46 



The Florists^ Review 



Apbil S. 1922 



Display with an Unusual Easter Feature in a Salt Lake City Window Last Year. 



replenishment orders in primary chan- 

 nels. The disinclination of most in- 

 terests freely to anticipate future re- 

 quirements demonstrates that conserva- 

 tism is still general, but demands to 

 cover current needs are becoming more 

 diversified and the number of moder- 

 ate-sized commitments is increasing. 

 Added evidence of the expansion of 

 business operations appears in returns 

 of bank clearings and in other statis- 

 tical barometers, although the situa- 

 tion remains conspicuously uneven, and 

 unsatisfactory phases have by no means 

 been eliminated." 



HANDUNO HOLIDAY BUSINESS. 



Betailer Needs System. 



When I entered the florists' trade, 

 fifteen years ago, a holiday rush was 

 a catch-as-can affair, with everybody 

 for himself and no one responsible for 

 anything, and if you did not have to 

 work from fifty to sixty hours before 

 a Christinas or Easter, business was 

 poor. Today it is different, because the 

 florist, whether large or small in a busi- 

 ness way, has found that he must have 

 some system to his business, the same as 

 a merchant in any other line. 



My retail experience has been wfth 

 firms who cater to big volume, the A. W. 

 Smith Co. and Penn the Florist. My 

 suggestions are what I learned from 

 them, with a few of my own. 



First I will take up the handling of 

 plants, which at Easter, with its lilies, 

 is always a worry. First, every plant 

 should be marked plainly with the sell- 

 ing price before being placed on the 

 floor for sale. Next, when a plant is 

 sold, even early in the week, try to 

 have it delivered that day, for your 

 customer might as well have the pleas- 

 ure of having that plant in the home 

 those few extra days as have it knock- 

 ing around the store, taking up valuable 



Talk on "How to Handle Retail Holiday Busi- 

 ness." delivered by Earl C. Tipton at the meeting 

 of the Retail Florists' Association of Pittsburgh 

 April 6. 



space that you need. There are few per- 

 sons who will not let you deliver a plant 

 at once if proper explanation is given. 

 If customers insist on future delivery, 

 have numbered checks ready, so that a 

 plant can be cheeked the minute it is 

 sold. Pin the stub to the sales slip 

 and be sure the day of delivery is writ- 

 ten plainly on the check. Have space 

 set aside for your sold plants, each day's 

 deliveries separate, so that when your 

 packers are filling orders they will have 

 to handle only one day's deliveries. 



Packing Plants. 



Again, when packing plants, do not 

 let your man select an order and go to 

 the table and hunt the plant, for each 

 time he does this, likely as not, the 

 whole table of plants will have to be 

 moved before he finds the plant wanted. 

 Let him take a plant and find the order 

 with the numbered stub corresponding 

 to the check on plant, thus saving time 

 and wear and tear on your plants. 

 There should be a man in charge of the 

 plant packing, with as many helpers as 

 your business demands, and they should 

 do nothing else as long as there are 

 plants to be packed either for today's 

 or tomorrow's delivery. 



Your extra help should not be al- 

 lowed to wait on trade unless thoroughly 

 experienced, as many a good sale has 

 been lost by new hands. Divide your 

 extras up among your old help, say two 

 or three to each one. Let the regular 

 employees take the order and then turn 

 the customer over to one of the extras 

 to take the name and address, to pro- 

 vide the card; in fact, to attend to all 

 details, thus allowing your salesman to 

 wait on another person. 



As soon as the cashier has rung up the 

 sale, the order should be turned over 

 to the employee who is writing shipping 

 tags and cards. This is one of the most 

 important things on the list, as I ven- 

 ture to say there have been more mis- 

 takes made by poor writing and wrong 

 addresses copied from orders than 

 everything else put together. From 

 there the orders should go to the man 



in charge of the packing and stock, to 

 be filled or filed away for the proper 

 day. 



Cut Flower Ordors. 



Next we come to cut flower orders 

 and" made-up work, such as corsages, 

 fancy baskets, etc. There should be 

 enough help set aside for this to be able 

 to handle it at all times and keep up 

 with the orders. They should not be 

 taken away from this work under any 

 circumstances. Your boxes should be 

 made up ahead of time, your packing 

 tables prepared, and everything in 

 readiness before the big rush begins. 

 The largest volume of cut flowers is 

 handled on Saturday and Saturday 

 night; so I will take Saturday night as 

 an example, as that is when all the 

 Sunday orders are filled: 



Get every experienced man on the 

 job in the packing room not later than 

 6:30. Get those who are to work on 

 corsages and divide the orders up 

 among them — sweet peas to one, vio- 

 lets to another, roses to another, and so 

 on. Let the sweet pea man work on one 

 color at a time and not change after 

 each order, as too much time is lost in 

 doing so. We will say, let him make all 

 the orders calling for pink peas first, 

 then lavender, and so on. Then finish 

 up with the ones that are not specific as 

 to color. Let your rose man do the same 

 thing, and you will be surprised how 

 much time you will save. 



The man filling the cut flower orders 

 should proceed the same way, working 

 on one item at a time. He should fill 

 his rose orders first, working each va- 

 riety separately and finishing up with 

 the assorted rose orders. Then he 

 should take the carnations in the same 

 way, and so on down the line, last of 

 all filling the assorted box orders. 

 Working this way, one man can keep 

 two packers and two wrappers busy, 

 for a packer should not have to stop to 

 wrap the bgxes, but should pass them 

 along to others to be wrapped. 



Delivery Most Important. 



The next step is the delivery. This 

 is most important and should be in 



(Concluded on J)a(fc 56.) 



MILLER'S EASTEB WINDOW. 



Should a man with a world-wide repu- 

 tation as a salesman walk into your 

 store and offer his services for prac- 

 tically no compensation, you would, no 

 doubt, blink your eyes and pinch your 

 arm to see if you were actually con- 

 scious or only dreaming. As a matter 

 of pure fact, right now in the front 

 part of your store there is one of the 

 world's best waiting to offer selling 

 services. Are you aware of this busi- 

 ness-getter! It is your display window. 



The Miller Floral Co., of Salt Lake 

 City, Utah, long since discovered the 

 silent salesman. Last year the firm's 

 Easter display window honored the ac- 

 quaintance by getting a considerable 

 amount of business for the company. 

 An illustration of the display used at 

 that time is shown on this page. Here 

 we see lilies, roses and other stock 

 prominent at Easter time grouped about 

 a novel "inn," in the shape of a half- 

 shell. Tiny chicks stand in the door- 

 way of the inn. And a prominent sign 

 calls attention to the appropriateness 

 of flowers at Easter. The Miller Floral 

 Co. considered this one of the best ad- 

 vertisements and business-getters it 

 ever had. 



