Friday, January 1, 2010

Rebloom?

Have you seen this? It seems that the gardening catalog/store Smith & Hawken isn’t going to just fade away after 30 years in the biz. Instead they are going to reinvent themselves in some fashion. I’ve read about other brick-and-mortar stores that close, only to be reborn as something vaguely similar, with the same name, online. What does the future hold for the Smith & Hawken name? I guess will have to “check back” to see…

10 comments:

  1. Wouldn't that be fantastic, especially if they went back to their early roots.
    The S+H corporate headquarters is/ was located in the town that I live in.
    I might just take the dog for a walk ( dog sitting again ) around the old building to see if any action is happening.

    Thanks for the heads up !!

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  2. That is weird. Really weird. Well, maybe they will go back to their organic gardening roots, in which case I hope they rebloom and thrive! Happy New Year, Loree! Thanks for all the great posts in 2009.

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  3. Interesting. I know that the Sharper Image stores are gone, but merchandise with their brand on it is all over the place...the stuff without the store. I wonder if S/H will be headed the same way. Already, I thought I saw their stuff at Target, some higher-end garden furniture.

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  4. The only chance they have to "rebloom" is without former management. If it's the same people, even WITH a better business model, they are sure to shrivel and die once more before they even have a chance to "thrive again."

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  5. Reblooming certainly seems appropriate for the new year and new decade. I miss the store and I hate paying for shipping, so whatever emerges will need to be pretty special to lure me in online. But I'm quite happy to be wooed!

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  6. I do not uinderstand why they shut... they needed to revamp stores and close underperforming locations. The closing sale had to show a profit. Locations I visited during the sale were insanely busy. I hope they reopen in some form... they had overall great merchandise.

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  7. Huh. Can't wait to see what happens with this. It seemed silly when they have an established name and web site that they would shut everything down when closing brick and mortar stores. I felt the same way when domino magazine shut down, and they also pulled the web site. I don't know that businesses know how to gracefully transition to an all digital strategy yet, but I'd like to see how this all develops.

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  8. DD, please do tell if you see anything interesting!

    Karen, it will be interesting to see what path they take, for sure. Same to you and I look forward to more sidewalk gardening encounters in 2010!

    James, definitely, I remember seeing S&H merchandise at Target for a few years now.

    K&V, hey is that a new profile picture? Happy Times in Hawaii maybe?

    Anon, hum, seems like YOU are in the know on a few of the inner circle details...

    Jane, I so agree about paying for shipping! But sometimes when I calculate my time, energy and gas it works out to be a pretty good deal. Like driving down to Crate & Barrel. Why do they have to be so far away?

    wvrp2, hello! I was pretty disappointed in the closing sales that I went too. The first one on the first weekend here in Portland was ok, I scored a great Aloe. But then I went to one in Seattle a couple of months later that looked like they just trucked in a bunch of crap.

    Megan, good point about Domino, I agree. It will be interesting to watch!

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  9. How strange and kind of sad. I used to shop with them quite a bit but not so much these days. Will be interesting to see what they do next.

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