Do you bait and switch?

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Fascinating. In the UK a 40cm rose is considered a supermarket rose and therefore 60cm (or 65 if it's Colombian as they don't include the head in the measure) is a standard and 70/80 the one we sell for top end designs. and prices. WOW! Such a differential. A dozen short red in the UK is miniumum $80 plus delivery while a decent bouquet will be circa $120 -$180 depending if it's 80cm Passion or Red Naomi
 
fairfield said:
How much do you pay for 80cm from your local wholesaler?
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i don't buy from a local wholesaler. the closest wholesale house is Albuquerque and thats 4.5 hour drive away!! i have my roses fed exd in from miami. i wont tell you how much i pay but it's WAY under a dollar, and the fed ex charge is only $20. the roses are great, big, strong and we process them well. some varieties we will get 3 weeks out of them.

As far as people saying that they can't compete with kabloom, baloney! every shop in every city i've ever worked says the same thing. "our customers wont pay, we are small town, blah blah blah" BS!!!

take the store i managed before this one for instance. when i went to work there in 2001 their average order was $25.00. i don't like to do $25.00 orders. The owner went on and on about how no one would pay more. I told her to trust me. She did and 5 years later our average sale was $70! yep, $70.

The store where I am now, similar thing, except their average was about $35 to $40. And roses were about $60 I think. Now roses are $75.00 and we do tons of $100 or better EVERYDAY!

I don't care if you're in Beverly hills or a seaside town were everybody fishes for a living, or a mining town. It doesn't matter. If you show people a WONDERFUL product, they will pay.

We rarely use BB or Misty. our roses are big and fab with lush greens, sometimes we use willow or kiwi in them sometimes not, but they always look super fancy and not like they came from kabloom!

Also, we charge the same amount even if they are wrapped. if you want to know why i'll tell you later.

shannon knows her stuff! not to say that you all don't, but i've resurrected dead shops.
keep in mind the shop before this one, when i started this country was going through a recession!
 
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shannonlovesflowers said:
i don't buy from a local wholesaler. the closest wholesale house is Albuquerque and thats 4.5 hour drive away!! i have my roses fed exd in from miami. i wont tell you how much i pay but it's WAY under a dollar, and the fed ex charge is only $20. the roses are great, big, strong and we process them well. some varieties we will get 3 weeks out of them.

As far as people saying that they can't compete with kabloom, baloney! every shop in every city i've ever worked says the same thing. "our customers wont pay, we are small town, blah blah blah" BS!!!

take the store i managed before this one for instance. when i went to work there in 2001 their average order was $25.00. i don't like to do $25.00 orders. The owner went on and on about how no one would pay more. I told her to trust me. She did and 5 years later our average sale was $70! yep, $70.

The store where I am now, similar thing, except their average was about $35 to $40. And roses were about $60 I think. Now roses are $75.00 and we do tons of $100 or better EVERYDAY!

I don't care if you're in Beverly hills or a seaside town were everybody fishes for a living, or a mining town. It doesn't matter. If you show people a WONDERFUL product, they will pay.

We rarely use BB or Misty. our roses are big and fab with lush greens, sometimes we use willow or kiwi in them sometimes not, but they always look super fancy and not like they came from kabloom!

Also, we charge the same amount even if they are wrapped. if you want to know why i'll tell you later.

shannon knows her stuff! not to say that you all don't, but i've resurrected dead shops.
keep in mind the shop before this one, when i started this country was going through a recession!
Click to expand...

Have a nice day, Shannon :)
 
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shannonlovesflowers said:
shannon knows her stuff! not to say that you all don't, but i've resurrected dead shops.
keep in mind the shop before this one, when i started this country was going through a recession!
Click to expand...

Gee, it looks like the politicians chose the wrong woman canidate! :poke:
 
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Twila said:
Gee, it looks like the politicians chose the wrong woman canidate! :poke:
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hope that was ment as a complement.

I know I totally sound like a "smarty pants" really truly i'm not. I just feel like if something is not working for a person/shop, perhaps it's time to re-think what you're doing.

I know in my heart of heart that I put a lot of effort in the stores i work for. I'm very dedicated. i always promise results, and I always deliver.

don't get me wrong, we have our slumps and bumps but i try to learn from them and adjust.

someone in this thread said they couldn't figure out why all the sudden their rose sales are falling short. and that was just my 2 cents. I say do it better and bigger than the competition and people will take notice.

I ask this question:
what sets your store apart from your competion????
 
shannonlovesflowers said:
i don't buy from a local wholesaler. the closest wholesale house is Albuquerque and thats 4.5 hour drive away!! i have my roses fed exd in from miami. i wont tell you how much i pay but it's WAY under a dollar, and the fed ex charge is only $20. the roses are great, big, strong and we process them well. some varieties we will get 3 weeks out of them.

As far as people saying that they can't compete with kabloom, baloney! every shop in every city i've ever worked says the same thing. "our customers wont pay, we are small town, blah blah blah" BS!!!

take the store i managed before this one for instance. when i went to work there in 2001 their average order was $25.00. i don't like to do $25.00 orders. The owner went on and on about how no one would pay more. I told her to trust me. She did and 5 years later our average sale was $70! yep, $70.

The store where I am now, similar thing, except their average was about $35 to $40. And roses were about $60 I think. Now roses are $75.00 and we do tons of $100 or better EVERYDAY!

I don't care if you're in Beverly hills or a seaside town were everybody fishes for a living, or a mining town. It doesn't matter. If you show people a WONDERFUL product, they will pay.

We rarely use BB or Misty. our roses are big and fab with lush greens, sometimes we use willow or kiwi in them sometimes not, but they always look super fancy and not like they came from kabloom!

Also, we charge the same amount even if they are wrapped. if you want to know why i'll tell you later.

shannon knows her stuff! not to say that you all don't, but i've resurrected dead shops.
keep in mind the shop before this one, when i started this country was going through a recession!
Click to expand...

Well Shannon,
We are equally as great....The shop in Brookline was dying a slow death. I took that place out of the red and into the black in less than 2 years...I can sell icecubes to an escimo most times....I have taken my shop from a dying business and doubled the yearly biz in just 2 years. I did and do have 70 cm roses in stock. I too have a great supplier and pay at least .25 less 70cm as I would for 50cm out of Boston...The problem is the people don't see the value here, as I said. The only time they buy them is at valentine's day. I carry the 70cm most of the times because they are a good price and why not, but they generally go out for wire orders or get used up in arrangements. Just not a big fancy rose market here..
 
RIGHT ON!!!
I love so much to hear your shop is doing good! It may sound from my post that we sell mostly roses, but we don't. We only sell about 400 roses a week, on a REALLY good week we will sell about 600- 700.
 
Red Rose Update

This week we have sold a total of 9 arrangements varying between dozen and two dozen.

Total sales 663.91
Last Year Sales $2106.79 for the same period

For the past 5 weeks our sales on the red stuff are 51% down from 2007 and 48% down from 2006.

I noticed yesterday that my wholesaler had buckets of red roses sitting outside of his cooler. Represented his product for just this week that he couldn't sell. We did have a good amount of orders for certain funeral arrangements this week and that with our wedding (yea red roses) we managed to use up the red stuff.

Its going to be hard to imagine not having our standing order on our red roses but I just can't find a reason to keep so much of it at the shop if no one is going to buy it anymore. Sales this week where up 8% so our red roses are definitely in trouble.

There has been some excellent post on this thread and I thank all of you for some great ideas and your opinions.
 
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