Valentine's Day: Readying Roses & Specials

Valentine's Day is fast approaching and it's time for this blog to give you a behind-the-scenes tour of what the busiest day of the year is like for a flower shop!

The preparations for Valentine's Day begin all the way back at the end of November when the first order lists from the growers begin to arrive. The growers hope to have as much lead time as possible so they know how much to push their plants without ending up with excess product that will then have to be thrown out. This is the challenge for the florist, too! Order too few flowers, and you lose money on customer orders you can't fill. Order too many flowers, and you end up throwing out hundreds of dollars worth of product that didn't sell.

The cooler is full of pretty spring flowers like tulips, anemones, and hyacinths.

A rainbow array of spray roses.

Elegant pink mini calla lilies.

In addition to the classic red, Fena has roses in bold shades like hot pink and orange and soft shades like lavender and cream, not to mention every color in between!

Believe it or not, Valentine's Day is a money-losing holiday for many florists. This may come as a surprise to people who believe that flower shops increase their prices for the holiday just because they can. The real story behind the economics of Valentine's Day is one of supply and demand. For example: for this Valentine's Day, Fena intends to sell 77 one dozen red rose arrangements. During an average non-Valentine's week, Fena only sells 4 or 5 one dozen red rose arrangements. That means Fena sells more than FIFTEEN times the normal dozen red rose arrangements sold in a week in a SINGLE DAY. That's the difference between 925 long stem red roses and 60! And that's not counting the red roses that go into two or three dozen red rose arrangements, into mixed dozen rose arrangements, single rose bud vases, or into arrangements with other flowers. Now multiply that difference across every flower shop and grocery store in the country and you see what the rose growers are up against. Roses grow on bushes and as any gardener knows, it's not a simple matter to get them to bloom on demand. The rose growers must start readying their plants months in advance for this massive, one-day increase in demand and the price of roses goes up accordingly. Grocery stores, who always sell their flowers at a loss, are able to keep their dozen rose prices low because they sell enough food to make up the difference. Flower shops, however, must absorb much of the cost of the price increase because customers would never pay for a dozen rose arrangement that cost, say, five times the normal price! This means the profit margin for the sale of dozen rose arrangements is incredibly slim and when the cost of the extra labor required to make Valentine's Day happen is factored in, many shops end up facing a loss.

Roses come packed 25 to a bunch. Fena must process more than 40 bunches of red roses to meet the demands of Valentine's Day! That figure doesn't include the many other colors of beautiful roses that are kept in stock for Valentine's Day.

Rose stems must be cut underwater. This device has a blade that cuts through an entire bunch of roses at once. Processing so many roses requires a quick-moving team to remove the bunches from their boxes, run the stems through a machine that removes the leaves, cut the stems, and place the roses in buckets of preservative water.

These vases, already filled with greens, await the addition of roses.

Two carts containing the finished dozen red rose arrangements are stored together in one cooler.

These paper sleeves allow the arrangements to be closely packed without damaging the roses or the greenery. The sleeves are removed when the arrangements are delivered.

Fena Flowers does a huge amount of much work preparing for the big day in advance. Creating Valentine's Day specials that are put up on shop's website is one way to help plan ahead. By looking over previous years' sales, Fena Flowers can determine how many arrangements are sold at different price points and design specials in different styles available for $55, $75, $125, and so on. Data may indicate that 30 arrangements at a certain price are usually sold, so two weeks in advance, 30 vases for that particular special are pulled, prepped, and filled with long-lasting greens.

Shelves of prepped vases for specials.

A sign indicates that all the flowers and greens on this cart are reserved for specials.

A cart full of reserved flowers. Selling specials is one way to help the flower shop calculate how many flowers to order and reduce waste.

These anthurium are reserved, too!

Each special gets its own labeled cart in the cooler reserved for sold orders. Two days before Valentine's Day, work starts on arranging the flowers in all of the specials, which are made in "rounds." Back in January, the specials were planned and a "recipe" was written up for each arrangement ("2 white hydrangeas, 3 purple stock, 2 hot pink spray roses, 2 pink gerbera daisies"). When it comes time to make the specials, a sample photograph is place in the center of one of the Fena work areas, greened vases are placed at intervals all around the work space, and a group of designers, each taking one type of flower, makes the arrangements as a team. That is, one designer will be in charge of putting two white hydrangeas in each vase, a second designer will add three purple stock, a third will be in charge of spray roses, and so on. This allows large quantities of identical arrangements to be completed in a short amount of time and reduces the need for overtime labor. Still, it takes several days to create all the specials while several other designers work on custom arrangements! But the advantage of selling pre-made specials on the web becomes clear on Valentine's Day itself, when rather than having to design a new arrangement from scratch when every order comes in, a "Garden of Love" arrangement can simply be pulled off the designated cart in the cooler and sent out on delivery right away!

A round of specials has begun. The hydrangeas went in first and were followed by gerbera daises.

Purple stock has been added to the arrangements.

A partially completed arrangement and buckets of flowers. 

Spray roses add a romantic touch.

A few stems of wax flower is all that these arrangements need to be completed. The first round is done in a matter of minutes.

Of course, not everyone who orders Valentine's Day flowers wants a dozen red roses or one of Fena's web specials. There will always be lots of custom orders that come in and Fena tries to be as prepared as possible. This means having lots of vases on hand that are already prepped, plenty of greens, a wide variety of beautiful spring flowers in the cooler, and extra workers on hand to answer the phones so the designers can focus on making arrangements. A good attitude helps, too!

Large quantities of greens are kept fresh and at the ready in the unheated storage area of the shop.

Magnificent "Safari Sunset" leucadendron is a showy accompaniment to any red arrangement.

Ranunculus flowers are marvels of many-petaled delicacy.

Fena Flowers has many beautiful orchids on hand for those who prefer a more modern look.

Tulips, of course, are a timeless delight.

The red roses are ready and the specials are made, but there's lots more to be done! Check back on Valentine's Day to learn more about how the shop coordinates sending out hundreds of deliveries on a single day and life on the front lines when the holiday arrives!

It's not too late to order flowers for Valentine's Day! Give us call or check us out on the web!

Fena Flowers

12815 NE 124th St, Ste. K

Kirkland, WA 98034

425-825-8181

www.fenaflowers.com

Photography by c.creativity

©2013 by c.creativity

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