For those who could be open for business, Mother’s Day 2020 came on strong — despite unprecedented challenges and a host of unknowns. What does the holiday have to teach floral industry members about successful strategies going forward? Flexibility is key, lean operations are here to stay — and industry partnerships and strategic marketing have never been more important.

Those are some of the key takeaways from a May 28 online SAF Leadership Exchange, which included  panelists reporting on lessons learned from the retailer, wholesaler and grower perspectives.

“If I were asked to describe this month in one word, that word would be innovate,” said SAF President Chris Drummond, AAF, PFCI, of Penny’s by Plaza Flowers, who moderated the session. “All of us have faced unprecedented circumstances and the previous procedures that we followed became obsolete. We were forced to innovate on the fly. There was no time for beta testing: We had to maximize our sales, productivity, our safety and more” in a matter of days — and sometimes hours.

The online session was an opportunity for the industry to take a step back and review some of those innovations and how they apply to summer and fall operations, Drummond added.

An important holiday note: During an incredibly challenging period the holiday itself was a bright spot for many, one that could suggest pent-up demand for future sales. “Something unleashed in the consumer a desire to give flowers,” said panelist and SAF board member Patrick Busch, second-generation owner and CEO of Len Busch Roses, a Minnesota-based grower and wholesale distributor. “That desire is always there. How do we tap into it all the time?”

Making Do with Less

Getting more done with fewer people was the top challenge for many. Cross-training and labor-sharing were among the solutions. At Radebaugh Florist and Greenhouses in Towson, Maryland, SAF board member Kaitlin Radebaugh, AAF, had eight designers on hand, including herself — half what she would normally have for Mother’s Day.

“We didn’t have time or staff to do the double production lines that we usually do, greening first, then adding flowers,” Radebaugh reported. “Instead we did one line. It worked so smoothly! We will definitely keep that — I will never run lines the same way.”

She also made changes to her phone system and procedures, with four staffers taking phone calls at home. Prior to the pandemic, she had already begun setting some employees up to be able to log in to the shop’s computer system and work the phones from home. It required a financial investment, but Radebaugh sees it as money well spent, and not only because of COVID-19: “We are in the Northeast,” she said, noting that weather can create hurdles to productivity there, especially in the winter. “Bring on the snow!”

She has also made sure that everyone on staff is trained to answer the phone and take orders. “Originally, we would answer the phone, then direct calls to greenhouse, the sales queue, or the design room,” she said. “Now the phones ring everywhere. There can be a bit of a delay with the calls getting to the girls working remotely, so we wait three times before picking up in the design center. But it works: everyone can be a sales associate.”

Cut flowers were and continue to be in the pipeline — but with an uncertain forecast during the weeks and months ahead, many growers did have trouble ramping up for Mother’s Day. At wholesale distributor DVFlora, customers who would have relied in the past on standing orders and open inventory were assisted with options for drop shipping, typically featuring small box units that require less handling — all facilitated by the company’s grower-direct program, according to procurement vice president Tim Dewey, a member of SAF’s Wholesalers Council.

 

Turning Abundance into Profits

Sometimes you have less product than you want, sometimes more. Time to get creative with the product line. With a big surplus of Easter lilies, the Busch team combined the lilies with other blooming plants into a lavish spring Bloom Box that retail florist customers could sell as is or break down. The promotion was successful, with up to 5,000 boxes sold.

To use up inventory of Minnesota-grown cut flowers that they normally would sell in bulk, Len Busch Roses retooled their bouquet production, creating a Minnesota-grown bouquet that is now a well-established everyday item in the line.

At Radebaugh Florist, the retail shop — closed to in-store traffic — was well stocked with gift items. Knowing that Mother’s Day is a gifting holiday, Radebaugh upped her gift-basket offerings to include spa crates loaded with candles and bath products, a quarantine crate with fruit and cheese, and a best-selling “home-school hero” crate for moms who have taken on teaching duties.

Overall, however — with fewer helpers and less product on hand — this Mother’s Day reinforced the practical wisdom of offering fewer choices to customers. “We trimmed down the amount of product we had on our website,” said Radebaugh. “We always do that for Mother’s Day, but this year we needed to do it earlier. And the customers rolled with that. No custom work: we never did that before. We always say yes. It’s OK to say no. As florists, we have a stronger ability to control the sale than we think.”

Making Connections

Not surprisingly, online communications were more important than ever this holiday — and more rewarding. Nearly half of all Mother’s Day orders came through on a shop website, according to an SAF post-holiday member survey — a statistic that would be normal for some shops, above average for others.

Busch found himself doing webinars for retail florist customers: some on the use of social media, one on the Paycheck Protection Program, another on how to do a plant auction, a concept that was successful. “Some of those things we’ll be able to carry into the future,” he noted.

“We’ve seen a much higher engagement with emails” ever since the beginning of the pandemic, said SAF board member Liza Roeser of FiftyFlowers, an online wholesale boutique that launched in 2003, specializing in flowers for weddings and events. When the pandemic took her business down to zero, she and her team pivoted, radically adapting her product line and service model to accommodate Mother’s Day demand. Text-message marketing is among the new tools they are now exploring.

Asked about the outlook for weddings and events, Roeser and Radebaugh agreed that it remains unpredictable, with clients wanting to reschedule, ever further into the future. Roeser did note a trend to smaller, more intimate, at-home weddings that still include a lavish flower budget. To this point, Drummond added the observation that where people could not have public funerals, they are often now planning elaborate celebration of life services for a later time, perhaps in August.

For Roeser and others on the panel, one of the most valuable Mother’s Day lessons was simply this: Success in the flower business is all about relationships — with customers, with vendors, and with employees. The more you invest in those relationships, the stronger you’ll be.

“Creating a true partnership with all those people is the secret sauce for success,” said Roeser: If you support them, they will in turn support you. That may include even your competitors, said Busch: “Think of them as colleagues. Consumers want to buy flowers and share flowers more than ever. All we have to do is find ways to make that possible. If we work together at all levels of the industry, I see us coming out as stronger than ever before.”

Read more about Mother’s Day results via SAF’s coverage of its member survey and consumer poll.

Bruce Wright is a contributing writer to the Society of American Florists.