Garden Retail Monitor Brochure
This brochure contains the information regarding the GRM system and how it works, what benefits you get by using this system and why this information matters to you.
Sales Benchmarking
What is the Garden Retail Monitor (GRM)?
The HTA Garden Retail Monitor (GRM) is an online platform for business benchmarking and performance analysis. Sales data is securely and automatically uploaded via your EPOS system and populates reports for comparing performance against other garden centres via regional and national averages. You can analyse sales by product category or specific time frames and choose from a variety of metrics like gross profit, average transaction value and more.
We also have a non-EPOS manual entry version of the GRM, which is currently primarily used by the Business Improvement Scheme (BIS) and Retail Development Forum (RDF) groups.
Please download the brochure below to gain a full insight to the GRM platform to understand how it works, what are the advantages of providing data and how the HTA can use this data to benefit you as a member.
Please contact [email protected] if you're a new BIS/RDF member and need help with submitting your sales figures.
Supporting documentation
How does it work?
We match each garden centre’s department hierarchy with the GRM and GCA categories to provide like-for-like benchmarking comparisons. Sales data is then automatically transferred on a weekly basis via the EPOS system, and populates the different reports on the platform.
We do almost all of the setup and talk to your EPOS provider, all we need from you is your permission!
What are the benefits?
- The “it’s not just us” moment - When your sales are down in bad weather, seeing how other centres were did can be reassuring – for you and for banks and investors
- Identify areas of strength, weakness or opportunity - See where your performance is strong or weak compared to other centres, and identify possible issues or opportunities to address
- Supporting industry's interests - The HTA uses the aggregated data to provide evidence for our arguments when influencing government policy, demonstrating the position for our members. The data also forms a core part of our monthly Market Update reports that keep our members up to date on factors affecting state of trade!
- Promoting gardening to the public - The HTA uses the aggregated data to generate media coverage for the industry by reporting and responding to media requests for statistics.
What reports are available?
- Sales Performance Benchmark Report - your total sales performance.
- Category Performance Benchmark Report - product category performance, choosing from the HTA, GCA or your own categories.
- Member Operating Metrics ATV Report - your Average Transaction (ATV) performance for the current year and previous two years.
- Member Business Report - this report summarises your business growth/decline by month over the last 3 years for the metric you define.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
A. No. Your data is encrypted and held on a secure server. Only your business can see your store specific figures unless you consent otherwise, i.e. you are part of a group wanting to visibly benchmark against other businesses, e.g. the GCA, or a buying group.
Any questions about this, please feel free to contact us.
A. No. If you’re a HTA member and willing to submit data, you can access the benchmark reports!
A. Unfortunately, yes. But we do have an alternative system where you manually type your sales figures in each month. If you want to use that, please do drop us an email at [email protected]
A. Your EPOS provider needs to do a small amount of work to allow data transfer, which we can arrange on your behalf.
Please contact us to enquire whether your EPOS provider will be compatible with the GRM system, we’ll be happy to help! And it also helps us if you make your EPOS provider aware of your interest in using the GRM, so they know to expect us.
A. No, we do not include any identifiers such as retail store names in the GRM data in our Market Update, the values are reported at an aggregated level.
Interested in signing up?
Fill out the short registration form below and we'll be in touch!
Horticulture House
Chilton
Didcot
Oxfordshire
OX11 ORN
Get in touch
Contact the Garden Retail Monitor team
Horticulture House
Chilton
Didcot
Oxfordshire
OX11 0RN