Consumer Perceptions of Plant Quality

Plant quality has been identified as one of the most important factors in determining where retail customers shop and which plants they buy. A better understanding of what customers actually mean by “plant quality” can enhance the industry's ability to give customers what they want, and improve the competitive position of individual nursery/garden center businesses. Five common woody ornamentals—flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), red maple (Acer rubrum), azalea (Rhododendron spp.), nandina (Nandina domestica) and `Compacta' holly (Ilex crenata `Compacta')—were selected for a three-part study of consumer perceptions of plant quality. The first component of the study was comprised of three focus groups, conducted during Summer 1995 in New Bern, N.C., and Fall 1996 in Raleigh, N.C. The purpose of the focus groups was to learn more about the specific quality attributes customers use in evaluating trees and shrubs in the garden center. The second component consisted of five different intercept surveys conducted in 1997 and 1998 in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. Purchase intent, rank order, paired comparison, dollar metric and constant sum scales, accompanied by photographs of plant material, were used to interview retail customers in independently-owned garden centers. These studies focused primarily on azaleas and dogwoods. The third component was a hedonic study focusing on azaleas and `Compacta' holly, conducted in the Raleigh, N.C., area in Apr. 1998. Using standard regression analysis techniques, hedonics examines prices and levels of selected attributes to provide an estimate of the marginal implicit price a consumer is willing to pay for an additional unit of a particular attribute.