IVM 80, 1914. 



The Florists' Itevkvi' 



11 



is^ 



ac^i 



|SL6=>^C^AJ^I 



ac 



KEEP YOUR STORE AND YOUR 

 STORE WILL KEEP YOU ' 



|l — POOR RICHA RD'S ALMANAC J\ 



aeayV-'* '"'=v^=3= 



Time after time it has been demonstrated that an improvement in 

 a Florist's facilities is followed by a prompt increase in his business 



IHEBE has been a wonderful 

 change in business condi- 

 tions since Franklin pub- 

 lished his Almanac, in 

 1732, but the "Ways to 

 Wealth" are just as wise 

 as they were nearly 200 

 ye'ars ago. There were no florists then 

 — indeed, there was no United States — 

 but the flower store man who today ap- 

 plies Poor Richard's maxims will find 

 that, next to "Honesty is 'the best 

 policy," there is nothing more certain 

 than that the public will respond to 

 the efforts of the retailer who * ' keeps ' ' 

 his store just a bit better than the av- 

 erage store is "kept," But it isn't so 

 easy as it may look. 



A Man's Job. 



' ' Keeping ' ' a flower store is ..fCman 'p 

 size job. It presents about as .many 

 sides as any occupation that will sug- 

 gest itself, as the successful retail 

 florist must be a financier, an artist, a 

 merchant and an administrator — an or- 

 ganizer. If any phase of the subject 

 is neglected the business will suffer, 

 but if all are properly handled, a big, 

 prosperous, successful establishment 

 quickly is built up, and built to stay. 

 The trouble is that not many men com- 

 bine all the qualities demanded by this 

 exacting vocation. Some are mer- 

 chants and not artists, while more have 

 the artistic temperament without the 

 money-conserving faculty. The ideal 

 organization, perhaps, is a partnership 

 in which one man represents the artis- 

 tic and the other the material aspects. 

 If they work to- 

 gether their store will 



be well "kept" and 

 will keep them in 

 abundance, for the 

 needs of the individ- 

 uals will be no greater 

 than the needs of 

 the thoroughly well 

 kept store. 



The Essentials. 



The unusually suc- 

 cossful retail florist 

 otiben is said to have 

 a ""genius" for the 

 work. Carlyle's defi- 

 nition of genius was 

 ''an infinite capacity 

 for taking pains, ' ' 

 and that coupled with 

 an equally great ca- 

 pacity for work about' 

 (I'Hcribes the quali- 

 ties that make some 

 florists stand out 

 ahove others in the 

 f'tme line. Care and 

 industry; close atten- 

 t'on to details. - 



A first essential for a successful 

 flower store is a suitable location and 

 facilities in keeping with the location. 

 The choice of a location is a matter 

 of prime importance. The store must 

 be where people can get at it — the 

 right kind of people — flower buyers. In 

 general, there are two tendencies: In 

 the big cities the florists are moving 

 away from the busiest downtown busi- 

 ness streets, getting into the regions of 

 specialty shops or the residences. Quite 

 the opposite in the smaller cities, the 

 florists who once were content to sell 

 at the greenhouses have of late by hun- 

 dreds opened stores in the center of 

 town, as close to the heart of things 

 as they could get. This has been a 

 most important development. 



With the location chosen, the fitting 

 up of the store is the second considera- 

 tion. The equipment musfbe.iadequate 

 to handle a volume of business that 

 will make the store pay. And the fix- 

 tures, the help and the service must 

 be in accord with the class of trade to 

 be catered to. If things are not so 

 good as they should be, people will pass 

 by to the place that is better, or if 

 ,the store is too good for the neighbor- 

 hood, its public must be educated to 

 knbw that moderate-pursed people may 

 with safety venture^ inside. 



Luck in Location. 



The most difficult thing about select- 

 ing a location for a flower store is to 

 estimate the future. In rapidly grow- 

 ing American cities the character of a 

 neighborhood often changes radically in 



r^ View in the McKenna Fk>wer Store, In Montreal. 



a few years. Many a retailer has found 

 that just as he became, as he thought, 

 thoroughly established, the trd,de chan- 

 nels of his city changed direction and 

 he was left high and dry. It was the 

 experience in one hustling middle-west- 

 ern city that wholesale houses crowded 

 everything else out of the district of 

 the best flower stores, driving the flo- 

 rists' customers to a new retail section 

 several blocks distant, while in another 

 city what had been the best residence 

 section gradually deteriorated as the 

 business section spread. The florists 

 were forced to move. In the second in- 

 stance they could not follow their 

 trade, as it had scattered, and so were 

 forced practically to begin all over 

 again. There are many such experi- 

 ences. 



Keeping Up to Date. 



In only a few places can it with con- 

 fidence be said that business locations 

 will prove of fixed character; , in most 

 cases they will either improve or de- 

 teriorate. In selecting the spot for a 

 flower store the florist must peer. into 

 the future. He must make up his mind 

 what the character of the neighborhood 

 will be ten or twenty years later, for 

 the business must endure. 



Having been fortunate in his choice 

 of a location, the retail florist still 

 misses his opportunity unless he devel- 

 ops the faculty of keeping pace with 

 the steady improvement in the charac- 

 ter of his neighborhood. There are in- 

 numerable instances where the flower 

 store kept on year after year in the 

 same old way, while 

 its neighbors in other 

 specialty lines made 

 steady progress in 

 the way of finer 

 fronts, finer fixtures, 

 finer merchandise, 

 larger sales and bet- 

 ter profits. 



Every once in a 

 while some florist 

 awakens to the fact 

 that his storekeeping 

 methods have not 

 kept pace with the 

 development of the 

 location; that he has 

 not increased his vol- 

 ume of sales as fast 

 as his neighbors, or 

 that the appearance 

 of his store and the 

 quality of his mer- 

 chandise have not 

 kept up to the im- 

 provement that has 

 been going on around 

 him. Then he gets 

 busy. A new front 

 goes in, with modern 



