The garden market is often described as conservative and slow moving in terms of change and adoption of new technologies and with some justification. After all it takes years to breed new plant varieties and gardening is a source of relaxation and escape from the rapid pace of life today.
But at GTN, the lure of the digital age has finally been reeled in and on it’s 30th birthday GTN goes online.
As from today, as well as being printed and posted to it’s 5,500 subscribers each month, GTN will be available online in the form of a digital e-mag which can be browsed, searched, clicked from and printed from the desktop.
Editor Mike Wyatt feels this is one of the biggest developments for GTN in its thirty-year history. “GTN has always been the voice of the industry and strives to be the most useful trade magazine for everyone concerned with gardening retailing. Whilst we feel we achieve this in the printed form we have been searching for a way to make it even more accessible to people in the trade at every level, and we’ve chosen the e-mag format as the best way to get there.”
Mike is only the second editor of GTN, taking over from launch editor Brian Gibbons in 1992. “The face of garden retailing has changed vastly over the 16 years I’ve been involved with the trade, but it’s always been a gradual change, which has been reflected in the way GTN has evolved over time to meet the changing information requirements.” Thirty years ago GTN, even as a monthly was full of news items, now with the plethora of news websites that exist, GTN’s role is to inspire and give ideas for increased sales, a roll that will be even more effective with the digital version accessible to more people.”
And after 30 years of gentle evolution, its not just the digital e-mag version of GTN that is new. GTNOnline is launched this week at www.gardentradenews.co.uk taking over from GrowRetail.co.uk as the GTN website where even more retail ideas will be featured along with the weekly UK garden centre Bestsellers charts.
“Our subscribers tell us that the creative retail ideas we show them and the up-to-date product information we provide are key elements for the future development of their business. Research over the past year has made it clear to all of the GTN team that everyone who works at the frontline of garden retailing can provide a better service to their customers if they are armed with the right information – at the right time. That’s why the weekly newsletter, now called GTNXtra, has been such a success.”
So what next for GTN? Mike says: “We’re working on exciting new ideas that will create the most vibrant coverage to date of the ever changing garden retailing scene and the people who work in it.”