Like many retail businesses, garden centers need efficient and effective customer communications to ensure they are conveying accurate messaging, including displaying the right pricing and promotions around their stores.  However, unlike other retail businesses, garden centers can have both inside and outside space, covering a large area of ground per store.  This means that they must ensure accurate communications over a wider space that contains a high number of products.

Garden centers face the same challenges as all retail stores when it comes to customer communication.  The pricing and promotions need to be up to date and because many of the products sold by garden centers are seasonal, it is important to be able to change promotions and pricing quickly and efficiently.  Ensuring effective promotions involves knowing your inventory and planogram, updating digital and print signage, and printing and placing the signage throughout the garden center.  Under traditional methods, all of these tasks are done with separate systems which decreases efficiency, while increasing the risk of human error and the amount of time it takes to accomplish these tasks.

ECS Global Inc. offers a solution that can help garden centers by combining planogram data, inventory information, pricing and promotions, digital and print signage design, and shelf tag and signage printing so it can all be managed in one place.  ECS5 is a cloud-based software solution that integrates planogram and pricing data, signage design, and signage printing so it can be managed within one interface from any connected device.  Garden centers can use ECS5 to make instant updates to shelf tags and signage to ensure accurate communications regarding pricing and promotions.

ECS5 Multimedia Suite

With the ECS5 Multimedia Suite, businesses and organizations can do much more than design and print paper signage and shelf tags.  The Media Manager within ECS5 allows businesses to create live, dynamic messaging for digital video signs, TV screens, and other media screens.  You can create digital displays and video content and instantly send them to the media screens around the store.  This also allows businesses to make immediate updates to their digital and video content, including changes in pricing and reactions to new market trends.

Gardening is an activity that varies depending on the season, which means that products and promotions within garden centers change quite often.  The ECS5 Multimedia Suite allows garden centers to quickly change their seasonal promotions and update them on the displays instantaneously which keeps customers informed about relevant promotions.  Garden centers can also use their digital displays to provide planting advice and gardening tips relevant to the current season and plants they have available.  If a garden center holds special events, sharing information on their digital displays is a great way to promote their events.

The ECS5 Multimedia Suite allows businesses to create engaging, interactive communication that creates a better experience for their customers which leads to more sales.  Businesses also save the time and investment it would take to have an external studio create their digital and video content.

ECS5 Helps Eden Gardens in Australia

Eden Gardens is a large garden center in Australia with locations in Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne.  Each location is much larger than a typical garden center which allows them to offer their customers a wide range of products and unique experiences.

ECS5 is designed to be integrated seamlessly with existing systems which allowed Eden Gardens to quickly integrate ECS5 with no impact to their current IT infrastructure.  The return on investment (ROI) for Eden Gardens was immediate as they were able to print their signage and shelf tags in-store which made the process of changing shelf tags and promotional signage much more efficient in terms of time and labor.  This not only saves Eden Gardens time and money, but also allows their staff to focus more heavily on the customers in their store, – which improves the customer experience.

Eden Gardens implemented ECS5 in each of their locations.  One major advantage to ECS5 is that communications across multiple locations, including pricing, promotions, and more, can be managed from one source.  Pricing and promotional information in every location can be updated in real-time using any connected device and communications can even be set for specific locations to ensure accuracy.

Switching to ECS5 yielded immediate benefits for Eden Gardens, including a significant ROI.  They look forward to continuing their relationship with ECS and exploring all of the technologies ECS5 provides to further improve the efficiency of their communications.

How Can ECS5 Help Your Garden Center?

ECS5 can help garden centers efficiently manage communications including signage, shelf tags, and promotional materials; manage inventory and planogram and utilize this data to make your communications even more efficient; and print the shelf tags and signage you need from anywhere within your store using connected mobile devices and printers.  You can also manage communications for multiple locations simultaneously using the same single source.

ECS5 is formed with the following key elements that bring together all communication channels within one solution using one instance of data and logic:

• Print high impact, colorful signage: The Media Manager within ECS5 allows you to design printed signage, shelf tags, and labels and manage the printing of these materials. You can easily update and print new tags and signage when prices or promotions change.
• Integration with external systems: ECS5 can be immediately integrated into your existing system so you do not have to make any changes to your current infrastructure.
• Blended communication: ECS5 allows you to drive any type of output including print signage, electronic signage, and digital displays for TV screens. You can design all types of signage using the Media Manager and for electronic and print signage, you can instantly send them to the electronic displays and TV screens.
• Integration with planogram and inventory: You can seamlessly integrate planogram and inventory data into ECS5 so you can manage your planogram from this source. You can quickly check the inventory for specific items and automate the printing of shelf tags and labels so that they are only printed for the items you have in stock.
• Mobile capabilities: ECS5 can be accessed from any mobile device including smartphones, handheld devices, and mobile printers. This allows retail stores to bring many back office operations, such as checking stock and printing shelf tags and signage, to the shop floor.

Eden Gardens saw immediate improvements in their communications and experienced a great ROI after implementing ECS5 in all of their locations.  To learn more about how ECS5 can help improve communications in your garden center, contact ECS Global Inc. today.