Work in a Retail Plant Nursery or Garden Centre -Distance Learning Course
This course has been very successful in training both staff and managers of retail nurseries and garden centres. Originally designed in 1986, in conjunction with the State Garden Department Manager of a major retail chain store; revised many times since then to keep up with current standards. It is useful for establishing standards in your garden centre and giving direction for the staff and managers.
This is an example of what you will do in the course:
Undertake simple and relevant practical tasks.
Submit written assignments at the completion of each lesson.
Prepare 72 plant review worksheets.
Research and analyse the operation of garden centres and nurseries.
This is an example of of some course notes:
You can comence the course when it suits you and work through it at your own pace.
Lesson Structure
There are 11 lessons in this course:
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Introduction: Plant classification, plant cultural requirements, soil and nutrition, watering requirements, drainage, temperature, light, humidity.
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Plant Health: How to diagnose a problem, pests, diseases, nutrient deficiencies, frost, sunburn, chemical damage, insufficient light, overwatering.
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Stock Maintenance: Quality standards, buying new stock, inspecting stock, extending stock life, disposing of below-standard stock, watering techniques, fertilising, pest and disease control.
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Display and Display Techniques: Display units, product location, sales area layout.
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Garden Product Knowledge I: Plant containers, tags, soil mixes, equipment, tools.
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Garden Product Knowledge II: Chemicals, fertilisers, baskets, terrariums, cut flowers.
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Indoor Plants: Major groups, common problems, plants for specific situations, customer attitudes.
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Container Stock: Trees and Shrubs.
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Seedlings, Bulbs, Herbs and Perennials.
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Other Plant Stock
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A: Deciduous Trees, Fruit, Nuts, Berries.
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B. Seed.
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Marketing: Pricing strategy, advertising, promotions.
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12. Management: Staff control, staff productivity, work scheduling.
Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.
Aims
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Classify and identify a range of different plants, according to their botanical characteristics.
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Describe a range of plant health problems and their treatments.
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Understand the importance of maintaining healthy stock and its relationship to maintaining a profitable business.
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Demonstrate knowledge of a range of garden products sold through garden centres.
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Demonstrate knowledge of a range of plants, including indoor plants, container-grown plants, deciduous plants, bulbs, herbs and perennials.
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Describe effective marketing techniques.
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Demonstrate knowledge of management procedures.
Extract from course notes....
MERCHANDISING SUGGESTIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL PROMOTIONS
What is a Promotion?
A promotion is an activity which produces a change in your customers' behaviour, resulting in extra sales.
How Does It Work?
Firstly, every brand has a price or value understood by customers. A promotion offers extra value or a lower price to the customer.
Secondly, a promotion demands urgency from your customer because of its short availability time ("whilst stocks last").
An attractive product display with a message is often an effective way of increasing sales, but it is NOT a promotion. It should really be called a "display feature: because it does not have the vital ingredient of Added Value.
There are several different levels of promotional strategies:
1. Full Promotion: all sections at full margin plus a planned and sustained program of promotions.
2. Lightweight Promotions: all sections at full margin plus occasional loss leader promotions.
3. Partial Discount plus "Highlights": certain sections at cut price plus occasional loss leader promotion.
4. Partial Discount: certain sections at low price, other items at full price.
Your strategy will depend on:
• Location: are your customers local, or do you need to attract them from a wider area?
• Competitors: what can you offer compared with them?
• Your shop: in particular, its layout and capacity for extra promotional sales.
• Limitation: If normal marketing and advertising have failed to establish the true value of a product, a promotion will not be successful because there is no comparative standard. Within a store, promotions can only work well if the basic merchandising job has been done properly. They are not substitutes for product range, siting and space allocation with well controlled displays.
The Basic Rules of Promotions
a) Your reason for promoting is to sell more products to your customers as quickly as possible. Specials should be regularly changed. To do this, the offer should appeal to their immediate or secondary needs.
b) The choice of promotion depends on what you want to achieve ie. if you want more people in your garden centre, special locally advertised offers or personality backed promotions could be very useful.
c) Your promotion should be unique to attract maximum attention.
e) The promotion should be simple to understand and operate.
e) The promotion must represent value for money and be credible and honest.
f) The promotion should be consistent with your own image.
How To Choose A Promotion
Consider the following:
1. Who are the main users of the product or brand?
2. How, when and why do they use the product?
3. How frequently is it purchased?
4. What are its main competitors?
5. How does the customer see the brand versus the competition?
Use the facts to decide how to run the promotion:
1. Determine, in order of priority, the key problem.
2. Identify the money available.
3. List and cost all the possible alternative options that are open (eg. more advertising, customer promotions, pricing strategy).
4. Having estimated the cost, ask yourself what will the benefit be to you.
FREQUENT QUESTIONS
Why Choose This Course
- Unique course materials (developed by our staff) and more current than some colleges (many reviewed annually); as a result, ACS graduates can be more up to date.
- We work hard to help you understand and remember it, develop an ability to apply it in the real world, and build networks with others who work in this field (It’s more than just serving up a collection of information –if all you want is information, buy a book; but if you want an education, that takes learning to a whole new level).
- Start whenever you want, study at your own pace, study anywhere
- Don’t waste time and money traveling classes
- We provide more choices–courses are written to allow you more options to focus on parts of the subject that are of more interest to you; a huge range of elective subjects are offered that don’t exist elsewhere.
- Tutors are accessible (more than elsewhere) – academics work in both the UK and Australia, 5 days a week, 16 hours a day. Answering emails and phone calls from students are top priority.
- We treat students as individuals –don’t get lost in a crowd. Our tutors communicate with you one to one.
- Extra help at no extra cost if needed. When you find something you cannot do, we help you through it or will provide another option.
- Support after you finish a course –We can advise about getting work, starting business, writing a CV, etc. We can promote students and their businesses through our extensive profile on the internet. Graduates who ask will be helped.
- Support from a team of a dozen professional horticulturists, living in different parts of the UK, and in both temperate and tropical climate zones of Australia.
About ACS
ACS was started in 1979 by John Mason, who at the time was a gardening author, horticultural consultant and lecturer in horticulture at several colleges across Melbourne (in Australia). Over the summer that year John discovered that there were thousands of applicants going to be turned away from horticulture courses at Burnley Horticultural College (now Melbourne University). There were simply too few courses being offered for the number of people wanting to study horticulture in Australia. This situation prompted a move to establish a correspondence course at Burnley; but after months of unsuccessful lobbying for support from government; John wrote a course, and with help from a colleague at Council of Adult Education, marketed it.
Standards were originally set in line with what were seen to be the standards of Australia's top horticultural college; and over the years, those standards have never been reduced. This makes our courses longer and more demanding than some other colleges; but it has also led to us building a credibility that stands tall in the horticulture industry across the world.
In the early 1990's John started visiting the UK and becoming involved with the horticulture industry there. Around the mid 1990's ACS began offering RHS courses, and in 2003, John was formally recognised for his contribution to British Horticulture by being made a fellow of the Institute of Horticulture. ACS, as a school, established an office and staff in the UK in 2001, and has expanded considerably since then. Today it is formally affiliated with five other colleges in the UK (including Warwickshire College); all of who license and deliver ACS courses.
A team of leading horticulturists work for the school's horticulture department, including 12 faculty members in both the UK and Australia
How You Study
- As soon as you enroll, we send an email to explain it all.
- We direct you to a short orientation video (downloadable over the internet) to watch, where our principal introduces you to how the course works, and how you can access all sorts of support services
- You are either given a code to access your course online, or sent out a CD or course materials through the mail (or by courier).
- Work through lessons one by one, each lesson typically having four parts:
- An aim -which tells you what you should be achieving in the lesson
- Reading -notes written and regularly revised by our academic staff
- Set Task(s) -These are practicals, research or other experiential learning tasks that strengthen and add to what you have been reading
- Assignment -By answering questions, submitting them to a tutor, then getting feedback from the tutor, you confirm that you are on the right track, but more than that, you are guided to consider what you have been studying in different ways, broadening your perspective and reinforcing what you are learning about
- Other - Your work in a course rarely stops at just the above four parts. Different courses and different students will need further learning experiences. Your set task or assignment may lead to other things, interacting with tutors or people in industry, reviewing additional reference materials or something else. We treat every student as an individual and supplement their learning needs as the occasion requires.
- We provide access to and encourage you to use a range of supplementary services including an online student room, including online library; student bookshop, newsletters, social media etc.
- We provide a "student manual", that is a quick solution to most problems that might occur
Recognition
- ACS has a highly respected international profile: by employers and academics alike. People are more aware of us than many other distance education schools –just do a search for “horticulture distance education courses” and see what comes up on the internet; or search for ACS Distance education on Facebook or Linked in, and see how many connections we have compared to other colleges.
- Recognised by International Accreditation and Recognition Council
- ACS has been educating people around the world since 1979
- Over 100,000 have now studied ACS courses, across more than 150 countries
- Formal affiliations with colleges in five countries
- A faculty of over 40 internationally renowned academics –books written by our staff used by universities and colleges around the world.
Extra Books or Reference Materials
- The course provides you with everything that you need to complete it successfully.
- Assignments may ask you to look for extra information (eg. by contacting nurseries, visiting gardens or searching the internet), but our school's resources and tutors are always available as a back up. If you hit a "roadblock", we can quickly send you additional information or provide expert advice over the phone or email; to keep you moving in your studies.
- Some students choose to buy additional references, to take their learning beyond what is essential for the course. If a student wants to buy books, we operate an online bookshop offering ebooks written by staff at the school. Student discounts are available if you are studying with us. The range of e books available is being expanded rapidly, with at least one new ebook being written and published by our staff every month.
- See www.acsebook.com for ebooks (available in pounds stirling). We also sell books through our Australian bookshop (selling in Australian dollars) at www.acsbookshop.com
