Florist News

Definately!! we always get hoards of people in as soon as everythings out of the window and you've got no counter space to make up on!!

Glad to see you're still battling on though Leanne - if you can get through this time of year, you'll be fine with xmas/val/m'day to come.
I've had a look at your delivery areas, and if I can pass anything your way, I will do luv.

Pacific blue - liking the 'back to school' idea!! you could even do it for the school reception area, coz every time you take something they always say "oooh, I wish they were for us!" and more people are likely to see it & talk about it.

I've been doing a promotion in a mag that has been the most sucessful thing i've done in the 2 years i've been open - its your usual advert with all the important bits on, but then there are 3 coupons at the side for people to cut out
1) free gift wrapped flower just for calling in (only a carn or germini - but it gets people in to the shop)
2) £3 off when you spend £15 or more
3) £7 off when you spend £30 or more
it seems a bit drastic at first, but at least its getting people into your shop.

Perhaps you could adapt this idea, print it out yourself and hand them out/go round putting them in letterboxes/leave in local shops,dentists and doctors for people to pick up????

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I was reading somewhere (F&WB) i think that we should take a leaf out of the supermarkets book- they offer a % extra free, as it costs them less that giving a say 10% discount. Not sure if the maths add up, but i did read it somewhere!

The thought process is based on the fact that giving an extra (say) 25% will actually only cost you the wholesale price of your flowers.

For example - and please remember these are purely made up figures to show rather than fact as every shop is different quite apart from the fact you may run the offer on different lines that you can buy more cheaply.

Scenario:

You currently charge £12 for a bouquet of 12 roses with each rose costing you 30p each.

If you discount the price of the bouquet by 25% you are knocking off £3.00.

If however you offer 25% more flowers (ie 3 more roses) it's only cost you 90p. More importantly your customer thinks they are getting better value because there is a tangible extra (the three stems) they can see.

Hope that makes sense,

Here I go again banging on about plants! People are really looking for value at the moment so the above is a good idea but you can also diversify, I sold the same amount of plants as flowers today, so if I didnt sell plants it would really have been quite poo. Obviously it costs a bit more to get the stock in but they last much longer and fill your shop up. No customer likes an empty shop.

I think other people mentioned moving things around. Its amazing what sells when you put it pride of place rather than gathering dust.

Forget about 'back to school' and think about a big sign saying

Have you got this far through the rainy holidays without strangling your kids? You deserve flowers, treat yourself!

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Tina
Torturing tutors since Sept 07

Plastic fantastic - not suitable for upgrade.

I think that if there is a credit crunch, florists will be hit hard as it is a luxury item. We had one of our corporate clients in today, who has been with us for years, she has a really good, long standing business, and is loaded. She came in looking for a gift for about £10, we did sell her a small arrangement for £20 We had just had some lovely potted plants in and the design on the pot was the same as her logo of her business, they were priced at just £8, she thought it was look great in her office, but because of the credit crunch she would not buy it. I think this is a sign of what is to come and we will have to work extra hard to survive.

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Julie