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Horticulture sector feeds growth with EDI

You probably saw the news last week: the number of brick & mortar shops on our streets has dropped by more than 11% in the past decade. According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), this can be explained in part by a relatively weak economy, which saw many shops and major retail chains go bankrupt. At the same time, the number of online shops has tripled, with many companies opening online shops in addition to their brick & mortar branches to generate more revenue.

This was reported by Netherlands Statistics (CBS) on 18 December 2019, in its publication on the 2018 regional economy.

Consumer convenience

In early June 2019, the first quarterly figures published by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) showed that online sales had increased more than offline sales, especially for omnichannel companies. Whereas consumers used to want to lay their hands on products before buying them, convenience and quick delivery are now key. Why take the time to go to a high-street shop and lug around all your purchases yourself if you can have them delivered right to your doorstep the very same day?

On top of that, last October’s Twinkle 100 showed that more and more consumers are taking to the Internet to buy their DIY supplies as well.

Physical growth of garden centres

Despite the fact that many brick & mortar stores are disappearing, figures published by Statistics Netherlands show that there are now more garden centres and furniture shops than last year. In April 2018, Tuinbranche Nederland, the Trade Association for the Dutch Horticulture Sector, explained this growth by referring to the current situation in the housing market, with more people opting for gardens with new build homes, as well as renovating existing gardens.

Statistics Netherlands and Tuinbranche Nederland both concluded that garden centres who operated both physical shops and online shops had experienced the greatest growth. Just as in other industries, online sales of certain products, such as playground equipment, amount to half of the overall sales. And that makes sense, because consumers have little appetite to transport large, heavy products themselves if they don’t have to.

EDI in the horticulture sector

With the number of brick & mortar shops and online turnover increasing in the gardening industry, we have also seen that more and more garden centres are expressing an interest in optimising their supply chain with EDI.

We have recently implemented EDI for a leading garden centre in the Netherlands and garden centres in Belgium are not far behind. They have seen how EDI can benefit their logistics and administrative processes thanks to its high reliability, faster data exchange, and better traceability features.

Both the Dutch and Belgian garden centre have decided to make EDI mandatory for their suppliers, if they wish to (proceed to) offer their products via these parties. Orders, confirmations, packing slips, and invoices are only exchanged digitally via EDI.

We are currently implementing Transus EDI for suppliers to the garden centres on both sides of the border at a fast pace. Want to use EDI to be able to supply goods to garden centres? Or is your garden centre interested in the opportunities offered by Transus EDI? Contact our sales team by calling +49 (0)211 5403 9627  or sending an email to sales@transus.nl. They’ll happily tell you more!