Take some seeds. In the maquis of online gardening, the Promesses de Fleurs site now claims to be the leader in France for sales on the web. It was, in any case, the most visited in September and October. How does this northern nursery, located in Houplines, near Lille, manage to establish itself against heavyweights like Truffaut, Rustica, Gamme Vert or Jardiland? To understand, 20 minutes visited the owner who will experience, from next year, a significant land development.
On the road, it’s impossible to miss the place. Large signs, on the right and on the left, indicate the sign. But here, there is no point of sale, everything is done via the Internet. No large corporate offices either, management and support services are located in a country house, surrounded by greenhouses and plantations. And yet Flower Promises is about to enter the world of gardening giants.
A site for relatively well-off amateur gardeners
Taken over fifteen years ago by Pascal Griot, the company specializing in mail order sales (VPC) since 1950, has experienced regular growth of around 25% each year since its acquisition. “With the Covid crisis, activity has even doubled,” assures its manager. The site has notably gone from 1,000 plant references managed by 3 people to 25,000, with around a hundred employees.
And this wider range of products is, today, a major asset. “Gardeners come to us for what they can’t find elsewhere, the tulip with a double serrated flower, for example. Nearly one in ten sales is a special product which is not one of the 1,000 classic garden center references,” emphasizes Pascal Griot. Even if the best seller remains the “classic” perennial geranium rozanne. The typical customer is rather the experienced amateur who has an average garden of 700 m2 and “who has the means to enjoy himself”.
The products that sell best remain the new ones, whether for the perfume or the colors. “The gardening cycle is close to that of decoration. There are a lot of trend movements. For example, a new form of hydrangea that will work well. At the moment, there is especially madness on fast-growing shade trees such as paulownia, because of the warming,” he specifies.
A substantial investment
Faced with success, the company decided to expand. And not just a little. Its land footprint will increase from 3 to 32 hectares, the equivalent of 64 football fields. “The storage and cultivation spaces have become too small,” says the director who plans to develop his own products and outdoor crops. “Greenhouses are too expensive, the ambition is to achieve energy autonomy,” he slips. And to use fertilizer of organic origin to manage to supply 45,000 references within ten years. »
Thus, a new logistics warehouse has just been built in Prémesques, 800 meters away. Waiting for future plantings. All for an investment of 5.5 million. But the project still faces some neighborhood constraints (see box). Pascal Griot hopes that everything will be resolved in June. Because 2024 will also see the launch of the site in English for European customers.
Residents who fear for their peace
For the moment, the arrival at Prémesques of Promesse de Fleurs is having difficulty getting through to the residential area of local residents, according to The voice of the North. A meeting at the prefecture took place in November to try to find an alternative route for the road traffic generated by this establishment. The company announces the passage, in high season, from March to May and from mid-September to mid-November, of eight to ten heavy goods vehicles, six “small trucks” and 120 vehicles. With a possible increase by four, but in the long term.
Pascal Griot proposed the idea of making a path serviceable, taking the costs of the operation into account for the company. But obviously, the administrative procedure is likely to take time.