68 



The Florists' Review 



JuLT-21, 1921 



THE RETAIL STORE 



A PAGE OF HINTS AND HELPS 

 FOR THE RETAIL FLORIST 



PUT THE WINDOW TO WOEK. 



It' you had an employee on your 

 staff wlio did nothing but stand around 

 all day, what would you do about it? 

 Find out whose fault it was? Wliat if 

 it were yours, because you gave him 

 nothing to do? You'd immediately set 

 him to work. 



- ^ with your shop window. Good dis- 

 play space, within view of hundreds 

 and perhaps thousands of passers, is 

 idle. Maybe a few ferns and a palm 

 or tw« fill it. A screen, not a display, 

 shutting out business instead of bring- 

 ing in more. 



How much rent do you pay for that 

 window? Suppose your store is 25x50 

 foot and you pay $500 a month rent. 

 If your window space is 5x20, then you 

 are paying $40 a month for idle space. 



How much advertising space can you 

 buy in a local newspaper for $40? 

 Twelve months at $40 would be $480, 

 not a bad start for an advertising ap- 

 propriation — if you get anything for it. 

 But you 're paying that much now for a 

 worker that you don't keep busy. 



Think of the business shows that are 

 staged in all the large cities and a 

 good" many middle-sized ones in this 

 country. Thousands of people pay ad- 

 mission — 50 cents or $1 — to look at an 

 aggregation of things they see the rest 

 of the year in scattered shop windows. 

 If you staged a show in yours, many 

 of those who now pass your window but 

 take no notice would stop to look and 

 come to know your store. 



But you must put something of inter- 

 est in your window. A few ferns and a 

 pair of palms do not fill the bill. Mak- 

 ing an interesting display is not easy. 

 Neither is running a flower store — you 



are used to making effort. Put some on 

 the window. 



When you run an advertisement in 

 the newspapers, you ask for what posi- 

 tion? Next to reading matter. Why? 

 Because you want to get next to some- 

 thing to which readers give their inter- 

 est of their own free will. You can 

 get some of the reading matter interest 

 in your show window if you want. See 

 how others do it. Some silver cups, a 

 costumed figure, a poster, a collection 

 of oddities — something, under all cir- 

 cumstances, that draws interest. Then 

 your flowers in the corners and con- 

 spicuously at the back — always some 

 flowers. Why not try your hand at it 

 this month? Put some interest in your 

 window. Make it work! 



fully garlanded with wild smilax, en- 

 riched with clusters of wisteria. All 

 of the exhibits were outlined with win- 

 dow boxes filled with boxwood. The 

 decorations on the second floor were a 

 repetition of those on the ground floor. 



AT SOUTHERN AUTO SHOW. 



The wonderful automobile show that 

 has just closed placed Charlotte, N. C, 

 on the map of the south in a way that 

 will long be remembered. Just fancy 

 two whole floors, each covering a space 

 of perhaps 80x100 feet, completely filled 

 with all the finest in the motor world 

 and all the latest ideas. The ground 

 floor was devoted entirely to trucks, the 

 floor above entirely to motor cars. This 

 is merely a prelude. The show was the 

 occasion for one of the finest floral dec- 

 orations ever arranged in Charlotte, or, 

 for that matter, in Dixie land. Mrs. 

 M. M. Schiltz, of the Flower Shop, 

 Charlotte, arranged the decorations. 

 Her work was effective and beautiful. 

 The ceiling was covered with soft, 

 clinging, gray moss intertwined with 

 boxwood sprays. A margin of some six 

 feet all around the edge of the ceiling 

 was covered with wild smilax enriched 

 with wisteria. The pillars were grace- 



RETAILERS' COST PROBLEMS. 



Elaborate Floral Decorations at Charlotte^ N. C, Automobile Show. 



Times Demand Study. 



Much has been written and said 

 about the necessity of studying costs on 

 the part of the growers, all of which 

 has been appropriate and true. There 

 are fully as important reasons for re- 

 tailers ascertaining as accurately as 

 they can the various items that govern 

 the charge to the flower-buyer. There 

 is in addition at this time the impelling 

 necessity of lopping off unnecessary ex- 

 penses so as to meet the tendency of 

 the public to expect lower prices than 

 it has been paying before. 



The dominating question just now is 

 how to price goods so as to bring in 

 the customers. It has been keenly felt 

 in other retail lines ere this, and now 

 florists are using the slack time which 

 these hot July days have brought them 

 to ponder the extent to which that 

 question may apply in their line. 



Obviously, the great difficulty in 

 most retail lines lies in the numerous 

 complexities that have risen as the 

 result of the transition from war meth- 

 ods to peace methods. It has not been 

 merely a simple proposition of bring- 

 ing a store back into a peace-time 

 groove, for the conditions which pre- 

 vailed during the days before the war 

 came do not exist now, and the methods 

 in vogue then are not applicable now. 



Misfortunes of War. 



During the war retail shops were 

 conducted on a rather free basis, whicli 

 is to say, that competition was so lim- 

 ited and consumers were so eager to 

 buy at almost any price that the cost 

 question did not require much consider- 

 ation. All this has been changed; 

 florists cannot follow the line of least 

 resistance as in the times of war; they 

 must blast their way through to the 

 confidence of the consumer, who is short 

 of money in the first instance and in- 

 clined to be rather suspicious because 

 of the past performances of some retail 

 merchants with reference to unduly 

 high prices. 



The consumer has been told fre- 

 quently of late that the retailers in 

 all lines have been "holding on by 

 their teeth"; that they were deter- 

 mined to extract the last penny of 

 profit, and that declines in the prices 

 in the wholesale markets have not 

 found their way into retail channels. 

 These charges, based on the actions of 

 merchants in other lines, affect the 

 florist as well. The shopper is suspi- 

 cious and she no longer takes things 

 for granted; she wants to be shown 



