Pricing in Home Improvement and Gardening: Managing Seasonal Fluctuations Without Eroding Margins
Fabrice Decroo
Consulting Director
August 21, 2026
A garden center generates 20 to 50 percent of its annual revenue over a 2- to 3-month period. In this context, pricing is driven not by competition but by the timing. 2025 Market: €32.5 billion, down 2.7% (FMB/Inoha). The right approach: a pricing schedule established before the season begins, with anticipated markdowns, rather than reacting as events unfold.
A garden center doesn't generate sales evenly throughout the year—most of its sales occur over just a few weeks. The rest of the time, it manages inventory that's waiting for the right moment. A price set incorrectly at the wrong time of the season costs more than a poorly managed competitive price difference.
This guide explains how to create a budget plan in advance for home improvement and gardening, rather than just going with the flow as the season progresses.
A sector where demand is not spread out, but concentrated
The French home improvement and gardening market is experiencing mixed results. After a sharp decline in 2024, the downturn slowed in 2025.
32.5 billion euros —that is the total revenue of the home improvement and gardening market in France in 2025 (home improvement: 24.2 billion euros, down 3.2%; gardening: 8.3 billion euros, -1.1%), down 2.7% year-over-year (FMB/Inoha study, reported by L'Info Durable, 2026).
20–50% —that is the percentage of annual revenue that a garden center typically generates during two to three months of peak season (industry data).
How Seasonality Affects Pricing Strategies
In an industry with smoothed demand, pricing reacts: when a competitive gap is detected, adjustments are made. In an industry with concentrated demand, this reactive approach is invariably too late. The right approach reverses this logic: it starts with a pricing schedule established before the start of the season. This topic is closely related to the issue of end-of-season remaining inventory: “Forecasting Remaining Inventory” details the forecasting method. This guide focuses on the pricing schedule to be applied once that forecast is in place.
Create a projected pricing schedule
- Before the season — plan ahead, don't react: set introductory prices based on demand forecasts.
- During peak hours —stability and fine-tuned arbitrage: little price movement on high-demand items.
- End of the season — planned markdown tiers, tied to specific time or inventory thresholds, rather than a last-minute decision.
A price reduction decided too late is almost always larger than a proactive, phased price reduction.
At Booper —the GENIUS Predict module lets you simulate, before the start of a season, the impact of a pricing schedule on sales and inventory, using Conservative, Balanced, and Aggressive scenarios. Learn more about the AI-powered sales forecasting approach.
Home improvement and gardening don't follow the same seasonal pattern
Gardening follows a very distinct seasonal pattern: a dominant peak in the spring, followed by a second, more moderate peak at the end of the year. Home improvement, strictly speaking, has a more diffuse seasonal pattern, but also experiences a surge in the spring.
10% —that’s the share of annual revenue that large home improvement stores generate with the arrival of spring (FMB industry data). This difference in sales patterns justifies separate pricing schedules by product category, even within the same retail chain.
Mistakes That Ruin the Margin at the End of the Season
- Waiting for a signal of excess inventory before clearing out stock, when a proactive schedule allows for a gradual reduction in inventory.
- Apply the same schedule to all families, without distinguishing between high and low seasonality.
- Confusing end-of-season markdowns with a one-time reaction.
- Underestimating the difference in customer profiles between home improvement and gardening within the same retail chain.
- Do not keep the same schedule from one season to the next, given that the weather and circumstances vary each year.
In home improvement and gardening, you don't protect your profit margin by reacting quickly—you protect it by planning ahead. To get an objective view of your pricing trajectory for the coming season, check out our markdown and inventory clearance solution.
FAQ
Because demand is tied to short weather and calendar windows. A garden center generates 20 to 50 percent of its annual revenue over a two- to three-month period.
Not necessarily without foresight. A poorly timed price reduction erodes profit margins that could have been preserved with a well-planned schedule.
By establishing, before the start of the season, price tiers linked to specific time frames or remaining inventory levels.
No. Gardening sees a very sharp peak in the spring; home improvement has a more diffuse seasonal pattern, with a notable uptick in the spring (~10% of revenue).
By categorizing families based on their profiles, by planning ahead rather than reacting to the schedule, and by relying on a reliable forecast of remaining inventory.
Forecasting answers the question, “How much will be left?” Seasonal pricing answers the question, “What pricing schedule should be used to avoid or sell off excess inventory without sacrificing profit margins?”
See also
- Pricing in the Retail Sector: What's Changing (and What Isn't)
- Forecasting Remaining Inventory: Anticipating Seasonal Trends to Avoid Being Forced to Clear Inventory
Sources: FMB & Inoha, 2025 DIY and Gardening Study, reported by L'Info Durable.
Lowering a price almost always leads to higher sales—that’s never the issue. The real question is whether the additional volume generates enough profit to offset the profit lost on each unit already sold. The answer depends on two figures that are rarely considered together: the product’s markup rate and its actual price elasticity.
In the retail sector, a product’s profitability is never fully reflected in its selling price. Part of it is determined on the shelf (the front-end margin), while another part is negotiated separately with the supplier, off the sales receipt (the back-end margin). Managing one without the other means managing an incomplete picture of profitability—and often, without realizing it, an underestimated one.
The margin, markup, and margin rate do not measure the same thing, and confusing them distorts all the resulting pricing decisions. Once these definitions and their formulas are established, the real question becomes an operational one: how can you maintain an accurate view of your margin when it changes every week, product by product, rather than recalculating it once a quarter in a spreadsheet?