Focus

HooRay for the Middle Man!

I'm all for change. It excites me ... compels me to develop new positive ways to align with it - change. But there are two things that make me uncomfortable with changes in the chain of distribution of flowers since my entry into the industry.

1. The media and some industry professionals fuss that flowers pass through "too many hands" to get to the public.

What these people don't understand and communicate is that the hands they refer to are human hands that perform valuable procedures. When a procedure or step is skipped in the distribution chain it has to be done by someone along the way or the overall performance of the flowers is threatened

Flowerhandlers accepts the new reality - that consumers can "buy raw flowers direct" from various entities - and we educate consumers through Blooms, Blossoms, Tip-Sheets, and Roses... so they can perform the valuable procedures for flowers when they need to but more importantly so they understand why they have to pay for those services when a professional handles them. Hopefully our information products will provide some clarity about the price of flowers and help consumers understand that price is more about the amount of service necessary to get flowers into their hands - in the form they want them.

2. Retailers are bypassing their wholesalers to "buy direct" and save money.

Last week I designed a wedding.

• My cymbidium orchids never made it from Taiwan but my wholesaler was able to get them from New Zealand so production never skipped a beat.
• I got 1 1/2 times the number of sunflowers I ordered because the wholesaler found a local grower whose prices and product were better than the original quoted price.
• And, because I was on a tight time line and short of design help the wholesaler hydrated all the flowers for me and had them waiting in proconas when I picked them up saving me hours of labor.

The bottom line: My wholesaler saved me more money (and time, aggravation, stress) than I could ever have saved by ordering through a direct broker. I understand that some florists have had good experiences in buying direct. But in the last five years we have lost 4 wholesalers in my area because florists simply are not sustaining them. The remaining wholesalers are offering more and more services including hosting meetings, events, and educational seminars to their clients at no additional charge for the labor or overhead. I don't know how much more wholesalers can do without being compensated.

It will be a sad day when I get a call from any client with any urgency, and I don't have a wholesaler to access immediately. In those moments an internet broker shipping product via FedEx can't help me. We really need to remain faithful to our wholesalers and more lenient with them in regard to who they can sell to or we won't have them as a resource.

Change is good but we need to (1) clarify the variances in price to the general public and (2) hold onto the traditional things that have value - like wholesalers. The floral industry has always been and will always be a labor intensive industry. It takes a lot of hands - human hands - to get flowers distributed all over the world to those who want them. You can't plant seeds, harvest crops, clean buckets, chop and drop bunches, style, design, and deliver a physical product "Virtually" - you can't change that.

I'm grateful to all the "Middle Men and Women" whose hands grace the flowers that I use to serve my clients and I'm happy to pay them for their services. Hooray to the middlemen who support us everyday. May they live long and prosper!

PS - Thanks Sieck ... Wedding went well ... Flowers were gorgeous!