A budding gardener’s companion
With a strong bond with trade customers, Wickes was already a trusted retailer for all things DIY. But when it came to gardening projects, there was a question that needed answering:
The fact was and still is, Wickes isn't a garden centre. However, there are many jobs that can be done in the garden where their trusted roots in DIY can help educate and inspire customers to get more from their outdoor spaces. In addition to useful advice and inspiration, customers can buy what they need from Wickes to improve or maintain their gardens.
Introducing the Interactive
Garden Calendar
The new destination for Wickes' garden customers to learn about jobs to improve their outdoor spaces and find out the right time to do them.
This tool is designed to be 'sticky', encouraging customers to return each month, to see what they can do in their garden.
Encourages customers to have some fun with the content and see the garden changing through the seasons as they interact. With every month the jobs change to offer advice that's seasonally appropriate.
The calendar automatically opens on the current month.
Animation helps to engage customers by making the experience both visual and rewarding to interact with.
Garden view (above) encourages discovery and rewards interaction with easily digestible tips and advice.
Switching to List view (below) allows customers to see all of the jobs for the month at once, making it easy for them to reference at a glance.
Customers can even download and print the checklists for their shed.
Clickable hotspots load content that helps, inspires, or reminds customers about projects in their garden for the selected month.
Categorisation makes it simple for customers to find and filter the projects that interest them.
Garden calendars are not a new concept, but the content available, although helpful, is often static, uninspiring, and inaccessible to beginners. When researching, it was impossible to find a trusted source that offered advice on garden projects beyond just plant care, such as growing your own veg and DIY.
This was the gap that Wickes could fill with confidence. It’s a single destination with all gardening jobs in one place, uniquely plotting plant care jobs through the year alongside jobs for grow-your-own, maintenance, and building.
It's accessible too. Customers need not feel intimidated by complicated horticulture terminology. Our advice is simple so anyone can feel inspired to have a go.
The Garden Calendar for Wickes was nominated for the best User Experience project at the UK eCOMMERCE AWARDS in 2023. Its remarkable success, evidenced by customer sales exceeding £1M within just three months, ultimately led to it winning the award!