Floral professionals faced plenty of challenges last week, with a Friday Valentine’s Day on a long weekend. According to feedback from national companies and Society of American Florists volunteer leaders, however, the holiday turned out to be quite strong.

“This holiday was a total doozy,” said SAF Next-Gen Task Force Member Nicole Palazzo of City Line Florist in Trumbull, Connecticut. “We really expected to be slightly down, or at least flat, considering the holiday fell on a Friday.” Plus, she added, the shop experienced an “outrageously” good Valentine’s Day in 2019. “We thought there was no way we could top last year,” she said.

In fact, the shop ended Valentine’s Week with sales 15.5 percent higher than 2019 returns — and 70 percent higher than results from 2014 (the last time Valentine’s Day fell on a Friday). “Our average orders increased to $85,” Palazzo added. “It’s amazing to see how much we’ve grown.”

SAF Wholesalers Council Member Lenny Walker of Kennicott Brothers in Chicago said he’s heard similar stories from customers about surprisingly positive returns.

“The ‘Friday holiday’ mentality held some retail florist customers back, but most customers cleaned up very well and were happy with their performance,” he said, noting that Kennicott, too, saw increased sales over 2019. (He declined to compare to 2014 due to significant changes at the company, including outside acquisitions, in the intervening six years.)

Much of the company’s success, he added, came down to choosing the right partners, including farms and vendors.

“Let’s face it,” he added, “the amount of work that everyone does to help make this holiday successful is amazing.”

Challenges: Timing, Weather, Costs, Labor, Logistics 

While holiday results were generally positive, floral professionals that SAF reached out to this week also weighed in the challenges they faced this year, some familiar and some specific to 2020.

SAF Next-Gen Task Force Member Eileen Weber, AAF, of Lake Forest Flowers in Lake Forest, Illinois, said sales were about even with 2019 returns and up by about $3,000 from 2014. She said the biggest issues the shop faced included competition (“ always looming,” she noted); increased fresh product costs (up about 30 percent over last year for the business); timing of the holiday and the limitations posed by office and school closures, along with vacations; and (very) cold temps.

“Weather was brutal,” she said, noting the Lake Forest area experienced a snowstorm Feb. 12 and Feb. 13, along with a high of 11 F on Valentine’s Day. “ double and triple bagging the roses.”

The shop also experienced an unplanned phone and Internet outage  on Valentine’s Day. “The phones stopped ringing and only one line could be called out on,” Weber said. “Credit card processing was also interrupted for 2.5 hours. This was awful!  How much business did we lose? Only God will know.”

Weather was a factor for other businesses as well. SAF Board Member Patrick Busch of Len Busch Roses in Plymouth, Minnesota, said his area faced “two really cold days — 15 degrees below 0 F” around the holiday. Nonetheless, sales were up 10 percent this year, thanks in part to the acquisition of one “significant new customer,” and Busch called the holiday “a strong and successful Valentine’s.”

SAF Retailers Council member Brad Levy of Allen’s Flowers & Plants in San Diego said the shop’s holiday sales were up 8 percent compared to 2019 and 78 percent higher than results in 2014. The biggest barriers to additional sales? “Timed deliveries on Feb. 13 and 14,” he said. “We had to cut at a certain point.” Levy also said he saw a “major price increase in van rentals and delivery labor,” adding, however, that Allen’s adjusted its delivery charges to offset those higher costs.

Palazzo noted that online, the competition for customers was especially strong this year, with order-gatherers going “pretty heavy on pay-per-click” and other digital marketing strategies and national companies such as Farmgirl Flowers getting positive media coverage, which appealed to younger buyers.

At Welke’s Milwaukee Florist, SAF Retailers Council Member Nikki Lemler, AAF, said the shop’s biggest barrier  — beyond a snowstorm on Feb. 12 and single-digit temps — was space.

“Our biggest challenge is we have outgrown our buildings,” said Lemler, noting that the business saw sales increase by 3 percent from 2019 and 26 percent from 2014. “We run out of room and it bogs everything down from production, to wrapping to delivery.”

Opportunities and Surprises

The biggest surprise for many retailers seemed to relate to timing and volume, with shops that focused on driving early orders and deliveries seeing good results even as consumers trend toward more last-minute mentalities.

For her part, Weber noticed an uptick in big ticket, last-minute purchases. “ many large dollar purchases on Feb. 14,” she said.

At City Line, Palazzo and team increased the number of pre-wrapped bouquets  designed by staff and available for grab-and-go.

“That really saved our salespeople and staff time and took the pressure off,” she explained. “I especially liked them because someone from our store wrapped them and they were totally our look with the brown craft paper and hand-tied . They didn’t have a manufactured look at all.”

Levy noted, too, that Allen’s saw increased walk-in sales this year, compared to 2019 — a surprise outcome given that overall the store has seen a decrease in that segment.

SAF Next-Gen Task Force Member Carly Anechiarico of Blossom Flower Shops in Yonkers and White Plains, New York, said her family’s business saw an increase in early orders and deliveries, perhaps because of the long weekend (and her team’s effort to get in front of customers early).

“Valentine’s Day orders began coming in as early as the third week in January and were fairly consistent through the beginning of February,” she said. “This was logistically our best holiday in a very long time. We were staffed with a great design team, awesome processors and maintenance crews, and the best seasonal drivers we’ve had in a very long time.”

A number of florists also noted that the overall product quality was very high this year — and several, including SAF President Chris Drummond, AAF, PFCI, of Penny’s by Plaza Flowers in Philadelphia, said customer complaints were minimal, or even nonexistent. Drummond said he thinks the high bar for product is a positive reflection on the entire supply chain, including “post-harvest companies that continue to innovate” on products that extend desirable attributes, like longer vase life, that help increase customer satisfaction.

“I’m really proud of our industry and how far we’ve come,” Drummond said. “We received very few complaints in the days after Valentine’s Day. I’ve talked to other florists who’ve experienced the same thing – no complaints or very few. One jokingly wondered if his email was working, but the hard work we’ve all put in seems to be worth it. Consumers are getting a great product.”

 

National Company Returns

SAF also reached out this week to a number of national companies for preliminary holiday information.

At press time, the following companies had shared these results; look for updated results in future SAF publications:

 

• 1-800.Flowers.com. Kathleen Waugh, public relations vice president, reported that 1-800-Flowers.com “delivered more than 18 million stems” with roses remaining the “most popular product category.” Also popular this year: The Magnificent Rose line of preserved roses and “conversation roses” with phrases such as “I love you.” Waugh noted the company launched 3D and augmented reality functionality to its website prior to the holiday, “ web shoppers to preview top-selling arrangements in 3D and then in their own spaces. Waugh said the same positive sentiments were true for BloomNet florists overall. ” very pleased with the Valentine’s Day holiday,” she said.
• BloomNation. Gregg Weisstein, co-founder and COO of BlomNation, noted that while member florists were concerned about holiday timing before the event, “we found that most florists outperformed 2019 and even had an increase in average order value of nearly 3 percent.”
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  Nikki Lemler, AAF

  FTD. Tom Moeller, executive vice president, florist division, said FTD had “a great holiday” with “our largest Valentine’s Day since 2014, delivering over 70 percent more florist-filled orders into our network compared to last year.” He added that the “the average order value was more than $80, which increases order profitability” and said the company is “looking forward to a growth holiday for Mother’s Day, too.”

• Teleflora. Danielle Mason, vice president, consumer marketing, said Teleflora and its member florists “experienced a very profitable Valentine’s Day. Despite the holiday falling on President’s Day Weekend when many consumers are on vacation, florists experienced a very strong Thursday and Friday leading up to the holiday.” Mason added that “florists that continue to invest in eCommerce, technology and marketing” were best “prepared to take advantage of a late-breaking holiday.”
• UrbanStems. While Seth Goldman, CEO of UrbanStems, could not share “specific numbers,” he said the company “saw very strong growth in all markets.”

SAF is sending a full holiday survey to its members this week. Look for more holiday coverage in future SAF publications.

Mary Westbrook is the editor in chief of Floral Management.