Case studies

Lady Green Nurseries - A small business case study

"Our garden centre has come along way since its humble beginnings in a ploughed field in 1985. Today it is a major garden centre which has a reputation for both quality and variety set in the beautiful mature landscape gardens which my wife and I have designed from scratch.

At Lady Green we sell everything the gardener may need, and more, including plants, garden tools, hardware, fertilisers, gifts, dried flowers, cards, books and garden furniture. It is a place which attracts customers of all ages from the weekend gardener, to the professional horticulturist or those simply looking for gifts. Many of our customers just come to walk around the gardens or to sample the homely atmosphere in our 'Teasels' coffee shop.

People spend anything from £10 to over £1,000 in our garden centre so we have to be able to offer customers a variety of ways to pay. Plastic has become an increasingly popular way for people to pay which is why for the last ten years we have used Barclaycard Business PDQ electronic terminals which we find invaluable. Many people also spend over £50 which is usually above a customer's cheque guarantee limit, so the convenience of paying with plastic is very popular.

The busiest times of year are from March to May when people stock up on plants and seeds and just before Christmas when people come to buy pot plants and gifts for Christmas. Bank Holidays are also hectic, particularly when the weather is good, as often our volume of customers doubles. The new PDQ TT41 Eclipse terminal certainly helps to speed up transactions as over 65 per cent of our customers pay via credit or debit card.

The garden centre is often visited in the summer by people just wanting a trip out on a warm Sunday afternoon. They are not necessarily intending to buy something and therefore do not carry any cash making plastic cards the ideal option for customers wanting to buy on impulse.

At Lady Green the main advantage of the Barclaycard Business PDQ terminal is it cuts down on paper work and end of day calculations which reduces both staff error and time spent cashing up. We certainly prefer people to pay by card because it is easier to administer and the PDQ terminals have significantly cut down on fraudulent payments using cards."

Philip Allison, Partner,
Lady Green Nurseries and Garden Centre, Lady Green lane, Ince Blundell, Merseyside, L35 1QD
Tel: 0151 929 3778