by Chris Rocheleau, ForemostCo®, Inc.
Succulents were a popular category among consumers throughout the 2010s, but by around 2017, things started to taper off a little bit. As an industry, we were producing too many similar items.
The end user might want blue echeveria, and we were offering them 30 varieties to choose from in a gallon or a 4-inch that all looked incredibly similar. You can only sell a quart blue echeveria for as much as the guy down the street is selling it for, no matter the variety. The consumer doesn’t see enough differentiation. There were just too many options out there, and the market for landscaping was also becoming saturated to some extent.