Any advice and mentorsip available for a florist and gift business??

I am trying to find professional advice and a mentor to find additional stratgies to keep my florist and gift shop afloat. Any suggestions would be appreciated A.S.A.P!!!

Any advice and mentorsip available for a florist and gift business??
I am assuming you are having serious money problems right now, so I will give you some down and dirty advice to turn around your shop ASAP.


Your first priority is to pay your wholesalers, pay your rent, pay the wire services, and then pay your self in that order.


Are you a florist? If your Gross sales are under $300000 (if your sales are above 300K then you have a purchasing/Sell through problem, Different set of problems), fire all your employees after mother’s day, with exception of the Driver. Hire a young happy/bouncy high school girl for after school 3 days a week and pay them $6.00 per hour (or minimum wage if your state has a higher Minimum Wage). Trained Florists can be paid good money, and that will eat at the bottom line. Do the work yourself, Put in the long hours needed. The Happy Bouncy high school girl will, more then likely have lots of friends and she will tell here friends where she works, you will get prom corsage / Boutonniere work out of here, Maybe graduation work. Word of mouth is cheap advertising.


If you are not a florist, learn… Ask your best designer to show you, every day. Holidays are coming and it’s best to have a second or third hand in the shop.


Expand your hours. You should be working at a min from 9am to 6:30pm Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Thursdays and Fridays 9am to 7pm (a lot of people get paid on Thursdays). Saturdays 9 to 5 Sundays (yes Sundays) 10-1.


90% of all advertising done to florist is for gifts, but only 10% of your sales will come form gifts. Stop buying gift items, No Silks either – A silk arrangement is a one-time sale you need repeat sales.


No Billing %26amp; No checks – Credit cards and Cash only. Certain People you will have to bill, Schools townships, Fire deptments ECT. No Personal billing. You cannot go into a supermarket or burger king and say bill me. People never want to pay after the flowers are delivered.


If you have billed people and there behind, call them and nicely ask for payment. Remember it’s your money.


For the people that you have to bill, Send the bill right away, do not what until the end of the month, The quicker you bill the quicker you’ll get paid.


Buy fewer flowers, Remember to buy only the amount of flowers that you can sell in 2-3 days. More frequent buying will translate into fresher flowers. Fresher flowers will mean repeat customers.


Limit special orders, Your customer wants a orchid corsage for tomorrow and you don’t have any flowers coming up, Tell them no, If it’s for later in the week or you do have flowers coming up then sure, but if you have to pay $6.50 to $8.00 for shipping of stem of orchids that you got $20.00 for a corsage, You lost money.


Limit your delivery area and your delivery times; this one is hard without knowing where you are. I keep my driver on form 10 to 2 every day (No Deliveries on Sundays), Later during holidays. Things will come up that I will make some deliveries my self after hours, but I do not make it a rule.


Get rid of Wire services. If your sales are 300k or under you should really only have one service Teleflora or FTD. You only make 70 cents on the dollar, so if you get lots of incoming, but can’t send the 20 order min per service then it will cost you $10 to $22 per order received, depending on service. Take net $ orders received and divide by fees. See for yourself.


Be honest with people about what you can and cannot do. If you cannot make an arrangement for them in the next ten minutes, tell them. Or if you do not have enough pink flowers to make an all pink bouquet. Tell them, but also give them suggestions of what you can do. Always let the customers make the final decision.


Sell what you got, special order only when you have to.


Control waste. When I went to florist school they would tell us to dump the garbage on the floor at the end of the night, too see what your florist are throwing out and make arrangements out of the good scrap. Never sell Garbage (past there prime or blooms missing petals) flowers and never display garbage flowers.


Turn on the lights; your place should be so bright that there is no question that you are open.


Clean the glass, vacuum the floor every night.


Limit your sales / specials – Constant sales will give your store the perception of low quality.


Buy seasonal flowers, Don’t get stuck on the names of the flowers unless it’s a wedding, You need pink roses ask your wholesaler for pink roses not livia, pecabo or titanic. You are looking for price, If the product is bad, send it back – But your wholesaler will expect you to take up to a 10% loss if you are buying by the box, If you are complaining about a few roses out of 300 then they will charge you more next time because you don’t know what your doing.


Remember cheaper flower prices for the customer will in the long run mean more sales for you in the long run.


I hope this was helpful, and not to much of a ramble. Peter
Reply:Retail is brutal. First, figure out your breakeven. How much do you have to sell each day/hour just to restock and keep the lights on? With that number, figure out where you are gonna get the sales. The most important asset that you have is your customer list. You have a customer list, right? If not, you will need to build one - fast. Look for all the ways to collect customer info - credit card receipts, checks, business cards, sign up sheets for mailings/newsletters, etc. It is much cheaper and easier to sell to existing customers than acquirig new customers. Everything else is noise and should be avoided until you are on safe footing.