Choice Marketing's 12th annual conference took place last month and was attended by over 100 garden centre members and suppliers.
Members from the 33 garden centres in the group were joined by their suppliers for two days of networking, presentations and a mini-trade show at the Hellidon Lakes Golf and Spa Hotel near Daventry.

Presentations included a session on the Garden Industry Marketing Board's initiative for 2015 by David Arnold and talks on ATM cash machine services by Charindeep Bangar of Your Cash and in store WiFi by Paul Arnold of Air-Angel WiFi.

The key note speaker was Karl McKeever of Visual Thinking who spoke in great detail about the power of visual merchandising and the one-hour session had to be extended for delegates to ask questions and gather feedback.

Mr McKeever has over 25 years' experience working with businesses to improve customer experience and commercial performance. He worked on the TV programme The Fixer to help Oak Garden Centre, Chatteris in 2013.

This year's annual conference was the biggest yet and Michelle de Lavis-Trafford of Choice said she was delighted with the attendance.

Choice Marketing is a marketing and buying group for independent garden centres in the UK.