Mother's Day is by far the biggest flower holiday in our industry. No matter how bad the economy is, or how uncertain the world seems, motherhood will always be celebrated. Even in the midst of a pandemic, last year's Mother's Day sales outpaced previous years, indicating the resilience of this holiday.
Flowers are traditionally given as a token of beauty and purity, both attributes we associate with our moms. Mother's Day is the "uber flower and plant holiday". If our industry had an Olympics competition, this holiday might just be it.
With Mother's Day less than a month away, now is the time to start preparing. Consider these ten steps to help you stay on track and keep yourself organized:
1. Order ahead and plan with your vendor. There will be shortages of product this year and pricing will be higher, so plan accordingly. If you can, keep an Excel spreadsheet of what you bought, when it was delivered to your shop and what price your paid. This will make ordering easier from year to year, so you aren't working from memory or scrambling through papers to figure out what to order.
2. Advertise your hours through social media. Stay in front of the holiday with social media - and make sure to advertise your hours throughout the weekend. Staying open the day of Mother's Day is a must!
3. Supplement your inventory with outdoor plants. The planting season in New England starts Mother's Day weekend, so be prepared with product that can be planted or displayed outside, as well as inside. Planted baskets, hanging baskets and trays of annuals will give your customers even more gift giving options.
4. Prepare vases ahead of time. Have staff green vases a few days in advance so they are ready to be finished with flowers and go out the day of. This will save you time on the holiday weekend.
5. Prepare packaging ahead of time. Assemble and label your delivery boxes, fill water tubes, cut ribbons, etc. - streamlining any task to make your shop more efficient over the weekend.
6. Organize your shop to accommodate additional room needed for arrangements, gifts and extra staff.
7. Have plenty of "cash and carry" items. Last minute walk-ins, especially the day of Mother's Day, will want something they can quickly pick up and pay for. Make sure you have plenty of offerings ready for walk-ins and last minute deliveries.
8. Consider offering a recipe arrangement. To help you with production, consider offering several designs that can are pre-made recipes rather than custom designed. You can offer the recipe in different sizes and pricing - $50, $75, $100. This will help you push more designs out the door and save you time
9. Hire plenty of help for the weekend. You'll need extra designers and drivers to get your orders out the door. Start recruiting now.
10. Assign staff to specific tasks. Consider assigning one driver to help dispatch your orders into zones to get deliveries out early. Consider hiring someone extra to just answer phones and take orders.
“A mother is the only person on earth who can divide her love among 10 children
and each child still have all her love.”
Unknown