I decided I needed to invest in myself if I was serious about getting educated so I took out a subscription to Florists Review, the floral industry's trade magazine. Every month, my lovely glossy magazine filled with great ideas, information and inspiration arrives but what is very exciting for me is their website. That is where I discovered that I can read Past Issues of the magazine online - very cool - and where I found a series of six articles by Kenneth Royer on the subject of Florists in Crisis.
I had always been a huge fan of Kenneth Royer when he was a columnist for Florists Review years ago. He really had his finger on the button back then and I knew I had found the mother lode when I found the first of six articles in the Nov 2009 issue.
He laid it all out giving a marvelous overview of the tsunami of events that occurred over the years resulting in the crisis that befell many floral shops starting in 2005 and the recession that followed. The changing nature of holidays like Easter, the drop off in the demand for funeral flowers, the influx of cheap flowers from South America, the loss of market share to the grocery stores, the order gatherers, the internet and not to mention their own wire services. He sums it up so poignantly when he says the flower shops were selling something that the customer didn't want - they wanted plain and simple flowers but the florists wanted to sell them big beautiful expensive arrangements.
In the final articles he offers his solutions to all who will take his advice. It's the same advice he offered in 1989 when he published his book Retailing Flowers Profitably. In my opinion that was not well received because it was not glamorous. He talked about cost of goods and budgets and labor reductions. He used terms like "arrangers" versus "designers" and recommended using recipes so as to control costs. He realized he needed to rein in creativity in order to stay in business.
I have been told that it must be like "therapy" working in a flower shop or like working in "God's Garden" Yes, I love what I do and I'm so sad to see all the talented florists who have lost everything .
Kenneth Royers book and another by Peter Pfahl should be required reading for any creative person thinking of getting in to the floral business.
Like no other, it is not for the faint hearted. It's time to reinvent ourselves and to get back in the saddle.
