Gardenex arranges virtual meetings between South African and Canadian garden product buyers
Two more popular Virtual Meet the Buyers events organised by Gardenex will be held in July, featuring buyers from a South African garden centre chain and a leading Canadian garden product retailer.
The first event, taking place on Tuesday, July 20 between 1pm-4pm, is with Stodels Nurseries from South Africa.
The family firm was started by Robert Stodel in the 1960s as a door-to-door bulb sales business, and has grown to become a household name in the Western Cape. Now managed by Robert’s son Nick, the business has five garden centres in the greater Cape Town area and two in the province of Gauteng, Pretoria. It also has an online shop.
Three of its stores featured in the South African Garden Centre Association’s top 10 list of independent garden centres in 2019.
Stodels’ garden centres stock plants, practical and decorative garden products, outdoor leisure items, landscaping materials, irrigation and more. The buyer is looking for indoor pot covers, furniture, garden tools, turn-key gardening concepts, big outdoor pots and any new gardening ideas.
Canadian buyer opportunity
The second Virtual Meet the Buyers event features a leading Canadian garden product retailer (both bricks and mortar and online) on Tuesday, July 27.
The focus of the Canadian company is on practical gardening products, including propagation, greenhouse accessories, cold frames, composting, watering, tools, indoor gardening, hardscaping/landscaping, pest control, pruning and tree care, lawn care, potting and planter products, raised beds etc.
The company also handles wild bird accessories, clothing, some kitchenware, time and weather products, storage items and much more. With a few exceptions, it does not handle garden furniture, grills or decorative items.
Its head office and distribution centre is in Ottawa and it has warehousing facilities in New York state. Handling over 18,000 items, the company employs over 850 staff. It also acts as an importer and currently works with a number of Gardenex members.
The company is a multi-channel retailer of a wide variety of products in four main areas: woodworking, gardening, hardware and gifts. It operates 20 up-market retail outlets located in major cities across Canada, stretching from Victoria in the west to Halifax in the east.
It produces many different catalogues annually, some focusing on wood or woodworking, some gift or hardware related, others are seasonal – early spring, early autumn etc – and there are some focused on gardening, with Spring Garden and Home & Garden being two recent examples. Millions of catalogues are distributed each year in Canada and across North America. The catalogues are also available online.
The buyers preselect the suppliers they wish to meet ‘virtually’ and Gardenex will arrange and co-ordinate the 25-minute Virtual Meet the Buyers sessions.
With no key international garden trade shows having taken place so far this year, this is a unique opportunity to present products to two excellent international companies from South Africa and Canada.
For further information and a registration form to apply to take part in these two Virtual Meet the Buyers events, please contact katie-mai@gardenex.com as soon as possible.