Garden décor supplier, Alfresco Gardenware, launched two new product lines at the Sydney Home & Giving Fair and also took out the Best Medium Stand award.
The latest additions include a rage of trellis and wall hangers, which let customers incorporate a vertical garden into their home, as well as decorative floating balls and porcelain fish and frogs.
“These are really beautiful,” says Alfresco Gardenware founder, Julia Longmuir. “They will appeal to a large variety of consumers and are very well priced to encourage fast turnaround in stores.”
Longmuir started Alfresco in 2005 with a friend, when they both had children and didn’t want to work for someone else. “I enjoyed gardening and thought that there was a gap in the marketplace for ‘newer’ garden décor items that were within reach of the domestic gardener,” she says.
The company is constantly searching for new trends, not only in garden decorations but within the gardening community. “We spend time learning more about gardening and garden trends, not just in décor,” explains Longmuir.
“Succulents, sustainable gardening, drought, environmental issues, compost… so much is changing and there are so many ways to interact with the garden.”
The stand award was Alfresco’s first, and Longmuir says it was a credit to both the stand designer and the staff who put it all together.
“Winning the award is a bonus but the real achievement was being able to show our customers how to merchandise our product to get a beautiful effect and stimulate product purchase/turnover,” she says.
The team grouped products into primary colours and used yellow accents throughout the stand to create cohesion across Alfresco’s 300 product lines.
“That’s a lot of product to digest and we wanted customers to move through it, not be bamboozled,” says Longmuir.
“We wanted to create a beautiful story with our products, so that it was a pleasure to look at our stand and even easier to understand them and purchase them.”
When exhibiting at trade fairs, Longmuir aims to inspire retailers with new ideas, new products and new ways to display and sell. “They want to come back to their stores with some vitality to revamp and reinspire their customers,” she says.
By Ruth Cooper
