Florist News

Hiya

This Christmas will be my first as a Florist! I was wondering if you could all share your experience of last christmas with me. i.e. what sold really well, what worked and what didn't. Did you try anything new, was it successful? What did you do for your window display, got any photo's? What did people tend to buy etc etc.

Basically I want to find out as much as I can about how last Christmas went so I can plan for this one as I wont have much time when I finally get in my shop!

Thank you!

order from IS Group in August then you'll get your discount and they'll deliver early October, otherwise their good stuff will sell out, trust me I know, last year under ordered, then by October nothing left

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however much you think you will need,,,double it!!

make plenty of things for graves,,start making artificial things in october,,make loads of table arrs,,don't forget though,,if you put candles in you must either cut out the wick or put a clear warning on them about lighting candles cos you'll get a warning letter from some overpaid council jobsworth telling you not to sell them or they will come and tell you off!! Make lots of bows!! Do as much as you can as soon as you can. And yes,,order and buy your stuff early cos it will sell out,,the trend for this year will be peacock colours,,turquoises and rich greens,,along with the traditional reds and golds!! Last year I bought some large glass vases and filled them with baubles and white lights or those wooden balls and lights,,they sold instantly..people want stuff thats done for them,,in my town anyway..look at what the big boys are selling and adapt it to your area/shop style and try and offer more than 1 price point. Don't buy too many pointsettias too soon! And it goes without saying that they should not be put outside!! Always take part in anything xmassy thats happening in your town and enter the best dressed window competition if there is one.

Phew,,I'm exhausted,,sorry to preach,,but you did ask and I love retail and display stuff!!

And...gift wrap all plants and put the cards in the envelope on picks in them ready so you don't have to faff around getting them when someone wants to buy one. Put a price on EVERYTHING because when you get busy you won't want your staff keep asking,,how much is...???

I'll shut up now.

Can the seller give you any info on their last year's order volumes for the Xmas delivery period? Is the shop a relay member? They maybe can give you some info on the volume/breakdown of last year's orders too, assuming you are keeping on with the same relay co.

I think they key thing is to keep it simple - one or two themes/colours, a handful of standard designs that you work all your open orders to, limited choice on the flowers and plants keeps your buying and selling simple and stops the customers dithering and getting on your nerves!

we had a huge white tree with groovy blacks decs with silver lame fabric and fake snow everywhere in the main window...
in the side ones we had a santa stuck in the chimney, just his butt and legs showing! and a xmassy arrangments with small white feather trees, wreaths and fibre optic trees in the other side one

but we didn't work out a price for the big tree complete which I will defo be doing this year cos a few people asked and we didn't really know. I will be changing the theme for my tree to something colourful this year and using all the groovy black decs in xmas orders or corporate work...my mission will be to sell the bugger complete with decs!

staff was one of the biggest headaches for me last year and I can't expect my few very good staff to work like they did last year so i'll be recruiting help for xmas week very early this year!

also this year I'm gonna organise a xmas open evening and invite a load regulars and account customers etc for mulled wine etc, do a free raffle and try and get rid of some xmas stuff early cos we really don't want to be packing it away for next year!

if anyone has any tips on successful open evenings I'm all ears!

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Sarah Creating Bespoke Wedding Flowers Cheshire

something that worked really well and i can't take the credit for cos i read it somewhere, was moving all the cut flowers off the shop floor and only having ready made items in the shop.

At first it sounds v. drastic but if you have loads and loads of lovely things made at all price points 99% of people will take one of them, also on the last few days if any fussy people did want something 'different' making up we said there was a 30 min wait for custom items to be made, everyones in a rush these days

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Sarah Creating Bespoke Wedding Flowers Cheshire

We did open evenings for our first 2 years, first year was kind of like a 'launch party' I laid on canapes and champagne, maybe 20 people came, several who had rsvp-ed didn't bother to show, including the chairman of the Chamber of Trade! I felt it was a reasonable success, couple of sales, couple of orders, press photos all that, raffled off a couple of bouquets and the ladies who won coincidentally (yes, really I didn't fix it!) were friends and have become regulars, bringing along other friends too. Second year about 2 people came, what a waste of time. We won't be doing it this year! My conclusion was that it's hard to get people to get off their arses at the best of times, but on a cold, wet, windy November evening, forget it! Irritatingly there's a long established homewares & gift shop in town and all the ladies who lunch turn out in droves for their open evening, but it's a big shop with lots of different rooms, and they lay on free beauty treatments and raffle off really expensive gifts that they've blagged off their suppliers. It's a small town and there's a definate sense of the bigger longer established retailers looking down their noses at us newer smaller ones .

We made small holly posies for the graves (raided from my friends trees) with garden foliage in and cones (also raided from roads) so cost was oasis and small posy tray, so charged £6 and sold out everyday in December, in the end had my twins making them at home they were only 8yrs old, but I think I taught them well. They seem to like minimal fresh wreaths, so we were mossed up by October and then they were all out on my lawn. Even the very large artificial ones sold out, they looked fantastic, the tacky ones with the pointsettias etc didn't sell very well, in the end we had a large 9ft tree in the window, and it was covered in posh flowers and baubles etc , bascially it was my stock room, everything was on the tree! customers were buying their decs from the tree, also I'm starting to spray twigs as that's what we ran out of Christmas week, as they look fantastic in bouquets. I'm afraid I'm like a bit kid at Christmas time, can't wait

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