A decade ago, house plants were so popular among millennials that many would refer to themselves as plant moms or dads, devoting social media accounts to their plants and promoting it as a lifestyle. It was a time when trendy stores dedicated to plants made perfect sense.
The way people purchase plants has been changing, however, and companies are shifting to accommodate Gen Z. That was made clear on Tuesday when the Sill, a popular chain that once had storefronts in several major cities, permanently closed its last retail location, which was in Brooklyn. Eliza Blank, the founder of the Sill, said the company would transition its entire business into being an online garden center.
“I often explain to people that the business is like a reflection of my life,” Ms. Blank said in a video interview. “I started the company as a houseplant business for young, urban city people because that’s who I was. I lived in a teeny, tiny apartment, a six-floor walk up, and my windows faced a brick wall. I just wanted houseplants and I didn’t know anything about the right plants that would thrive in a New York City apartment. So the Sill was born out of that in 2012.”
Twelve years later, she said, “I’m not 26 years old anymore. I left the city, actually. I have two kids. I live in a house in the Catskills. I garden!”
With the closure of the company’s last physical store, the Sill’s online offerings will be refined, matching the kind of things Ms. Blank is shopping for on her own: Perennials, bulbs, apple trees and privacy hedges.
“We’re expanding our horizons and hopefully the houseplant was sort of the gateway to the garden,” she said.
Ms. Blank contends that the Sill closing its stores is not a reflection of a reduced interest in house plants, but instead is a product of the popularity of the business blooming — in a different way.
Closing the company’s stores was a gradual process. The peak year for retail sales at the Sill came in 2022, when they made up 25 percent of the company’s annual revenue. At that time, there were 10 stores open nationwide and they were also selling plants online. In late 2022, the company closed its first location, on Hester Street in New York. Its store in Los Angeles soon followed, in early 2023. Both leases were up for renewal and the company chose to close them instead. Slowly, the company began closing its stores in other cities, including Chicago and Boston. This past spring, the company expanded its online offerings with the introduction of its online outdoor garden center.
“We did give up a lot of revenue in closing the stores,” Ms. Blank said. “We are a smaller company now than we were at peak with our stores.”
Ms. Blank believes a measure of the Sill’s success is all the small stores that opened after them.
“I think the Sill helped make houseplants cool,” said Katie Dubow, the president of Garden Media Group, a public relations firm that advises companies on market trends. “In our industry, houseplants are regularly a top category.”
In July, while at Cultivate, the largest horticulture trade show in North America, Ms. Dubow observed that houseplant sales were flat — unless you were selling them online.
“It’s no surprise that the sale is going online,” Ms. Dubow said. “I think that this Gen Z customer, they see it on Instagram and they want it immediately. So I don’t think that the Sill closing their stores is an indicator that the market is down. I think it’s an indicator that this generation loves plants just as much. They do want to be able to buy them online, especially their first plant.”
Ms. Blank said she was no longer interested in competing with the smaller stores that the Sill helped inspire. Instead, she hopes to compete with Costa Farms, one of the largest houseplant growers in North America.
“Having competition always makes us better,” said Mari Carrasquillo, the vice president of marketing and e-commerce at Costa Farms. “We really want people to love their plants at the same level that we do. Sometimes you need the competition.”
Issues can arise for any business built on growing plants, including slow growing seasons or hurricanes, which would turn issues for Costa into opportunities for the Sill, and vice versa.
“At the end of the day, we are all here to keep growing a category that is generating happiness and well-being to the consumer,” Ms. Carrasquillo said. “We want all of us to be successful.”
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