Differentiate Yourself!
Seven ways to make your shop’s work stand out.
[an exerpt from the July 2009 issue of Flowers& magazine]
How do you compete in today’s economy? The first rule is: Pick your battles. Compete in the arena where you as an independent, professional retail florist have a fighting chance. Don’t try to offer the same kinds of arrangements that consumers can buy for less from mass-market retailers at the supermarket or on the Internet.
You’re a professional, with professional design skills that add value to the arrangements you create. The challenge is to make sure consumers recognize that value.
“Very often from the consumer perspective there is no differentiation between what retail florists do and the mass market,” says designer and educator René van Rems AIFD. Sometimes both follow trends that are set by “do it yourselfers” like Martha Stewart. As an example, many florists are emphasizing “mass” over “line” design. Make no mistake—mass arrangements can be sophisticated, special, and in demand with discriminating customers. But mass merchandisers resort to them because a certain type of mass design is easy, whereas line design requires more skill, and creates value using fewer materials. This is where professional designers can shine.
Here are a few specific ideas about the kind of design that can carve a market niche for professional florists.
1. Know your customers.
Design for specific styles of home décor that you know to be popular in your area, with the customers who are your target market. You can still go a little wild: for example, you can use flowers that aren’t exactly “French country,” but the colors and containers you choose can make them well-suited to a home that’s done in French country or a similar style.
2. Start with a style-sensitive container.
Be ready to offer customers décor containers as an alternative to ubiquitous, all-purpose “commodity” containers. “Commodity” here means a generic product that’s likely to be evaluated by the consumer in terms of price, rather than style or value; it’s a concept to remember! Décor containers can still be quite affordable yet distinctive.
3. Differentiate “standard” orders with your choice of materials.
Choose special, non-“commodity” flowers—or, use standard flowers in combination with non-standard foliages. Combine flowers in a different way. “It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do with it,” says René.
4. Marry your flowers and container.
You’ve selected these with your customers and your shop’s distinctive style in mind; now make sure they work together with a harmonious blend of colors and texture. For example, a birch-bark container with a waxy finish can be matched with the waxy texture of dendrobiums, anthuriums, and leucodendron.
5. Add value with height and vertical line.
It’s still true, and always will be: height equals perceived value. This value comes with fewer insertions than in mass design. It’s a style of design that mass marketers can’t imitate; only professional shops that offer “hand-arranged, hand-delivered” designs can really pull it off. Note how these principles tie together. Flowers with longer stems are considered higher grade. Generally their blooms are also larger; they may cost more, but the quality and value are evident.
6. Take advantage of what floral foam has to offer.
Namely, control of positioning of the stems, and more show with fewer materials. Some designs would be unthinkable without floral foam, which enables their stately height and intriguing display of flower shapes.
7. Minimize insertions.
This last point is not so much a principle of style as of profitability. Selling your design expertise—and charging for it—doesn’t have to mean taking more labor time. On the contrary: using a range of sophisticated techniques, a skilled designer should be able to make a splash using fewer materials and less labor time. Again: in taller, foam-based designs, you can get more show out of just one insertion. And don’t think you need to add a lot of foliage just to cover the foam, which can be achieved in variety of ways, with minimal insertions.
See photos to match these points in the July 2009 issue of Flowers& magazine, available now.
Seven ways to make your shop’s work stand out.
[an exerpt from the July 2009 issue of Flowers& magazine]
How do you compete in today’s economy? The first rule is: Pick your battles. Compete in the arena where you as an independent, professional retail florist have a fighting chance. Don’t try to offer the same kinds of arrangements that consumers can buy for less from mass-market retailers at the supermarket or on the Internet.
You’re a professional, with professional design skills that add value to the arrangements you create. The challenge is to make sure consumers recognize that value.
“Very often from the consumer perspective there is no differentiation between what retail florists do and the mass market,” says designer and educator René van Rems AIFD. Sometimes both follow trends that are set by “do it yourselfers” like Martha Stewart. As an example, many florists are emphasizing “mass” over “line” design. Make no mistake—mass arrangements can be sophisticated, special, and in demand with discriminating customers. But mass merchandisers resort to them because a certain type of mass design is easy, whereas line design requires more skill, and creates value using fewer materials. This is where professional designers can shine.
Here are a few specific ideas about the kind of design that can carve a market niche for professional florists.
1. Know your customers.
Design for specific styles of home décor that you know to be popular in your area, with the customers who are your target market. You can still go a little wild: for example, you can use flowers that aren’t exactly “French country,” but the colors and containers you choose can make them well-suited to a home that’s done in French country or a similar style.
2. Start with a style-sensitive container.
Be ready to offer customers décor containers as an alternative to ubiquitous, all-purpose “commodity” containers. “Commodity” here means a generic product that’s likely to be evaluated by the consumer in terms of price, rather than style or value; it’s a concept to remember! Décor containers can still be quite affordable yet distinctive.
3. Differentiate “standard” orders with your choice of materials.
Choose special, non-“commodity” flowers—or, use standard flowers in combination with non-standard foliages. Combine flowers in a different way. “It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do with it,” says René.
4. Marry your flowers and container.
You’ve selected these with your customers and your shop’s distinctive style in mind; now make sure they work together with a harmonious blend of colors and texture. For example, a birch-bark container with a waxy finish can be matched with the waxy texture of dendrobiums, anthuriums, and leucodendron.
5. Add value with height and vertical line.
It’s still true, and always will be: height equals perceived value. This value comes with fewer insertions than in mass design. It’s a style of design that mass marketers can’t imitate; only professional shops that offer “hand-arranged, hand-delivered” designs can really pull it off. Note how these principles tie together. Flowers with longer stems are considered higher grade. Generally their blooms are also larger; they may cost more, but the quality and value are evident.
6. Take advantage of what floral foam has to offer.
Namely, control of positioning of the stems, and more show with fewer materials. Some designs would be unthinkable without floral foam, which enables their stately height and intriguing display of flower shapes.
7. Minimize insertions.
This last point is not so much a principle of style as of profitability. Selling your design expertise—and charging for it—doesn’t have to mean taking more labor time. On the contrary: using a range of sophisticated techniques, a skilled designer should be able to make a splash using fewer materials and less labor time. Again: in taller, foam-based designs, you can get more show out of just one insertion. And don’t think you need to add a lot of foliage just to cover the foam, which can be achieved in variety of ways, with minimal insertions.
See photos to match these points in the July 2009 issue of Flowers& magazine, available now.
