Orders beyond the funeral and valentines peaks for a florist

3 days ago
3 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

Introduction

Floristry has an unusually brutal demand curve. Two or three dates a year produce enormous volume, funeral work arrives unpredictably, and the weeks in between can be very quiet indeed. A shop that plans around the peaks is idle for most of the year while paying rent every week of it.

The fix is not more marketing at the peaks — those dates sell themselves. It is building the recurring and contract work that fills ordinary Tuesdays, which is a different set of customers approached in a different way.

Those customers are mostly businesses, and they buy flowers as a standing arrangement rather than a gift. That makes them easier to keep and easier to forecast.

Orders beyond the funeral and valentines peaks come from contract work

Recurring business orders are the flattest, most reliable revenue in floristry.

Offices, hotels and restaurants. A weekly or fortnightly arrangement, invoiced monthly. Once established these run for years with almost no selling. Ten such accounts change the shape of a week.

Salons, clinics and estate agents. Any business whose premises matter to its customers. The spend is modest and the frequency is the point. Offer a fixed weekly price so it is easy to approve.

Approach them in person with something in your hand. A sample arrangement delivered to reception outperforms any email. It is also how you find out who decides. Ask who looks after the reception area.

Build the event and wedding side deliberately

Events are booked months ahead and fill known dates.

Get onto venue supplier lists. The same mechanism that works for photographers works here, and it produces bookings a year out. Two venues can fill a season.

Work with the other wedding suppliers. Planners, photographers and cake makers meet couples early and refer readily. Refer work back to them.

Take the smaller events too. Christenings, funerals with a personal brief, birthdays, corporate functions. These are less competitive than weddings. Quote them properly rather than as favours. They also repeat annually in many families.

Create occasions that are not on the calendar

Most flower buying is prompted rather than planned.

Sell the subscription. Flowers monthly, to themselves or as a gift. This is the single best product a florist has for smoothing demand. Offer three, six and twelve month terms.

Capture the dates customers tell you. Every anniversary and birthday order is a recurring date. A reminder next year is the easiest order you will ever take. Ask permission to contact them nearer the time.

Prompt in the quiet weeks. A midweek bunch, a seasonal special, something at a price that makes it an impulse rather than a decision. Put it where people walk past.

Use the shop and the local network

Floristry is highly local and highly visual.

Make the frontage work. A shop that looks abundant sells; one that looks sparse does not, even with the same stock. Fill the window before you fill the shelves.

Photograph the work constantly. This trade is more suited to visual sharing than almost any other, and it costs nothing. Same light, same corner, every time.

Build the funeral director relationships. That work will always exist and it goes to whoever is trusted and responsive. Answer the phone at difficult hours.

Conclusion

Stop marketing the peaks, which sell themselves, and build the work that fills ordinary weeks: weekly contract arrangements for offices, hotels, restaurants, salons and agents, approached in person with a sample in your hand rather than by email.

Get onto venue supplier lists and build relationships with planners and photographers so event work books a year ahead, sell subscriptions because nothing else smooths demand as well, and record every anniversary and birthday you deliver to so next year's order arrives by reminder. Keep the frontage abundant, photograph everything, and look after the funeral directors, because that work never stops and goes to whoever answers.