RETAIL Futurist Matthew Brown has been added to the line-up of guest speakers at the Garden Centre Association’s (GCA) annual conference taking place this month (January 20 until 23, 2019).

Matthew will be providing best practice and creative insights to delegates in order to help them improve their businesses during his talk at Luton Hoo Hotel, Luton, on Monday, January 21.

Iain Wylie, Chief Executive of the GCA, explained: “Our line-up of guest speakers is now complete and we’re thrilled to have Matthew taking to our stage to share his knowledge with our attendees. 

“Matthew is the owner of Echochamber, a London-based creative retail intelligence agency, which travels the world tracking retail innovation and evolving consumer trends. Its clients include Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Nike.

“The agency provides global best practice and creative insight to clients across all retail sectors, in order to help them benchmark best practice and improve their businesses, by harnessing evolving global consumer and retail trends.

“As garden centres rely heavily on retail, we think this will be a particularly interesting talk for our conference attendees and they will be able to take everything they learn from Matthew about current retail trends and incorporate it into their own garden centres.”

The GCA represents nearly 200 garden centres nationwide. Through sharing information and its inspection programme, the organisation helps members to achieve high standards in customer service, plant quality and reliability. 

The GCA’s 2019 conference will be held at Luton Hoo Hotel, Luton on the Hertfordshire/Bedfordshire border from January 20 until 23 and places can be booked viawww.gca.org.uk. 

For other information, please call 01244 952170, visit www.gca.org.uk, log on to www.facebook.com/pages/GardenCentreAssociation or  follow the organisation on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GC_Association.