Gardening’s lockdown challenge
‘Unprecedented’ demand caused problems across the industry
WHEN the Coronavirus lockdown came into effect in March, the horticultural industry was one of the sectors hardest hit by the global pandemic.
Occurring during a peak time, as people returned to gardening after winter, it was exacerbated by the fact that everyone decided to take up gardening to fill their lockdown hours and the garden centres were forced to close.
This put pressure on major suppliers and online retailers to up their game and meet the unprecedented demand. They implemented roundthe-clock packing and dispatching schedules, but even so it was almost impossible to keep up with demand, and some companies were forced to briefly close their websites to catch up with orders.
“Demand was beyond what we could imagine”
500-fold increase in orders
The knock on effect was that plants were sometimes in transit longer than usual, meaning they were no longer in tip-top condition when they arrived at their final destinations.
Several AG readers got in touch to complain about late deliveries and below-par plants, especially those who had no access to the internet so were unable to contact companies directly when their phone lines were congested or temporarily closed.
Now the dust is settling and life is returning to normal, gardening remains hugely popular and the companies are still seeing vast yearon-year increases in trade.
We talked to three of the UK’s leading suppliers of plants, seeds and horticultural equipment, and they all said that they experienced unprecedented demands at the height of lockdown.
David Turner from Mr Fothergill’s said: “In the first two weeks of lockdown proper, our mail order people saw a 500-fold increase in what they dealt with in the corresponding weeks the previous year. Within three or four weeks, we had to close the website briefly to let the team catch up with the volume of orders!
“We ran a 24-hour picking, packing and despatch system using three or four shifts of people. We had to open up another warehouse to comply with social distancing regulations and that in turn also added to the delays.
“New ways of working had to be set up so that each person had their own area, and if they had to go to another area where someone else was working, they had to wait until that person had left. We aren’t an operation like Amazon, where there’s a mega warehouse and everything is electronically listed, and so it slowed things down.”
It was the social media teams for Mr Fothergill’s that had to bear the brunt of any bad feeling when packages were delayed or went astray.
“They were working 18-20 hours a day at one point, because it’s become second nature that if you can’t get hold of a company via their website you vent on social media,” said David. “But once you talk to people and explain the situation, people are usually happy.”
Safety of staff paramount
David added that thanks to lockdown, the gardening season has been extended, because people want to continue growing and sowing to keep themselves mentally and physically well.
Peter McDermott, MD of online retailer YouGarden, said they witnessed a fivefold increase in sales during peak lockdown and opened two new distribution centres to meet demand. These will stay operational in the future,
as demand is still up to twice what it would normally be at this time of year, fuelled by the timely demand for autumn bedding plants.
Peter said: “Lockdown coincided with the start of our peak season, so it really was the perfect storm. As many staff as possible worked from home, but the nursery continued to operate safely with strong social distancing conditions in place.
“We’re pleased to say that staff remained well throughout and, of course, the ongoing safety of our staff is paramount.
“Demand grew well beyond what anyone could imagine, and it was obviously difficult to deliver everything within our usual timescales, but the team worked tirelessly to ensure all orders were despatched, albeit slightly later than we would have liked.”
Back to normal
Peter added that YouGarden customer services were extremely stretched, with customer contacts nearing 10,000 per day at the height of lockdown, compared with 2,000 to 3,000 during normal times.
Now YouGarden is looking to the future and planning how to cope with continued increased online demand by continuing to build a bigger workforce to ensure they are ready for autumn 2020 and, beyond, into spring 2021.
“It is obvious that many gardeners fall within the older generation and are more susceptible to Coronavirus. It’s understandable that they will continue to prefer to shop online rather than going out into the retail environment.
“We’re delighted to say our deliveries are now back to our usual service levels, so customers can depend upon us to get their gardening goods with confidence.” Facilities were equally stretched at Thompson & Morgan, where 24/7 shifts were also implemented in the warehouses to counteract the boom in sales with the effects of social distancing in the workplace.
Joint managing director Chris Wright said: “Like many other online services, we saw a huge increase in demand during lockdown and this, coupled with the majority of delivery services taking longer, resulted in delays for some customers.
“We took measures to increase the number of desks available for customer service agents by deploying a large number to work from home, as well as expanding into office areas.”
Chris stressed that quality control management remained a key factor on lockdown trading.
He said: “I would like to assure customers that no plants left our premises that were below standard. Unfortunately, due to the huge increase in demand our delivery partners faced, some product was in the post longer than normal.
“This, coupled with the hotter-than-average weather at the start of lockdown, meant that some plants arrived in poor condition. In those instances where customers contacted us, we organised replacements or refunds if plants were no longer available.
“After the initial peak, we quickly returned to delivering within the advertised time frames, and with no delays within the courier service to our usual high standards.”
He said: “I know it was frustrating and disappointing when plants arrived late, in poor condition, or not at all.”
Complaints were resolved
AG editor Garry Coward-Williams bore the brunt of several readers’ frustrations as they called him to voice complaints. He said: “While the AG offices were closed, I did put my mobile phone number in the magazine so readers could speak to me if other avenues failed, and many of you did. “I can confirm that any complaints that came through to me were resolved by the companies in question, and they were always pleased to be able to do this as no-one wants unhappy customers.”
So what were your experiences of lockdown home deliveries? Please do let us know by emailing ruth.hayes@futurenet.com.