 What would it mean to
your florist's activity if you could predict the sales of cut
flowers more closely than ever before?
With such perishable stock,
the florist knows better than any retailer how important it is
to avoid losses.
Cut flowers are delicate things,
often transported over long distances before reaching your outlet
to be sold.
Wilting flowers are a loss,
cutting into your profit margin deeply and painfully.
Yet it is difficult to predict
the sales of your cut flower retailing establishment. Certain
days of the year are such that we know there's going to be guaranteed
demand... but even on those days of great sales, there's a dilemma
with ordering stock.
How much stock should you order?
One can never know for certain.
What if it is too little and
you end up selling nothing on the day when the demand is huge?
But then again... what if you order too much and must then just
watch the excess perish, your valuable stock wilting away before
your eyes?
No doubt about one thing:
Any increase in the
degree of CERTAINTY with which you can PREDICT sales is extremely
valuable.
Having advance certainty on
sales on any given day or week translates into smaller risk of
losses through perishing of the stock.
Any knowledge of assured demand
for flowers before the fact will allow you to diminish the margin
of error and increase the accuracy of your sales and thus bring
more profit.
Well, nothing spectacular there,
of course... every florist knows the vital importance of minimising
stock losses and the importance of selling stock in time.
But how do you achieve a state
of increased sales prediction for your florist's establishment?
Moving into
the trade of advance flower deliveries
The answer to better sales
prediction — and thus minimising losses through perishing
of the stock — lies in being able to attract advance delivery
orders for your flower arrangements.
Now, I'm not talking about
those Internet-based enterprises whose idea is to collect orders
online and then relay these to a local florist.
Their cut is heavy, your profits
low... and the advance notice you receive is often far too short
to give any meaningful advantage in predicting demand so you
could order stock more accurately.
Also, the Internet trade is
bent toward lower-cost stock since the Internet is "bargain-basement-oriented"
— it's known for great bargains so people expect to get
everything dirt cheap online.
No, I'm not talking about the
low end of the blossom trade here at all, quite the contrary.
I mean the high end
of the florist's crafts and business.
The high end market for cut
flowers is the trickier one for the florist simply because higher
price involves the risk of bigger losses if wastage comes to
play.
The more expensive flowers
do not sell in similar quantities as the low-end ones due to
the price so it can be risky to order those.
But what if you could amass
a forever increasing list of customers who pre-order their flower
deliveries and WANT the more luxurious high-end blossoms?
What if each customer
would order 5-12 annual deliveries in advance, each delivery
signed and sealed... and without the possibility of cancellation?
What if, within a few months,
you could have flower delivery orders for practically every day,
several on the best days... and you knew these weeks or even
months in advance?
And, if you continued acquiring
these specific advance-order customers, what if you had several
hundred deliveries monthly in a couple of years, each delivery
known well in advance so you could order stock without risk?
Would that help you to predict
sales and diminish wastage?
I suppose it would and could.
But let's add yet another element into this equation...
Adding another
safeguard against loss of cut flower stock
Now this business plan of securing
customers who'll give you advance flower delivery orders is quite
something because it's not difficult to set up, it's easy to
keep going... and the results just keep coming in and increasing
month after month.
And it terms of accurate prediction
of sales, it offers yet another measure you can benefit from
by greatly diminishing losses through perishing of stock.
This is a formidable tool for
any florist and gaining this advantage requires some specific
actions... but more of that later.
Here's the advantage you
could acquire:
What if you could actually
UTILIZE your on-site flower stock more according to your own
decisions, as opposed to being forced to sell a specific type
of flower or nothing at all?
What if you could
REPLACE this flower for that, all according to what STOCK you
have in the shop at that moment?
It's a nice kind of "replacing
like for like" concept because "like" here means
WHAT YOU LIKE and not "similar or identical as a product."
I'm talking about the ability
to create the flower arrangements FREELY so that you can use
ANY kind of flowers you LIKE.
It would require another
type of customer than the typical walk-in.
While the walk-in customers
can be sold an alternative, they're often fixed with an idea.
Fellow walks into your flower
shop, asks for roses... and if you don't have them OR he doesn't
like the look of what you have... well, he's just going to walk
to the next florist and you've lost a sale, right?
But unlike the walk-in customer,
the advance-order clients would let YOU create a work of art,
leaving the decisions of the composition (and contents) of each
bouquet up to your expertise — what type of flower, how
many, and so on — and you're only bound by a general PRICE
LEVEL of the end result...
...price level which,
if I may add, would be significantly higher than the average
purchase made by walk-in customers.
No doubt you can imagine the
possibilities that such freedom of using your stock could bring
about in terms of winning the forever-ongoing battle against
wastage.
Of course such high-end flower
orders would also give you the freedom to create to your hearths
content and thus more motivation as a florist, but that's really
beside the point here.
The subject of the article
is being able to predict flower sales more accurately, so let's
stick with that.
So, what do you think about
the idea?
If you have advance orders
for bouquets to be delivered, arrangements which YOU create according
to a loose set of instructions (which allow you to replace like
for like — meaning what YOU like)... and had several such
delivery orders every day...
...would that help you to
maximize the utilization of your stock day to day?
Well, I suppose that was a
silly question as the answer is obvious — of course it would.
It would help you use your stock to the fullest and minimise
the chance of losses.
In fact, you could pretty
much play the stock in the flower shop any way you wanted, maximising
your income to the fullest.
You could leave stock that
you know is more likely to sell to the walk-in trade in the shop...
and creating flower arrangements for your advance orders from
flowers that might not sell so well to the regular customer.
It would all be up to you.
It would offer you a WIDE range
of utilizations of stock, maximization of sellable flowers...
a powerful weapon for minimising losses and maximising profits
at a level of which your local competitors could only dream...
So, how can you achieve a state
of things where you have lots of advance orders of flower deliveries,
most of which will be high-end bouquets you can create according
to your own choice?
Selling the
SERVICE and KNOWHOW of the florist instead of "flowers"
The answer lies in creating
an added-value florist service that concentrates on finding
those customers who need your expertise and service AND who will
APPRECIATE SERVICE.
This well-to-do target audience
has the income to pay for luxury service.
They have the largesse and
willingness to go for showing their devotion and admiration toward
their spouse.
They have the cultivated refinement
needed to understand QUALITY, to comprehend the concept of excellence
and not go below the standards.
They're fully aware of their
wife's expensive taste as well as their own inability to choose
the perfect flower arrangement that would create the best impression
on her.
But they're also busy businessmen
with gruelling schedules and hectic lifestyles, so they forget
to do the right thing and feel bad about it.
And that's why they
will truly appreciate the SERVICE and KNOWHOW of the florist
who has the insight to offer it to them... you.
These are customers who would
order 5-12 annual deliveries in advance, each arrangement to
be created by you and according to your choice because they're
buying your SERVICE and KNOWHOW, not "flowers."
"Flowers" are sold
in your shop.
But your florist's expertise
and knowhow aren't, because you're giving these for free...
and because the service is "free" the walk-in customers
don't really see its value.
But the businessmen will because
that's what they're buying — your expertise and knowhow,
combined with a luxury service that delivers a highly valuable
commodity.
Another bit of good
news is that since this target audience buys an added-value florist
SERVICE, the profit margin you can acquire here is far greater
than what's possible with the walk-in clientele.
Thus, if you want to increase
your ability to predict sales, diminish the chance of losses
AND increase your profits, then this is the route to take.
Now, the way to achieve this
is not difficult but you will need exact instructions on how
to do it.
However, because the method
of achieving it is so precise and the instructions of use so
detailed, we cannot publish them on a web site.
Instead, we've documented the
whole system and all the ready-to-use tools in form of a manual
we call the Florist's Flower Power Business Expansion Guide.
CLICK HERE
to read the presentation of the Florist's Flower Power Guide
and learn how you can predict your flower sales and diminish
loss of your stock!
In the final analysis,
any improvement in utilizing your stock will directly influence
your profits and prosperity in a very beneficial manner.
The cruel law of competition
dictates that someone in your local area will take a tumble sooner
or later... and if you take the steps required to increase profits
and income then you can guarantee it won't be you.
The secret of accuracy of flower
sales prediction is the key to a high degree of viability for
your florist's establishment and it will lift your profitability
far beyond of that of your competitors!
Best wishes,
HDK
Consultants Ltd
32 Manning Close
Richmond Square
East Grinstead RH19 2DR
West Sussex
United Kingdom (England)
Tel. 01342-328 116
Int: +44-1342-328-116
CONTACT FORM |
|
How to overcome the limitations of the location of your flower shop?
florist
How to get more appreciation and
acknowledgment for your artistry and skill as a florist?
margin
for years to come?
Predicting
your flower sales far more accurately than currently...
What will be the value
of your cut flower retail business when it's time to cash in
your life's work? Will it be enough?