Gardening for growth

The increase of 1.2 per cent in sales by German DIY store operators in the first six months of the year derived principally from the garden segment. Of total sales amounting to € 9.3023 bn, € 6.8200 bn came from purely DIY ranges, sales of which only grew by 0.3 per cent. By contrast, garden range sales increased by 3.9 per cent to € 2.4824 bn, thus raising their share of sales to 26.7 per cent. The executive board spokesman of the German DIY retail association BHB, Erich Huwer, made reference to this at the BHB Garden Summit.
Plants and shrubs are the main source of concern for the DIY stores, with sales falling by 15.2 per cent from January to June compared with 2013.