Fruit and gourmet baskets

Lizi

Well-Known Member
Nov 28, 2007
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Matthews
www.matthewsflowerboutique.com
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NC
I'm curious about what formula you use when making fruit and gourmet baskets. My husband says we should be making more off of them since you have to go out and hand select each item.
 
Fruit baskets are a tricky item, as florists we really cannot offer the same value on this item as we are buying everything at retail as the grocery stores can. As well we have to consider the time it took to go to the store, stand in line, gas to get there, replace the employee at the store etc.
We used to use the same forumula as you are using, but in the end, not only were we not able to offer a good value to our customers as we are marking fruit up from retail, but the time consumed, especially with those orders that come in just before Christmas ( so we got to stand in long lines) and the effort for a very small profit made it an item that we have removed from our selection.
I guess my question would be, what mark up are you taking on the fruit?
 
I just stopped making them last month. Someone called for a 40.00 fruit basket and by the time I closed the store went and got the fruit, came back called the customer who had left a message because I wasn't in the store.. etc etc.. I have decided they are not worth the hassle.
so that 40.00 was my last fruit basket!
 
Fruit baskets are a tricky item, as florists we really cannot offer the same value on this item as we are buying everything at retail as the grocery stores can. As well we have to consider the time it took to go to the store, stand in line, gas to get there, replace the employee at the store etc.
We used to use the same forumula as you are using, but in the end, not only were we not able to offer a good value to our customers as we are marking fruit up from retail, but the time consumed, especially with those orders that come in just before Christmas ( so we got to stand in long lines) and the effort for a very small profit made it an item that we have removed from our selection.
I guess my question would be, what mark up are you taking on the fruit?

Missy is so right. Last year someone posted on a thread that they farm our the fruit baskets. I went to local veg. store and showed them what I wanted. We now call the store and order either a $49.95, $74.95 or $99.95. When we got the first few, we added up the fruit and they got what we would have bought (minus the hassle). Now driver takes order, card, picks up and drops off........
 
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I just stopped making them last month. Someone called for a 40.00 fruit basket and by the time I closed the store went and got the fruit, came back called the customer who had left a message because I wasn't in the store.. etc etc.. I have decided they are not worth the hassle.
so that 40.00 was my last fruit basket!

they START at $60.00, fruit IS NOT marked up, BUT, we "remove" 50% from the total value, and THEN "fruit & gourmet" to value......
 
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What I was saying was on a 75.00 basket, I took 22.00 off for the basket, shred, wrap and ribbon. Having 53.00 left I took of 20% which is 10.60 and that left 42.40 for fruit, I do not mark the fruit up. My husband is saying that we should take 30 to 40% instead of 20. I did look at the fruit baskets this morning at the grocery store. A 35.00 basket hardly has anything in it.
 
I've always doubled all of the items. If they want me to go shopping I will but I need to make money off of it.

Thanksgiving and Christmas I go and pick them up at the grocery store and then "doll" them up or even add them to a bigger basket with candies and cookies. I still double my cost but I find there is more product in those ounce for ounce.
 
Funny - just yesterday I checked here for this very topic as I was reworking my gift basket pricing.

2 years ago decided we needed to make more on these so upped our mark up from 50 to 60%, but I'd felt lately we weren't giving our customers good value. Sat down and looked at the gross profit in actual $ terms rather than percent and decided to drop the mark up back to 50% but up our minimum (and greatly upped our minimum for wire-in gift baskets).

So our formula is add 50% to cost of goods bought, add retail price of container and add $10 to $15 to cover ribbon, cello, labour. We do have an advantage in that we are in a shopping centre so travel time to get the items isn't a big expense.
 
Me too Todd for fruit we have a grocery store a block away, the one that is a little over a mile away has better pricing so we will go down there if time away from shop allows. For "Junk Food", and "Snack Baskets" we have a big lots in the lot behind us and get lots of goodies there. We do a x2 on all fruit and snacks. We have the same 20% profit, back off the cello, bow and container. If you guys have a target by you we find that they have nice round (think it's 10" but it may be 12") round low dishes in their cheep section right as you walk in the store. We buy them for I believe $1.50 - 2.00 and mark them up to $7.99. The profit for us is in the basket and such and not so much in the fruit. As far as I know we are the only shop in town that does them so it works well for us. Our minimums are as follows:
Fruit ~ 55.00
Gourmet ~ 75.00
Snack ~ 50.00
Junk Food ~ 45.00

I love the 50% and no mark up on fruit, I will have to run those numbers and see what has more profit using our COG. I also like Rick's idea of outsourcing them... I wonder if our grocery store would do that for us :)
 
When it comes to fruit, snack, gourmet, type baskets, there are several trains of thought. - On the gourmet/snack items ( non-perishable ), I recommend getting a supply of items ( buy in bulk at your local costco or sams club ) and keeping them at the store. Rather than pricing each item though, if you do a cost breakdown of ( say a box of pretzel packages ), it breaks down to an average of 2.00 per peice or less. So I use an average - figure snack/gourmet items at 2.50 per piece. ( yes some are more, some are less, so it averages out ), Fruit - This is the tricky part - Again I take into account the time it takes ( figure that into your labor ) and average price each peice.....by the time you do a breakdown of individual pieces, you again end up with a retail average of between 2.00 and 2.50 per piece of fruit. So I average that out at 2.00

Snack items, cookies, candies, junk food ( again, these are usualy non-perishable product, so I would again buy them in bulk and keep them in store.

Anyway, the formula I use for a fruit/gourmet/snack basket is this - retail price minus 35 % for labor, 10.00 for shred, tissues, cello, then the remaining amount......goes into the actual product. Fruit and gourmet though is expensive and I usually don't recommend starting anything under 50.00 for the most basic of baskets.

If you use your creativity, then you can use less product and have a greater presentation. For instance.......let's take for example the old teleflora barca-lounger container from a few year back - by stacking some small packages of nuts, chips, and stuff in the back area wher the oasis went and on the seat cushion.....you use maybe 10.00 worth of product.....but with the cost of the container, you can have a 40.00 design....perfect for football season and that armchair quaterback. Or with the recent Teleflora grill....instead of flowers, what about some bbq sauces, slim jims, and the like for a man's treat kind of thing.

Fruit/Snack/Gourmet can be a shops biggest loss leaders or they can be an important source of revenue if handled properly. You have to make the decision, How much time, effort, and skill do I want to put into this.
 
This always happens ~ Comment on a thread and boom a customer asks for one :) Had a sale for $110.00 Fruit & Gourmet on Saturday. When she called another shop in town they told her to call Cub Foods (a grocery store here). The customer was upset over that, she wanted something nice. To me this is just another thing that we can do to service our customers. I understand it's not right for everyone, we are lucky to have grocery stores close by. But if it's possible for you to do it I do think it's worth it. Play with the pricing, make it profitable and go for it.