In September 2015 an experiment 'Auctioning roses in a box' started at the auction clocks in Aalsmeer and Naaldwijk. The experiment came from the Product Market Plan 2015/2016 which is prepared by the Product team Rose.
An interim evaluation was sent in October 2015 to growers, agents and customers. They briefly explained the initiative and shared facts and figures along with a number of customer and supplier experiences about this packaging.
Although the experiment 'Auctioning roses in a box' was highly prioritized in the test rounds, from the beginning the number of participating suppliers was different than expected. After a time the number of growers supplying in boxes declined from 6 growers to 3 growers. This because the price compared to the product in water stayed behind.
The experiment ran for a total of seven months. During this time information was collected on price and the difference with the product in water. Also it was possible to gauge customer interest and their reasons for purchasing these products.
Conclusions drawn after experimentation phase:
- The auctioning of roses in box on the clock yielded less than roses in water. Lower handling fees and auction costs due to better load factor on the trolleys, did not outweigh the price difference.
- For customers buying roses in box the price was absolutely the most important. In many cases, they bought the roses in box because of the lower price. But then, the roses were put in water again for their end customers.
- With the above, it goes beyond the initial reason of why this experiment was started. Auctioning of product in boxes should actually be more interesting for the Remote buying (KOA) customers. This is because of a better load factor of their product via transport with an exporter.
Benefits in box safely stay out
Because there was obviously no positive price formation and reduction of costs, the experiment didn't succeed in getting more suppliers to participate. Along with this and the above results the decision has been made to stop with this type of supplying.
Source: Royal FloraHolland