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The Florists^ Review 



May 10. 1917. 



THE DELIVERY PROBLEM 



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HOW MOTORS SOLVED IT. 



Florists Were Pioneers. 



Manufacturers of automobiles for de- 

 livery purposes generally recognize that 

 florists were among the first to test 

 motors for commercial purposes and 

 that there are few lines of business in 

 which the automobile has been so gener- 

 ally adopted for delivery work. 



Indeed, florists began to try out motor 

 delivery before there were any widely 

 known commercial motor vehicles. The 

 desire for speedy, stylish delivery 

 prompted many a florist to buy a 

 pleasure car, remove its body and put 

 on a specially built panel top for de- 

 livery work, before there were any 

 solicitous salesmen offering vehicles 

 specially built for the purpose. 



A Special Problem. 



A florist's delivery problem is differ- 

 ent from that of most other business 

 men. To begin with, nearly all flower 

 orders are rush orders; quick action is 

 demanded. If the customer does not put 

 off ordering, the florist likes to delay 

 delivery as long as he can. Flowers 

 never benefit by waiting an event; they 

 do not improve after they have left the 

 florist 's hands. Consequently, if it is 

 a funeral design or a corsage bouquet, 

 delivery is made as near the hour of use 

 as safety will permit. It was obvious 

 that the motor car, traveling fifteen to 

 twenty miles an hour in city streets, 

 would have many advantages over a 

 liorse-drawn vehicle traveling at best 

 not more tlian six miles per hour, and 

 tliat only for short distances. 



With a motor the florist can delay the 

 start on his route until hours after 

 tlie limit with his slower conveyance. 

 He accomplishes as much in one hour 

 with his car as he could do in three 

 hours with his wagon. There are not 

 so many florists who keep a ear going 

 continuously as there are who provide 

 a good load for a late afternoon trip. 



The Advertising Value. 



In addition to enabling the florist to 

 deliver his flowers in a fresh condition. 



to increase the rapidity pf his special 

 service and to extend the radius of his 

 operations, the motor car supplies the 

 florist's need of a stylish turnout. 

 Unlike coal, ice, milk and groceries, 

 flowers seldom are delivered at the back 

 door. Far be it from any florist to inti- 

 mate that his service contemplates such 

 a thing, but the fact is that the business 

 of many a florist comes to him largely 

 because of his reputation; those who 

 buy do so at least partly because they 

 wish to have his well known, stylish 

 outfit seen making deliveries at , the 

 front door. 



A motor car, especially in the earlier 

 days, afforded a marked advance in the 

 tone of the delivery outfit; it was ex- 

 actly what society's favorite florist 

 needed in his business. It has an ad- 

 vertising value and helps greatly in 

 giving the service which is so essential 

 a part of the better class retail flower 

 business. 



Efficiency That Decides. 



But the general adoption of the motor 

 car for delivery purposes never would 

 have resulted from anything except 

 efficiency, which is another word for 

 economy. It was demonstrated that an 

 automobile will do as much work as 

 three wagons. If a florist needed three 

 outfits, in the old days, he reduced his 

 expense by using one motor truck. If 

 his needs were met by one horse and 

 wagon, a truck gave him the oppor- 

 tunity of extending his business without 

 adding to his overhead expense, as 

 would be done by putting on a second 

 wagon. Even if his needs did not fully 

 occupy the time of one wagon, a motor 

 car does not eat its head off in the 

 stable any faster than does a horse. 



Taking consideration of all the points 

 of view, today there is scarcely any 

 florist who does not run at least one car. 

 It makes no difference whether a florist 

 runs a little 8x10 store in an office 

 building in some big city, or if he has a 

 big range of greenhouses in the country; 

 in either case he has his car. It is not 

 uncommon for fairly busy florists to 

 operate large fleets. For instance, that 



of W. L. Bock Flower Co., of Kansas 

 City, is shown in the accompanying 

 illustration. He has five cars in service. 



A Field for Frequent Sales. 



The manufacturers of delivery trucks 

 now find the florists' trade one of the 

 best fields for their attention. While 

 most florists already have trucks, none 

 would think of going back to the old 

 methods and the need for a depend- 

 able service and a stylish appearance 

 necessitates frequent renewals; not 

 even the best of trucks will last forever 

 when given the hard service 365 days in 

 the year that the florist demands. 



Experience has shown that the aver- 

 age florists ' truck is good for about two 

 years. After that it is cheaper to trade 

 in the old machine on the purchase of a 

 new one. Consequently, florists afford 

 an inexhaustible field for the motor 

 truck salesman. 



Light Truck Now Chosen. 



The first truck manufacturers who 

 gave special attention to the florists' 

 trade were prompted by the sales that 

 came to them without solicitation. In 

 that day the light truck was unknown. 

 The vehicles were heavy and they were 

 expensive to operate, though it must be 

 said for them that they demonstrated 

 wearing qualities that have not been 

 found in all the later lighter vehicles. 



The average retail florist seldom loads 

 his truck to anything like its capacity. 

 For that reason some of them still buy 

 used pleasure cars and put on commer- 

 cial bodies. Such a machine, designed 

 to carry perhaps 800 pounds of passen- 

 gers, usually is equal to the light mer- 

 chandise load the florist gives it, but 

 the average touring car is not designed 

 for the short around-the-neighborhood 

 trips which constitute the greater part 

 of the florist's deliveries. The design 

 of a truck is radically different from the 

 design of a touring car, being built to 

 meet a special purpose, and the rebuilt 

 pleasure car idea is rapidly being dis- 

 pelled. 



In the light of experience, although 

 growers and those having to do with 

 moderately heavy loads still find a heavy 

 truck desirable, most of the retail store 

 florists have displaced the heavy cars 

 with one or another of the popular, in- 

 expensive light machines of 1,000 

 pounds to 1,500 pounds capacity. There 

 are thousands of these doing duty for 

 florists today. No florist who has had 



There Are Few Trades in Which the Automobile Has Been More Generally Adopted for Delivery Work. 



