If you’re finding your floral sales need a boost, it might be time to rethink your store’s strategies to target, engage and keep customers. Below you will find some advice from PMA.
Know Your Customer
Men and women — as well as teenagers — are different, and often shop for floral products for varied reasons. It’s important to have an idea of what a person’s needs might be when they walk in the door. Changing your Floral Sales Strategy.
For instance, the Society of American Florists’ report, The Changing Floriculture Industry: A Statistical Overview, notes that the primary female customer is a married empty-nester shopping for flowers or plants for herself, and focuses on quality over value. The male customer, according to the report, is most often looking for gifts and is motivated by the ease of purchase and gift-readiness of floral products. Appealing to teen customers, the report suggests, targeting displays to spirit weeks, homecoming celebrations or prom season.
Educate Your Team
Many supermarkets maintain team members to staff their full-service floral departments. But even if your store doesn’t, you should still make sure those team members a customer is most likely to encounter — store managers and produce staff — are well versed in what the floral department offers. Even if you maintain only a self-serve floral display, having friendly, knowledgeable team members who can help customers with questions can go a long way toward ensuring that customer will return.
Emphasize Quality
Perhaps the most important strategy is ensuring that your floral department always maintains fresh, vibrant plants and arrangements that look bountiful. Particularly when it comes to capturing the impulse buyer, the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension notes, low quality is unacceptable. Items reaching their peak should be sold quickly at cost as a daily special before they begin to wilt or look tired.
Use Color Consistently
Our eyes are naturally drawn to color, but a jumble of color will frequently become confusing and distracting, according to the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. Make sure your floral department uses color to create clean, appealing displays by grouping similar colors and varieties together. Also, don’t forget the rules of contrasting and complementary colors to make displays pop. Colored drapes or backgrounds can often be used to accomplish this. More muted colors can benefit from a simple, shiny black display unit.
Regularly Change Stock and Displays
Supermarket customers are frequent visitors, so they’re unlikely to be enticed by a floral display that doesn’t ever change, according to the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. Even if it’s nothing more than repositioning tables and changing lighting, a freshened look for existing stock might lure a customer who saw something they missed on a previous visit.
Be Comfortable Changing Stock
If an item or variety isn’t selling, don’t be afraid to let it go and try something new. If you feel the investment in a slow-selling variety or product would create an unacceptable loss, think of a way to repurpose it as part of a different or new product or arrangement.
source: PMA
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