May 1, 2017

Meet Brenda Lauderdale of Growtopia Hydroponics

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brenda Lauderdale.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Brenda. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I moved here in 2011 from Western NY and have always had a passion for gardening. I like to eat healthy and buying organic food is extremely expensive. I have always had a large garden when I lived up north, but attempted to do the same here, I ran into constant problems. I had to constantly water the plants, I got every bad insect there is and my yield was low. I had in the past done a small amount of hydroponic gardening and decided I wanted to expand on that. There are very few hydroponic stores in the Atlanta area and living in Gwinnett county I had to drive an hour to get to one. I realized at that point that there was a definite need for a hydroponics store in the northeast metro Atlanta area. My business partner, Phil Laspesa and I did a lot of research and decided to open up a store. Phil is a fish enthusiast who really enjoys the aquaponics aspects of gardening. We had our grand opening on November 15, 2015. In the time since we opened our business has more than tripled in size.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
We have only been in business for just over a year and our biggest challenge has been getting our name out there. Some of the advertising methods we have used have really not paid off, while others have. Also, it is hard to compete with online pricing at times.

Please tell us about Growtopia Hydroponics.
We are a small retail hydroponics store located in Buford not far from the Mall of Georgia. We sell all types of indoor gardening supplies that allow the customer to grow fruits and vegetables year-round. We also carry organic, non-GMO seeds from Southern Exposure seed exchange. We have a small aquaponic system set up in the store and help to educate our customers on the eco system to grow plants with fish. We offer friendly and knowledgeable customer service and have competitive pricing. We are also open 7 days a week so people with busy work schedules can find time to come in. Area schools are now starting to teach hydroponics to the students and we have helped out several students with their projects.

We will be holding a Customer Appreciation Day on May 21st to give back to our loyal customers. Industry experts will be on hand that day to share their knowledge. We will also have giveaways throughout the day and be raffling off thousands of dollars’ worth of prizes. There will also be free entertainment, free food and free beverages!

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Spent more time to find a larger storefront as we have quickly run out of space. Spend advertising dollars differently. Got a better POS system.

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