Valentine's Day: Deliveries and the Big Day

February 15, 2013

Valentine's Day: Deliveries and the Big Day

For the flower shop, February 13th is almost as busy as Valentine's Day itself because that is the day when the routing and loading of deliveries begin.

Arrangements waiting to be loaded into a delivery van.

Routing the deliveries is a huge endeavor. Last year, Fena Flowers made 292 deliveries with the help of eleven different drivers. This year, Fena is hoping for more! To make this many deliveries, the shop has to rent extra vehicles and hire additional drivers. Some of these drivers have been driving on Valentine's Day for Fena Flowers for years and are a huge help because good drivers are not easy to find. Fena uses software that creates a streamlined delivery route, but a driver still needs to be able to efficiently navigate between addresses. A calm temperament is also a plus!

More arrangements ready to head out the door...

As with every aspect of Valentine's Day, much advance planning goes into getting drivers out the door as quickly as possible. It all starts when an order comes in. Fena Flowers delivers all over the Seattle metropolitan area, so the address is checked against a delivery zone map. The zones are designated by letters and the letter for that particular order's zone is written on the top of the order form. The order form is then filed with others that are also going to the same area. When orders are completed, the arrangements are placed on carts that are also organized by zone. This reduces the need to hunt through multiple carts of mixed zones when it comes time to load a vehicle. It also means that when a driver calls to say he or she is returning to the shop after finishing one set of deliveries, the designers can check the files for the zones covered by that driver to make sure all the orders on the next run will be ready to be loaded up as soon as the driver returns. Efficiency is key!

A map of Fena Flowers' delivery area shows the letter codes for the different zones.

When orders come in, they are filed by zone and zip code in these boxes near the order printer. As a preferred vendor, Fena gets so many Microsoft orders that they get their own box!

A order form being pulled from the files.

All the orders on this cart are going to the A1 delivery area, as can clearly be seen at a glance because of the zone information written on the order forms.

This order is a "timer," meaning it has to be delivered by a certain time. Timers can only be taken before routing begins on the day before Valentine's Day--after that, it gets too busy to make promises!

The routes themselves are worked out with the help of computer software and the driver loads the vehicle with the order in which the arrangements will be delivered in mind. There will be more than one delivery route to most areas during the course of the day because only so many arrangements can fit in a given vehicle and of course more orders continue to come in after the initial routing process starts.

By looking at last year's information, Brynne, who does the routing, is able to figure out how many arrangements can fit in each vehicle.

Brynne at work entering addresses from our ordering system into the routing software.

A route begins to take shape!

Getting so many arrangements out the door takes a long time, so several of the delivery vehicles are loaded the night before Valentine's Day. There is enough room in the back of the shop to fit a couple of vans, so the big doors are rolled up and the vans backed in when the shop closes. Other loaded vans are driven home to the garages of the drivers. If left outside, the flowers would be at risk if the temperatures dropped below freezing (a lesson learned the hard way many years ago!), but they do just fine inside the vans in the unheated shop or garage overnight. This means that several delivery runs--usually the largest and the farthest away--are all packed up and ready to go the moment the shop opens or the driver with a loaded van leaves his or her house in the morning. On a normal day, the driver usually does all of the loading him- or herself, but with so many routes and so many temporary drivers, the bulk of the pre-loading process--tracking down all the orders on the delivery route and getting them packaged for travel--is done by one experienced shop member. Before the driver pulls away, he or she double-checks to make sure every order is on board and safely secured. There's just no time to make mistakes that would require the driver to come back to the shop!

A cart full of arrangements ready to be checked off, packed, and loaded into a van.

While most of the arrangements on a delivery route are grouped together on a single cart, there are some things, like tropical flowers and plants, that can't go into the flower coolers. A cart full of tropical arrangements going to different zones are stored together in the warehouse section of the shop.

Each order is checked off (with a pink dot, in this case) as accounted for on the delivery sheet prior to loading.

Arrangements must be carefully packed for safe transport. Lynn heaves a tall, heavy arrangement into a milk crate that will provide the arrangement with greater stability in the van.

Supported within the crate by sponges, this vase won't be going anywhere it isn't supposed to! The crate will then pack snugly against other crates and carriers in the delivery vehicle.

These arrangements are packed in special floral delivery sponges that hold the containers securely.

And the loading begins! While Fena does possess an array of delivery sponges and carriers, there simply aren't enough to go around on Valentine's Day. In a pinch, well-packed boxes fitted closely together provide the same protection for the arrangements while in transit.

A loaded delivery vehicle all ready for the big day

With so many roses to deliver, each driver also takes along a stash of red ones in case there's some inadvertent breakage along the way. People who are expecting a dozen red roses are very unhappy if they only get eleven!

While the first round of deliveries are being loaded up, there are still more arrangements to be made! The shop hums with activity and energy.

Shop owner Judi is a blur as she swiftly assembles an arrangement.

Linda creates a low, lush dozen rose bouquet.

Jenn prepares to insert a flower into a bouquet of roses and lilies.

Katie adds a daisy to a bright and colorful arrangement.

There are flowers and arrangements everywhere!

Once all of the orders that were in as of the end of the 13th are arranged and most of the vans are loaded, everyone heads home to rest up for the big day. This year, Brynne and Lynn came in at six in the morning to route and load three more vans. Orders come in via the wire service and the internet through the night, so there are always more arrangements to be made first thing in the morning, too. The phones are already ringing when the shop opens. After the deliveries are under way, you can always expect a surge of callers who saw flowers being delivered to someone at their workplace and realized that they had forgotten to order any! There are also always callers who are annoyed to learn that Fena will be unable to deliver an arrangement on the other side of the metropolitan area within the next hour, but on a such a busy day, even with many drivers, the flowers get there when they get there and no sooner! When the drivers return from their first run, the routing and loading process must begin again. Overall, a kind of excited energy prevails. Lunch and treats are provided for all the employees and drivers to keep up morale and by mid-afternoon, the rush is over. Customers who pick up pre-ordered arrangements at the shop or stop in for some flowers on their way home will keep trickling in until closing time, but doing so much preparation ahead of time means that the pressure of sending out 300+ arrangements is not concentrated on a single day.

Will call arrangements await pickup in the front cooler.

Pre-made specials ready to be sold.

Valentine's Day creates a lot of hard work for flower shops and, as was mentioned in the previous post, even with raised prices, some shops will still lose money. Sometimes the best that can be hoped for is a day with minimal complaints and no catastrophes! Intenstive planning and organization help things flow more smoothly from the initial arrival of the flowers to when they are delivered to the customer, but every flower shop looks forward to February 15th!