Case Study: Hickory Home and Garden doubles sales and secures operations with ECI Software Solutions' Spruce

Spruce software helps keep garden center growing and secure after a cyberattack

Hickory Home and Garden, a garden center in Hickory, North Carolina, relied on Spruce business management software from ECI Software Solutions to manage a complex mix of retail and contractor business. The company faced rapid growth—more than doubling sales in five years while adding only three full‑time employees—and in 2017 suffered a severe ransomware attack that encrypted their server and backup, threatening their ability to operate and close out the fiscal year.

ECI Software Solutions helped by moving Hickory Home and Garden to the cloud-based Spruce and assigning a dedicated support person to restore data and set up each computer remotely, getting the business back online by the Monday after the Friday attack. Using Spruce, the company improved inventory tracking, pricing and customer service, supported expansion into new product lines (power tool sales rose from about $800–$1,200/year to nearly $150,000/year; fertilizer and seed from $8–$9k to $90k/year), doubled overall sales in five years (15 to 18 employees), reduced maintenance time and gained stronger protection against ransomware.

Hickory Home and Garden

Aaron Poland

Veteran