About Canstar's Most Satisfied Customers Garden Centres Award
Canstar's Most Satisfied Customers Garden Centres Award reveals the garden centre chain that delivers the best consumer satisfaction to its customers.
We ask Kiwi garden centre customers to rate their satisfaction with their choice of garden centre chain by Overall Satisfaction, as well as important criteria such as Range of Products, Service & Advice and Value for Money.
Numbers crunched by Canstar's researchers:
- 866 Customers Surveyed
- 4 Brands Assessed
- 3 Brands Shortlisted
- 1 Award Winner
The best garden centres chains in NZ
The brands rated are listed below in order of best overall satisfaction.
1. Kings Plant Barn
Kings Plant Barn takes home Canstar's Most Satisfied Customers | Garden Centres Award on the back of a perfect set of ratings from its very satisfied customers across all our award categories, including Value for Money, Service and Advice and Overall Satisfaction.
This is the second year in a row that the garden centre brand has been rated the nation’s best, a great achievement that reflects the levels of value and service that Kings Plant Barn delivers to its customers.
Kings Plant Barn is an Auckland-based chain of garden centres. It operates seven stores across the city that offer a wide range of plants and gardening essentials.
Kings Plant Barn publishes a seasonal Scoop magazine, featuring growing hints and tips. And for in-store visitors, each Kings Plant Barn has a resident Plant Doctor. Visible due to their red Plant Doctor t-shirts, they're available to offer their expert advice on all your plant and gardening queries.
2. Palmers
Second on our award table, Palmers is highly rated by its garden centre customers, who award it a great set of 4- and 5-Star ratings.
Palmers earns top 5-Star ratings for Value for Money and Service & Advice, plus 4-Star ratings across our other categories, including Value for Money.
Palmers began as a nursery in 1912, and entered the garden retail market in 1958. Still proudly Kiwi owned and operated, Palmers has 12 locations across the North Island.
Palmers sells a wide range of plants, gardening products and outdoor living equipment. It has its own loyalty scheme and posts a wide range of how-to guides on its website.
It also publishes its Edibles magazine, which is dedicated to advice on growing fresh produce.
3. Oderings Garden Centres
Rounding out this year's Garden Centres Award table, Oderings places third with a 4-Star Overall Satisfaction rating, but still has a great set of reviews from its customers, identical to those achieved by Palmers: a mix of 4- and 5-Star ratings.
Boasting a history spanning 94 years, Oderings Garden Centres have become an integral part of New Zealand's landscape-design environment. Oderings operates seven stores nationwide: five stores in Christchurch, and two in the North Island.
Oderings has its own Gardeners Club loyalty program that offers exclusive deals and discounts. And it publishes its own bi-yearly magazine, Live and Grow, that you can read online.
Oderings also operates a landscaping service in Christchurch.
Choosing the right garden centre for you
What do you look for in a garden centre? Perhaps it's just a great cafe! In this year's awards survey, a third of respondents (33%) say the most important factor for them is Value for Money.
However, close behind, Range of Products is the biggest driver of satisfaction for 31% of garden centre customers. This is supported by the fact that 58% of our consumers also say they're inspired by their visits to garden centres.
And a quarter of our survey respondents cite Service and Advice all-important, which is understandable. For while choosing a pot or bag of compost is a simple decision, deciding on the best plant for a certain spot in your garden can be difficult if your fingers don't have a verdant tinge to them.
Here is the full rundown of what the garden centres consumers in our survey say are the main things they consider when rating the garden centres they visit:
- Value for Money: 33%
- Range of Products: 31%
- Service and Advice: 25%
- Range of Brands: 12%