Dobbies expands southward

One garden centre company dominates the market in the United Kingdom: Wyevale, the market leader that by far outstrips all others, with 121 garden centres and sales of 270 mio euro. The company has no challenger on the national stage, but the situation in Scotland is quite different: Wyevale has no outlets there, and Dobbies is the market leader.
The chain is going for larger formats with its new Garden World concept.
Dobbies Garden Centres plc has 17 garden centres in operation and the company has made a start at expanding beyond its Scottish homeland. There are now six outlets in England, with the southernmost centres located in Shrewsbury and Warwickshire. The majority of the garden centres planned as part of the company’s continuing expansion are to be opened in England.
Dobbies aims to double its total number of garden centres within the next five years, which means opening around three new outlets each year. Turnover should more than double as a result, provided that the new stores follow the “Garden World” format. These are bigger, more modern garden centres that are designed to provide customers with a destination leisure attraction. This is achieved through supplying additional facilities including catering and children’s play areas. Any future acquisitions will also be converted to this format.
Demonstration gardens and catering facilities are designed to make the garden centres attractive as a leisure destination.
The company’s financial performance is already strong. During the year to October 2001 Dobbies recorded sales of £ 30.5 mio (48.7 mio euro), up 29 per cent on the previous year, or 15.5 per cent on a like-for-like basis. Profit rose by 12 per cent to £ 2.9 mio (4.6 mio euro).
The firm’s growth reached a turning-point in 2001 when it bought out the Findlay Clark chain of four Scottish stores. Dobbies can look back over a long company history which goes back to the year 1865, when the former policeman James Dobbie founded a seed and nursery business. Since 1910 the company has been based in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.
During the forties and fifties the company was already developing a concept for a garden centre, adjoining the nursery at Melville near Edinburgh. This consisted of a garden sundries shop along with container-grown plants and shrubs. Pot plants and flowers for sale were grown in the company’s own glasshouses.
Dobbies, the Scottish garden centre company, is expanding more strongly in England.
By the eighties the company had…