m0m 



11: !1 



POPULAR POMPONS 



xt PULL PROFITS 



Take any inexpensive baskets in your stock; fill them with the bright 

 and saucy little pompon mums; price them for the passers-by ; fill your 

 icindow with them and they'll pull the people in — make your cash register 

 play ragtime these November afternoons — surest thing you know. Get 

 busy. Start something. Do it now. 



Wniii. 



HERE are a few people who 



would rather buy straw- 



berriea in January than in 



June, but — ask any dealer — 



the bulk of the retailers* 



profits are made in the height 



of the season. Think it over. 



Did you ever stop to consider that the 



flower of the season is the easiest flower 



to sell? And the one that turns in the 



real profits I 



Every observant person has noted that 

 certain retail florists have been able to 

 double, perhaps triple or quadruple, their 

 volume of business within a compara- 

 tively short time, say two or three or 

 four years, while other retailers in the 

 same cities, perhaps longer established, 

 have been making slow progress. 



Pushing the Easy Sellers. 



But how many florists have stopped 

 to analyze the methods by which sales 

 have been built up so rapidly f 



Think it over and it will be apparent 

 that the selling has been only a part 

 of the method, that its foundation lies 

 in the buying — in pushing the flower 

 that is in season. 



The majority of florists lay in a gen- 

 eral stock and wait for trade. Not so 

 the retailer who is at j)resent making 

 the biggest stir in his community. This 

 man buys heavily of some one item, 

 the flower that at the 

 moment is most plenti- 

 ful and cheapest if 

 taken in large quanti- 

 ties. He makes a show. 

 And, he advertises. To- 

 day he is selling Beau- 

 ties, tomorrow roses, 

 the next day cattleyas, 

 and 80 on from one 

 year's end to another. 

 He puts his whole sell- 

 ing energy into pushing 

 the day 's specialty — 

 the flower that is in 

 season. 



Even the retailers 

 who have not analyzed 

 the situation do more 

 or less the same thing, 

 each according to the 

 f'xtent of his business. 

 Haven 't you heard 

 wholesalers say time 

 and again that there 

 ■tre comparatively few 

 'buyers for novelties, 

 'hat the big business is 

 one with the flower 



at moderate prices! Of course you have. 

 Nobody can dispute that the tendency 

 is to push the flower that can be sold 

 for small money and still return a fair 

 percentage of profit. 



The Pompons Are Coming. 



The purpose here is not to argue 

 whether or not this trend toward featur- 

 ing the abundant article is advantageous 

 to the trade at large, but to call atten- 

 tion that the popular little mums soon 

 will be more abundant and probably 

 cheaper than they ever have been before. 



It is three years since the little mums 

 came into their own. Before that they 

 had been considerably seen, to be sure, 

 but it was in the autumn of 1911 that 

 the supply in the markets became great 

 enough to assume a place of large im- 

 portance. The novelty had not worn 

 off, the stock was fine and excellent 

 returns were obtained by the growers. 

 The returns were so good, in fact, that 

 the production was greatly increased, 

 with the result that the wholesalers 

 have been hard put to it to make returns 

 that would compare in any way favor- 

 ably with the records of the earlier 

 season. This year the pompons have 

 been planted by the hundreds of thou- 

 sands — everybody is growing them; a 

 few weeks ago there were scores of 

 growers offering the plants in the classi- 



that's in season, so 

 plentiful it can be sold 



The Pompons are Comfortable in Any Kind of Small Basket. 



fled columns of The Eeview. The results 

 will be apparent in the wholesale mar- 

 kets within a fortnight. 



The retailers surely will have a chance 

 to make good use of pompons this 

 season. 



Last spring there was a wonderful 

 sale for small baskets filled with sweet 

 peas, . daffodils, jonquils, tulips, short- 

 stemmed roses and other suitable flowers. 

 Baskets that could be sold, filled and 

 trimmed with ribbon, at anywhere from 

 $1.25 to $2.50 had a tremendous run. 

 Many retailers in good sized cities sold 

 them at the rate of dozens per day, 

 sometimes even hundreds on special sales 

 days. An even better business will be 

 done during November, using the pom- 

 pon mums. 



Baskets Bring Business. 



The pompons, and this includes the 

 so-called singles, never would have be- 

 come as popular as they are if it were 

 not that they are about as adaptable as 

 any flower the retailers ever have had 

 to work with. They can be used for 

 almost any purpose for which flowers 

 ordinarily are employed. Some of the 

 double white varieties compete with the 

 carnation as filling for funeral designs, 

 you see other sorts in corsages, while 

 graceful sprays of them are ideal for 

 decorative purposes. But it is for table 

 centerpieces and for 

 basket work that they 

 are so well adapted 

 that they refuse to take 

 second place to any 

 flower available in their 

 season. The supply 

 dealers have not failed 

 to appreciate this and 

 there is an infinite vari- 

 ety of small baskets 

 designed for use with 

 the small mums. Bas- 

 kets with or without 

 liners Can be used. The 

 flowers can be put in 

 water or the stems can 

 be inserted in damp 

 moss packed into the 

 basket. Every retailer 's 

 natural aptitude for the 

 business will lead him 

 to a happy combination 

 of basket, flowers and 

 ribbon. 



The retailer who 

 plans to make the pom- 

 pon and single mums 

 an important item of 

 his sales during the 

 next few weeks will see 



