38 



The Florists' Review 



Apbil 2, 1914. 



but the preceding days are lighter and 

 lighter, until the average store's rec- 

 ord shows the Monday preceding Eas- 

 ter as not giving even an average 

 day's business. A study now of the 

 year-old sales records, including orders 

 and tickets, will afford many a hint as 

 to how the sales in the early, quiet 

 days in the week can be increased. 



HANQING BASKETS. 



In this issue of The Eeview there are 

 two novel Easter baskets. The one on 

 page 37 is simply a willow hanging bas- 

 ket stained dark green, with its tin 

 liner planted with lilies, cyclamens aod 

 ivy. The man who made up one of 

 these last Easter as a sample found it 

 was a good seller. The other is a wall 

 pocket, useful only as a decoration, but 

 salable for the reason that the florist's 

 customers frequently have blank wall 

 spaces where such a novelty fits in as 

 well as it does on the wall of a flower 

 Btore. Southern jonquils were used for 

 filling the pan of the wall pocket shown 

 on page 50, with light blue ribbon. 



EASTEB DELIVERY. 



It is to be hoped that the late date 

 of Easter this year, while not generally 

 considered as in the interest of the 

 trade, will prove of advantage in the 

 matter of deliveries; there should be 

 little danger of frost and the laborious 

 and expensive wrapping of plants will 

 be saved. But it does not pay to take 

 too many chances. The extra wagons 

 should have tight bodies, so that a cold 

 snap will not work serious harm. Other- 

 wise, much heavier wrapping will be 

 necessary. 



The extra delivery facilities de- 

 manded at a holiday deserve as careful 

 "Consideration as any of the problems 

 iconnected with doing a month's busi- 

 ness in three days. The average florist 

 has as many deliveries to make Satur- 

 day afternoon and Easter morning as 

 are made in all the rest of the month 

 and unless the delivery system is care- 

 fully planned the work is likely to be- 

 come what is technically described as 

 "all balled up." The man who has 

 some greenhouses back of the store has 

 a tremendous advantage at Easter. No 

 better system has- ever been devised 



than the one modeled on that used in 

 the big e;xpres8 office or department 

 store, it will pay any retailer who has 

 trouble with the shipping department 

 to visit and study the systems used 

 where large numbers of packages go 

 out daily. 



The department store has the city 

 divided into sections, with a wagon for 

 each. The florist who has a large num- 

 ber of deliveries for Easter morning 

 will do the same thing. He may not 



Spring Flowers io Tumbler Basket. 



have a different wagon for each route, 

 but may send the same wagon on more 

 than one trip. When the department 

 store's packages come to the shipping 

 room the shipping clerk has the floor 

 marked off, in some cases with perma- 

 nent partitions and sometimes merely 

 with paint, with a space for each trip 

 each wagon is to make. Each package 

 as received in the shipping room goes 

 direct to the proper space on the floor. 



Consequently, when the wagon is ready 

 to start everything that has reached 

 the shipping room is ready to go on the 

 wagon; nothing is left behind. If the 

 florist adopts this system, it will obvi- 

 ate tbe exasperating special trips to de- 

 liver the one plant that did not get on 

 the right wagon; the proWem then will 

 be to get the orders put up before the 

 wagon starts. 



In ease there is a wagon for each 

 route, so that all can start at once, the 

 florist will bend his efforts to getting 

 all the orders put up at the hour at 

 which deliveries are scheduled to start. 

 If the wagons, or some of them, are to 

 make two trips the florist will sort his 

 orders and put up the orders first that 

 go on the early route, putting up those 

 for the second route while the wagon is 

 out on its first trip. 



With greenhouses at his back, the 

 florist's preparations for delivery are 

 greatly simplified. A bench can be set 

 apart for the plants that can be deliv- 

 ered Saturday, and others for Sunday's 

 deliveries, and space in the greenhouse 

 probably can be provided, as the plants 

 move out, so that the sales for each sec- 

 tion of the city for each day can be set 

 away by themselves. The man who has 

 neither greenhouses nor unused floor 

 space back of the store, as is the case 

 with many of the stores in city business 

 blocks, can do little more than tag his 

 plants "Sold" as his customers pick 

 them out and then work up his de- 

 liveries as he gets the chance. 



BASKETS OF CUT FLOWEBS. 



This will be a basket Easter. One 

 of the notable features of the trend of 

 the trade in the last year has been the 

 increase in the use of baskets. Tre- 

 mendous quantities will be used this 

 season. And not all of the Easter bas- 

 kets will contain plants — far from it. 

 In the last few mouths enterprising re- 

 tailers have found it possible to sell 

 hundreds upon hundreds of small bas- 

 kets filled with cut flowers, the selling 

 price including the basket, ribbon and 

 flowers. The Easter sales of these will 

 be enormous and the retailer can ar- 

 range just the character of basket that 

 his trade will take; it is possible to 

 make up baskets so large and contain- 



There is Nothing that Sells Better than Tulips when Appropriately Dressed for the Easter Shoppers. 



