well, to cut a long story short, we were greengrocers many years ago, 30 to be exact. We were the first greengrocers in our area to go self select,i.e. pick your own produce as the supermarkets do. All of my other greengrocer friends said "it won't work, not in this area, people want to be served" I was adamant that it had it's advantages. Over a weekend i completely rearranged the shop and on the monday morning it was 'self service'. I can remember people standing in the queue at the checkout saying "well, if this is progress, god help us" We lost a few customers, but the average sale shot up and more than compensated. We started selling more exotics that people wouldn't usually ask for. Within 12 months, every other greengrocer in the area had started to convert to self service. We sold a lot of cut flowers as well. About 1978 we had 2 trainee florists doing bouquets, arrangements and funeral pieces. It just built up from there. We didn't really push the floristry side as we were selling so much cut flower without the labour involved that it didn't seem necessary.

So all those years of selling cut flowers and fruit & veg gives you an invaluable depth of knowledge when it comes to retailing a perishable product. You get to know what sells, when it sells, how long it lasts, how to look after it etc, etc.

Over the years, with the rise of the supermarkets, the fruit & veg side moved downhill and the flowers side took over. Eventually we dropped fruit & veg altogether and concentrated on floristry. Given that background I was still in the mode of selling in volume and giving value for money. To me it was all about putting on a good show. If you didn't have it, you couldn't sell it. So you end up buying more flower than you know you can sell. That's when i started playing around, experimenting and teaching myself. After a while you gain enough confidence to put your work up for sale. Then you find out what is saleable and what is not. It had little to do with established design principles or 'text book ideas'. If someone liked it and paid for it, it passed.