8 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



October 27, 1910. 



a table in your -window, using not only 

 j^ood flowers but the best napery you 

 can procure; usually the dishes and sil- 

 ver can be borrowed from a merchant 

 by putting his card on your display. 



THE RETAILERS' TROUBLES. 



[An extrnot from a paper by Edward Mac- 

 Mulkln, of lioston. Muss., read at a meeting of 

 the Gardeners' and Klorlsts' Club of Boston, 

 October 18, 1910.] 



As a body the retail florists mean to 

 be fair, but I am sorry to say that some 

 of them have contracted bad habits. 

 In every large city you will find men 

 who, the moment they find a neighbor 

 in the way of obtaining a good order, 

 will deliberately ofl"er to do the work 

 for so much less, regardless of what 

 profit they can make, simply to get the 

 business away from the neighbor. This 

 is a serious drawback to the man who 

 is doing a legitimate business. Unfor- 

 tunately, it is a common practice all 

 over the country. If these men would 

 only stop to think, they would know 

 that this practice is doing them no good 

 and is hurting the customer, who nat- 

 urally feels that he was imposed on at 

 first, and who knows that he has been 

 imposed on when he sees the order com- 

 pleted. 1 have seen many such orders, 

 but never saw one that was satisfac- 



Another trouble in the trade is that 

 the average customer cannot understand 

 the great difference in the quality and 

 price of flowers. If the dealer is at all 

 unscrupulous, it is easy for him to de- 

 ceive the customer by giving him the 

 impression that he is really selling the 

 same article for less money. Of course 

 this does not happen often, and is 

 always disastrous to the cheap man. 

 He makes that one trade, but can never 

 do business with the same customer 

 again. 



In Business to Stay. 



Every man in business is entitled to 

 a legitimate profit. He must satisfy 

 himself what that profit should be, and 

 then see that he gets it. If his un- 

 scrupulous neighbor should take away 

 ii trade it should not bother him; his 

 customer is sure to come back, and come 

 back to stay. 



The man who starts in the retail 

 florists' business today is in it to stay, 

 if he can. To do a paying business 

 today, he must invest considerable capi- 

 tal in fixtures, and in what is known as 

 dead stock; that is, a certain amount 

 of stock that must always be in his 

 possession to do business properly and 

 at a profit. To be successful as a 

 florist in these times, a man must have 



Edward MacMuIkin. 



tory to the customer. You can readily 

 understand that one man cannot give 

 the same thing for much leas than an- 

 other while at the same time satisfying 

 his customer; he oithor ruts down on 

 the quantity or the quality of stock 

 supplied, either one of whicii is sure to 

 be noticed. As a consequence, he does 

 himself no good and prevents his neigh- 

 bor from making a fair profit on the 

 order. 



a presentable place in which to do busi- 

 ness; he must keep it well stocked; he 

 must have a goodly number of compe- 

 tent employees. He must also have 

 greenhouses in which to store the stock 

 necessary for the business, or must hire 

 them, thus reducing his profits; he must 

 have or hire land for his garden work; 

 in fact, he should be in a position to 

 tell liis customer he can fix up his 

 grounds or his garden as well as his 



table. Nowadays the customer not only 

 wants such service of his florist, but ex- 

 pects it of him. If you cannot do it for 

 him he goes to the other fellow, who 

 does the work for him. He also sells 

 flowers to your former customer, who is 

 now yours no more. Every man in the 

 trade should have the ambition to run a 

 place where everything relating to 

 flowers can be obtained for the asking. 



Busy the Year Around. 



The outdoor work of the florist is 

 gradually assuming large proportions 

 and is deserving of his best efforts. 

 It is a well-known fact that what is 

 called the store business is only good 

 from about October 1 to May 1. The 

 rest of the year the florist who does 

 nothing but a store business has hard 

 work to make both ends meet, generally 

 using up the winter's profits to pay the 

 summer's expenses. Many years ago I 

 saw the necessity of making the dull 

 months, if not profitable, at least self- 

 supporting, and, to my surprise, found 

 conditions were such that I would find 

 no difficulty in providing work for men 

 who otherwise would have to remain 

 idle during the summer. I want to say 

 here that experienced labor is difficult 

 to obtain, and when you get good men 

 it is better to keep them than let them 

 go for a couple of months when you 

 really have nothing for them to do. 



To make the florists' business profit- 

 able today requires a certain class of 

 men, and the more they know about 

 their business the more successful they 

 will be. Any ordinary, well-dressed man 

 can sell a customer what he wants, but 

 the real man must have many qualifica- 

 tions to make him a §uccess. All these 

 should be natural, but if the individual 

 is so unfortunate as not to possess them, 

 they can be acquired. 



Taste, Tact and Integrity. 



The successful florist must have good 

 taste, good ideas, good manners, and the 

 integrity to carry out in good faith any 

 agreement he may make with a cus- 

 tomer. Naturally, his taste and ideas 

 must be good, as customers do not care 

 for the same thing often, and some- 

 times do not want what they have seen 

 elsewhere. This makes it imperative 

 for the florist to be able to originate 

 new schemes for the arrangement of 

 flowers and new methods of placing 

 them before the customer. 



The temptation to save money and 

 material at the expense of the cus- 

 tomer is often great, but it is always a 

 mistake. 



The principal mistake made by the 

 retail florist is the selling of old 

 flowers. Don't sell old flowers (I hope 

 all the growers here are listening). 

 You make money by throwing them 

 away. Nothing discourages a customer 

 so much as to buy a few flowers and 

 find them all curled up the next day. 

 He may stand it once or twice, but in 

 a short time he fdels he is throwing 

 money away to buy flowers, and instead 

 of buying once or twice a week, he 

 only buys when it is absolutely neces- 

 sary, and then with the feeling that he 

 is not getting what he pays for. 



It is also poor policy to sell your 

 customer what he asks for simply be- 

 cause he is willing to pay for it, when 

 j'ou know he will not be satisfied with 

 the result. Do the right thing by tell- 

 ing him what you know. It will give 

 him confidence in vnur abilitv and in- 



