GET READY

Counting is a way of life in the flower shop. We count to 12 each time we vase a dozen roses, we count to make sure the right number of foliage placements are inserted into a recipe, and we count to make sure accurate exchange of money has transacted. These are just a few examples of counting in our daily activity at the shop. Someone counted the number of deliveries for a truck run to make sure everything that was supposed to be on board made it. Someone counted the amount of product to order to ensure a successful Valentine’s Day would occur. But now, comes the most important count of them all. It is called post holiday inventory.
After all the Valentine’s Day deliveries have been delivered, the only thing on most staff person’s minds is to get cleaned up and get home to a hot meal and put their feet up and try to forget the last few days of Valloween. While over time, it is easy to forget the long hours, the snagged delivery, the product challenges and what was left after everything was finished. This is a very vital piece of information for next year’s product consideration.
Did you have enough of some product, run short on others and worst case scenario, over order and get left with product that has too short of shelf life to carry over into the week. It seems that all our customers and staff persons are concerned about are red Roses. While they are important, remember there are lots of other products to keep under consideration.
Flowers should be counted by the stem for accuracy. Greens that are still bundled can be left that way and counted. While there is some consideration for the amount of foliage that was purchased, foliage generally has a longer shelf life so the margin of error has less of a consideration. The focus should be on the flowers with the shorter shelf life.
Once the inventory has been completed, now it is time to compare the remaining inventory number against the purchased number to evaluate the difference. If you “sold out” and have zero product left over, chances are you did not purchase enough product and probably lost potential sales due to lack of inventory. On the other hand, if you had more than 20% left, especially in high shrink expensive stems, you might want to pay close attention and start asking the ‘why did this happen’ question. Did the sales staff not suggest this offering? Did your customer base not embrace something you thought would be a great seller? There are lots of reasons featured bouquets sell or don’t and price is one of the considerations especially if you are in competition with low end mass market pricing. Check with your staff to gather feedback about items in question and be ready for some honest answers.
The ideal goal for remaining overage varies from shop to shop. Some people are comfortable with a 10 – 15 % overage. Others like to trim it closer to a 5-10% overage. You need to choose what works best for your operation and monitor the sales. With whatever you do carry over into the rest of the week, remember to move that product through and keep the margin up so you do not loose additional revenue. Make sure the rotation of first in; first out is happening in the cooler before new fresh product is brought in.