to compare your numbers with all of the centers that reported as well as the Best Practices/High Achiever group.

Let’s begin with the basic Profit & Loss section, which encompasses all of the incoming money in the form of Revenues and the expenses going out in the form of Cost of Goods Sold, Operating Expenses, and Wage & Wage Benefits.