The Basics
No matter how many Christmas peaks you’ve worked through, there are always lessons to be learnt. To help you survive and thrive this Christmas, we asked some experienced florists to share their top tips for trading successfully this festive season.
What to consider first
Decide how much business you can realistically cope with. If you have historical sales information, look back at it to remind you what sold well and what didn’t. It’s best to look back over the previous three or four years as trading varies depending on what days the peak falls (and COVID Christmases were certainly different!). This will help you with everything from product design and flower ordering to staffing levels and sundries.
Establish what days of the week Christmas falls on, as this has a huge impact on passing trade/walk-in sales, staffing levels, stock availability etc.
Decide on your staffing levels and confirm their availability as this will determine how much work you can take on. Having enough delivery drivers is particularly important so advertise early if you need to recruit some casual drivers and make sure they have excellent knowledge of your local area.
Rather than just having lists and spreadsheets full of numbers, it helps to create some concise notes of the key features of each peak that you can refer to the following year. A few bullet points noting what item sold the most and at what price, what didn’t sell, what the average spend was, how many staff you had working each day, which day was busiest, how many flower stock deliveries you had etc. All valuable information to get you started for the next peak.
Design and create a limited but comprehensive product range and stick to it. Look at current trends in home decoration and design to help you decide on what flowers and colour themes you will use this season. Base your range on what has sold well in the past, taking stem availability and cost into account. Creating a specific product range will help you to protect your profit margins, offer consistent product quality to your customers and means that you can all work as efficiently as possible.
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