Jvvx 28, 1914. 



The Eorists' Review 



INtAND 



FROM 



FLORISTS REAP PROFITS 

 OCEAN TRAVEL 



►-A* " *K' 



How Retailers all over the country share in the enormous busi- 

 ness in flowers for departing ocean voyagers at this time of year 



ATCHING load after load 

 of flowers draw up at the 

 dock of a great ocean liner 

 on the day of departure, an 

 uninitiated person is led to 

 wonder where they all come 

 from. If, however, he 

 stopped to consider the size of the first- 

 class passenger list of the boat, the 

 number of orders carried by those few 

 automobile trucks would seem insignifi- 

 cant in comparison. For a single person 

 the loads of flowers would be an amaz- 

 ing quantity, but for several hundred 

 people they are less than a drop in a 

 bucket. To the New York florist th? 

 steamer trade represents a considerable 

 aniQunt of business. To the thousands 

 of inland florists who are in position to 

 take and forward these orders the busi- 

 ness is as yet a small fraction of what 

 it might be. 



How Many Sail. 



At this time of year scarcely a day 

 passes when more than 1,000 first-class 

 passengers do not leave New York; 

 some days the total passenger lists 

 of the six to a dozen liners which sail 

 for foreign shores reach over three 

 times that number. The ports of Bos- 

 ton and Philadelphia between them reg- 

 ister nearly an equal number of de- 

 partures, and the 

 smaller ports 

 throughout this coun- 

 try and Canada can 

 count fully as many 

 each day. These fig- 

 ures represent only 

 first-class passengers; 

 80 they may all fairly 

 be considered as pos- 

 sible sources of busi- 

 ness by florists. Mul- 

 tiply these by the 

 number of intimate 

 friends each one has 

 and the number of 

 possible patrons of 

 the florist for this 

 line of trade takes 

 on enormous propor- 

 tions. 



This, it may fairly 

 be said, is an opti- 

 mistic estimate; but 

 then, it is always the 

 optimist who is the 

 progressive, for the 

 pessimistic estimate 

 leaves no room for 

 progress. The pro- 

 gressive florist, there- 

 lore, has here a 

 splendid opportunity 

 to develop a line of 

 business that is heav- 

 iest during what is 

 ordinarily the dull 

 season of the year. 



After the June brides have been mar- 

 ried off and graduation girls have all 

 been given their diplomas, trips across 

 the "pond" are in order. Now is the 

 time when the tourist season is on in 

 earnest. 



Seaport Florists Do Their Best. 



As it is otherwise a dull time of 

 year with them, the florists in the ocean 

 cities devote their best efforts to the 

 steamer trade. Flowers are plentiful 

 and cheap, so that they have an abun- 

 dance of material to work with. The 

 hours which at another time are filled 

 with other work are now given over to 

 devising new ideas and styles that will 

 make a hit with the ocean voyagers. 

 How busily some of the retailers who 

 do this work hunt for novelties and 

 unique ideas has been shown by the 

 illustrations from time to time in the 

 columns of The Review. One of the 

 latest, by Max Schling, of New York, 

 is shown on this page. 



There are many ways in which the 

 retailer who sends an order to a sea- 

 port florist to be filled can do his part 

 to promote the excellence of the work. 

 One of the most important of these is 

 to give pleaty of time for making up 

 the work. It should be constantly 

 borne in mind that the ocean steam- 

 Seaport Florists Put Forth their Best Efforts in Fillirg Steamer Orders. 



ships usually sail at an early hour in 

 the morning, the passengers frequently 

 embarking the previous evening. It is, 

 therefore, next to impossible for a New 

 York florist to fill an order that is 

 taken in a town any distance from the 

 port and telegraphed to him the day 

 the boat sails. Occasionally it is done; 

 at other times the motor truck reaches 

 the dock just as the boat is leaving 

 the harbor. In this, as in other work, 

 the more time allowed for preparation 

 the better the execution. 



Pushing the Business. 



While the New York retailers, as 

 well as those of the other seaports, do 

 their part in the promotion of the 

 steamer trade by giving extra thought 

 and care to the orders sent to them by 

 their brother tradesmen all over the 

 country, the increase in this line must 

 come as the result of work on the 

 part of those who take the orders. It 

 is, then, up to the inland florists to 

 boost the business, to their own profit. 

 This should prove a welcome opportu- 

 nity to them, for they get the usual 

 twenty per cent profit on the orders 

 they forward, with only the trouble of 

 sending the telegrams. This "easy 

 money" in the dull season should well 

 be worth working for. It is the man 

 who develops every 

 department of his 

 business that finds 

 himself with a large 

 total on the profit 

 side of his books. 



The means of push- 

 ing this line of his 

 business are many, if 

 the retailer wishes to 

 take advantage of 

 them all. The ex- 

 penditure on any of 

 them is not large,, 

 and when the mine 

 is in process of pro- 

 duction the returns 

 will cover the cost 

 over and over again, 

 because once a pa- 

 tron has given an 

 order for flowers to 

 be delivered on board 

 a steamship, he or 

 she has started a 

 habit that will make 

 the orders come more 

 readily in the future. 

 If a florist is in 

 the habit of sending 

 circulars to his regu- 

 lar patrons and to a 

 list of what he re- 

 gards as possible cus- 

 tomers, he will find 

 that a letter or a 

 neat booklet of a few 

 pages of suggestions 



