Yesterday I had cause to visit two big gardening centres near me (and there is a third and a few weeks ago I visited a fourth.
What struck me about them, apart from their size, there internal floor area must be comparable with many an old style multifloor department store, was the immense range of goods they all sold. Of course there was the full range of gardening requirements and outside were acres of plants and shrubs but inside.......
To begin with there is the ubiquitous restaurant, which on Sunday was doing a roaring trade with a carvery and full of multigenerational families - and we know how popular garden centres are with our demographic, then there was the clothing department (Bon Marche, Cotton Traders and several others), then, more than anything, the area given over to home styling goods, there was a bedding concession in one, then not just garden funiture but conservatory furniture and even some living room furniture, then there are the cushions, throws, ornaments, one had a huge range of cards, not just Christmas cards, books, toys. Both sold food. One had a huge delicatessen, not just fancy boxes of biscuits, but an offlicense to sell wine and seprate bakery and buthery departments with fresh bread, and then of course, the huge Christmas departments.
Some things are missing; kitchen equipment and ready made curtains but they will be there soon, surely, 'lingerie', haberdashery, and health and beauty, may not get there, but almost everything else.
As I asked, are garden centres becoming the new department stores?
