Growth in France again

A study by Promojardin reveals that the French garden market's volume of sales recorded an increase of 4.6 per cent to € 5.911 bn in 2004. The association's figures also show that the category of tools (machinery, portable motorised equipment and hand tools) saw particularly good development. After the downturn in 2003 there existed a backlog of demand here, “on the basis of replacement items and innovations on the supply side”. The greatest growth in this segment was achieved by machinery at 8.6 per cent.
Indoor plants (excluding cut flowers) also made good progress, showing an increase of 6 per cent. Fencing, outdoor leisure equipment, garden furniture and barbecues were all able to keep up the good rates of growth they had achieved in the past. Sales of garden leisure products (excluding swimming pools) rose by 10 per cent.
Market share of the sales channels in the French garden market(download .pdf-file)
Where the development of the individual sales channels is concerned, the DIY stores showed the greatest sales growth in 2004 with a figure of 8.8 per cent, followed by the agricultural stores at 7.32 per cent. According to Promojardin, the DIY stores were especially well positioned when it came to hardware, which saw growth in terms of both space and available range.
By contrast, the sales growth recorded by garden centres and machinery specialists was below the market average. Garden centres achieved growth of 2.3 per cent, and an increase of 2.02 per cent was recorded by the machinery specialists. Garden centre business in particular suffered from the weather conditions and from stagnating sales of outdoor plants.
Sales trend for individual product categories 2004(download .pdf-file)
Supermarkets and hypermarkets have occupied the middle ground with 4.14 sales growth to € 994.5 mio. They are positioned in the categories of plants, planters, garden products and equipment (excluding fencing).
Turnover growth of the sales channels 2004(download .pdf-file)
Top spot among sales formats in the French garden market is still filled by the DIY stores, with a market share of 22.64 per cent, followed by the supermarkets and hypermarkets at 16.8 per cent, and the agricultural stores at 13.7 per cent.