Curing The Summertime Blues

When talking to florists around the country, there are two challenges that seem to be shared by everyone. One is the challenge of staffing and the other is how can I promote flowers during such a long time when there are no floral holidays. Both are major concerns that impact the financial success of many small businesses.
Staffing seems to be a major challenge. Most flower shop staff continually for the holiday periods and are left wondering what to do with the ‘excess staff’ during the non holiday times. When looking closely at the yearly calendar, most floral holidays happen within a six month time frame. Starting with Thanksgiving and ending with Mother’s Day. Those are the times that as much as 72% of the shops revenue is generated for the year. While there may be busy event times within the other six months, most of the income is generated within the six moths of holidays. The challenge is either finding staff that can and are willing to work for six months and then be on hiatus for six months or to find ways to generate new sources of income to balance the payroll expenses that occur during non holiday times. While no one likes to be let go, some shops have a general reduction across the board that affects everyone during June through November. If everyone shares a 30 -40% reduction in hours, then often it keeps the staff intact during the lean times. Factor in vacations and other time off requests and it lessens the payroll strain. Worse case scenario is someone is temporarily laid off until the business picks back up. Unfortunately, this is often the difference between being profitable and having a loss at the year end.
While the non holidays do create a reduction in income, finding clever ways to keep business coming in can be a challenge. Here are some ideas that other florists have shared and found to be successful.
Have a “Cure the Summertime Blues” event. This is where all blue flowers and containers are on sale half off. You can also ’Blue Tag’ some items in your store that may not be moving and include them in your sale area. Set up a special area and merchandise it well to present this special promotion.
Borrow a dog house and have a “Dog Days of Summer” promotion. Again, set up an area in the store and have some clever merchandising to display the items on sale. Have your customers send in pictures of their dogs and have a cutest or a face only a mother could love dog promotion on your web site and let your customers vote to determine the winner. Perhaps the winner could receive a gift card from you shop as a prize.
For the 4th of July, have a “Red, White and Blooms’ promotion .Feature several price points of arrangements that feature a patriotic theme. This could also feature a special price on mixed red and white Roses and a featured item of the week. Add a blue ribbon and you have an explosive Feature of the Week!
The tried and true “Christmas in July” promotion is a forced way to visit any remaining past holiday merchandise and to start thinking forward. Set up a lit and slightly decorated tree in the showroom and wrap boxes of sale merchandise to place under it. Customers can then either by a box for $5.00 or you can let them choose a box with every $50.00 purchase. While you are wrapping slow moving merchandise, start planning your holiday promotions and even get a jump start on some permanent holiday stylings. This is also a good time to connect with past holiday customers to confirm this year’s commitment and start securing new clients for this year as well.
A great way to generate foot traffic is to host a design class where customers provide their own flowers. For a nominal fee, the attendees get a vase and an assortment of foliages. Show them how to arrange their flowers and then offer discounts on purchases made that evening or for a limited time in the future. Remember the idea is to generate foot traffic and expose them to all the other beautiful design work in the shop, so make sure everything is ‘Company Ready’.
While summer may have some slow periods, keeping the shop active and busy will make the summer less painful and may be even enjoyful!
Talk to your Account Manager for promotions that you can pass along to your customers.