10 things I've learned from Covid-19

Shame on me ... has been a while since I posted a proper blog ... although in my defence m’lud I have been a bit busy elsewhere!  You see in truth it seemed more important to be on the end of a phone, email or social media platform to help readers through the first stages of lockdown and then I had to catch up on a zillion other things not least working with my Good Florist Guide members given they are the florists actually paying me to do things!!

So where to start on what I have learned?

To say the last 20 weeks have been surreal (I refuse to use the un-p word as EVERYONE is using it) would be an understatement. Sadly, I didn’t learn another language, lose weight or even manage to tidy my house.

But what I did do was watch my beloved industry crash and burn and then ... pretty darned rapidly ... see it pick itself up to find a new way with some good and bad stuff along the way.

So what’s on my What I Learned In Lock Down List (WILILD). It goes on for ages but I have broken it up so you can read in bite sized chunks; either that or arm yourself with a cup of tea or stiff drink!

WILILD #1: A fighting spirit and retail outlet helped

Unless you were incredibly lucky and quickly found a way to pivot your wedding and event business – shop based florists have been the winners.  Their established place in the market for gift work meant they could move into online/contactless sales quickly and easily. Well I say easily. Truth was and still is in many places, florist bosses around the globe have single handed-ly kept their shops alive so that staff ... often furloughed and safe ... had a fighting chance to come back to a job.

It hasn’t worked for everyone ... redundancies are happening and will keep happening as there simply isn’t enough work going forward to guarantee employment and no-one should take loans out to pay salaries. However kudos to those who knackered themselves to keep things going.

If you’ve lost your job I am so, so sorry and please don’t take it personally or let it dent your confidence. I know you will but trust me I also know from talking to hundreds of florists there has been more than a river of tears shed over redundancies and nobody has wanted to do it. Remember also it's the job that's redundant , NOT YOU!

If you didn’t have to go into the shop and have kept your job – even on shorter hours - be supportive going forward .... it may not be your name on the loan papers or lease but your input can help the business survive.

To all my wedding and event readers and the supply chain that help them huge hugs. With 74,000 weddings gone you have been the biggest losers in all of this ... at a rough estimate I'm reckoning around £70 MILLION on flowers alone!  And whilst they may have been postponed not cancelled that doesn’t help the funds now nor the earnings of all the freelancers and logistics people who support you. Fingers crossed you can weather the storm.

WILILD #2 Supply, demand and dreadful prices

In the supply chain wholesalers and growers have fought equally hard to keep it going. It is still incredibly tough and that’s without some of the more underhanded things that went on in the early days; emotional pressure to open/attempting to hijack customers/less than kind business ploys.

However, on the price rise front you only have to look at the not surprising (but with hindsight maybe over the top) reaction to the Dutch auction crash on Friday March 13th which saw many growers pull or hibernate their crops. As a result, and with so much less product in the system but huge consumer demand around the world, we saw extraordinary price rises (at one point FloraHolland was recording a 40% uplift year on year) and as predicted did not see any normality until week 32 - early August.

Our cornerstone growers in Kenya, Colombia and Ecuador have had it particularly hard. Not only are they having to make sure their own people stay safe but with limited transport due to the global airspace lock down (the majority of flowers are actually flown in as belly filler cargo so passenger planes are essential for supply) they haven’t had the same bounce back as Dutch growers. And it hasn’t just meant prices going up but is a real worry to workers who don’t have the comfort of the social system Europeans enjoy.

Respect to the Dutch who have made sure they have taken every opportunity and thank God we have had British flowers to fill some of the gaps but actually we need direct supplies of African and South American flowers; we cannot and must not rely on the Dutch system alone. As the marvellous article in the Financial Times showed imports are not evil; they are actually often better than northern European grown counterparts and they help people who really need it.

WILILD #3 Consumer confidence ... let’s trade on it

In terms of orders it has been amazing. It’s tailing off a bit now and may well continue to drop as mortgage holidays come to an end, the fall out of redundancies becomes clearer and people have other things to spend on. But all that aside (we’ll need to work the Lipstick Effect big time) at the peak of the pandemic flowers and plants were the one commodity that could connect people in a way no other product could.

Yes, other gift lines saw a rise but the tangible benefit of safely delivering flowers was palpable and meant many a local florist got orders they have never had before.

The trick will be how to consolidate on that. We won’t get a global; heck not even a national campaign (too many personalities never mind the fact marketing budgets are being slashed and what money there is will be spent on companies own brand promotion) but as long as everyone keeps banging the same drum about how flowers are good for the soul, mind and body and that they are a natural connecter when times are tough that’s OK.

I also love the fact that consumers have been far more receptive to Florist’s Choice;  it would be wonderful if it continued because as our survey said it is both more profitable and more fun but it does cause problems from an online ordering perspective because customers – so well trained to buy from a picture – can be wary so this needs to be worked on in order to build trust!

WILILD #4 Not all relays are bad.

In terms of order gathering everyone knows I would prefer it if every order went direct to a florist shop. Truth is it is never going to happen.

Consumers like the convenience of a central order line never mind the fact too many florists don’t have decent websites (oops did I just say that – see Trolls and other stories!!) and having seen how hard it was for shops to keep up in the early days I’m not sure they could have dealt with much more.

However, some the companies did better than others. And this is going to surprise a lot of you but big shout out to Interflora. Yup we have had our differences but have to say I was majorly impressed by the way they handled the whole Covid palaver.

I expected D2F to be caring and sharing (and they were with what they did in terms of member support) but for the market leader who has, in the past, been less than member friendly, Interflora really came up trumps. As the daughter of an Interflora florist I once again felt the pride of the old days.

On the other hand, I feel eFlorist let their members down and whilst they may well have raised £300k for the NHS with their boxed flowers, many of those were orders that could and should have gone to their retail shop members. eFlorist is still owned by venture capitalists whereas D2F are a family firm and Interflora are now part of a private company ... it showed.

WILILD #5 Digital Disruptors can and should be copied

It worries me that on my WI Facebook pages (in my other life I am President of our local branch) Bloom & Wild and Freddies Flowers are constantly rated as a must use option. Now obvs I wade in and stand up for independent florists, but it shows how powerful their marketing is – helped by some huge injections of cash.

Last year B&W got £25 million and it pretty much only goes on marketing and tech – indeed in a speech by their COO last November they admitted that out of the 130 or so employees only about 12 knew about flowers; that side is dealt with by Flamingo their packhouse people who themselves are seeing a huge increase in turnover.

However what Covid showed was that local independent florists are not prepared to be beaten and now hundreds of you are offering your own subscription services and not only trading on the ‘shop local mantra’ but making sure you fill all the price points. No longer is a £15/£20 loose wrapped bunch considered beneath a florist but instead viewed as a perfect way to open doors and pick up bigger orders further on the line.

I love it and when I see local florists like Kerrie Booker and Happy Blossoms being featured in the national press as 'best buys', I know it is possible to compete if you want to. My advice would be to really study the websites of Bloom & Wild, Freddies, Petalon etc and see what you can learn and do it yourself. They’re obviously doing something right, learn from them ... you can do it too.

WILILD #6 The danger of FWACer’s

On the downside there has a been a massive rise in the number of folk deciding they can be florists; after all, all they need is a simple website and a few flowers ... how hard can it be!! The rise in FWAC’ers (Florists without a clue and it’s a hard C) is not help by wholesalers selling to anyone (I get they need money but really?!) and the fact there are so many online tutorials.

I’m also not sure why the British Florist Association was encouraging new people into the sector a few weeks ago with a ‘learn to be a florist offer’ when their own, paying members were and are fighting for survival and need help. I know BFA will probably be hurting as a result of all this (Fleurex is unlikely to happen in the normal way and membership fees for any trade association will be a challenge) but can’t help thinking they should be helping their current members survive and thrive not encouraging more players into an already tricky market.

People jumping on the florist bandwagon is actually something we all need to be careful of. Not because I am anti encouraging new blood into the industry but because it has to be the right blood. Too many of the newbies are undercharging, don’t have insurance, aren’t declaring their businesses to the authorities or are simply not doing a decent job. That actually runs the risk of letting everyone down ... including those home based florists who do do it properly.

My way is to try and expand the Good Florist Guide coverage simply because I then have a proven group of professionals to promote and who are willing to support my efforts but if anyone else has any ideas please let me know.

WILILD #7 Social Media is wonderful but not enough

Facebook is easy to do – oh ye gads Instagram is soooooo clunky – but it cannot be the 'be all and end all.'

Not just because the market is getting so saturated (fighting for ‘visual space’ in people’s feed is getting harder) but because there is always the risk you could lose your FB or Insta pages. They can - and have been removed by the powers of FB etc thus kissing goodbye to years of work in some cases. *

It also isn’t very personal nor, shock horror, is everyone using social media; indeed after 21 weeks of everything being done online I can’t help feeling there’s a bit of a revolt against it given viewing figures are down.

This is where the old fashioned postcard, flyer ... heck even a phone call comes into its own. Yup it takes longer/will cost more/needs effort but in the same way having flowers or plants delivered, a personalised note, letter, postcard – indeed any form of paper message - if done properly engenders a really special feeling.

** It’s why I keep banging on about websites. Not because I have a wish to be shouted at (again see trolls and other stories) but because your website is YOUR asset, cannot be killed off without your knowledge (well not if you use a reputable supplier) and is a totally 'personal to you' window to showcase your style.  See what Alison Ellis has to say about it here

WILILD #8 Trolls and other stories

I confess I did get very angry after the first few weeks; angry at what was happening, angry at some of the underhand things that went on as people battled to survive/gain market share/pretended to be important etc etc but the one thing that really got me and reduced me to tears was the florist who decided to have a real go at me on our magazine Facebook Page.

I wouldn’t have minded so much but not only did they manage to create a whole groundswell of activity that resulted in dozens of people ‘shouting at me’ but it was all such a load of rollocks!  It was quite clear they had completely mis-understood what I had published; a case of either reading what they wanted to read or just wanting to have a go!!

I won’t go into the gory details but it taught me a valuable, if painful lesson. Do not expect people to act in a rational way when stressed, if you know you are being fair and proper stick to your guns and block people who try to undermine you. If it happens again I shall shout back!!

WILILD #9 Sustainability still matters but in the right way

Everyone commented on how clean the rivers and air were getting with no traffic but nobody seemed to care how much packaging was being generated with all the additional online deliveries. I am not a ‘green person’ as such; shock horror I am the woman who says Foam is OK in this month’s Flower Arranger magazine ... but I was quite frankly appalled at the scenes of the Dutch auction dumping flowers.

Not just because I think it was totally irresponsible of FloraHolland that the video was allowed to be made and prompted/encouraged a whole domino effect in terms of growers stopping production, prices rising etc (interestingly the chap who took it – I am told illegally – has disappeared as has the original footage) but because it highlighted just how much cellophane, rubber bands and boxes we use in the sector.

Now it is actually incredibly small compared to things like nappies, online deliveries like Amazon (their packaging is a disgrace!) and even pregnancy test kits (yes I checked!!) but, because we are in flowers, it will be picked up more because we are a ‘pretty’ industry.

The problem is that sustainability isn’t actually about where you buy flowers from but a whole host of elements that together make up the right or wrong way. At the moment all things eco are taking a bit of a back seat in terms of the press as they have other things to write about but it will return and as an industry we have to be prepared and know that we are talking about the right things that matter and which really need to be talked about.

WILILD #10 Be prepared for constant change ... and Christmas!

Truth is no one really knows how this is all going to pan out. We are nowhere near a solution in terms of free movement and the national press/government have managed to put such a fear of God into everyone people are petrified – sadly we seem to have lost the national gung ho spirit.

Add in an over the cliff downturn in the general economy and it is all rather pants. At the moment they are still predicting a deep V recession which would be the best but there is no guarantee and we need a fair bit longer to know.

Which is why I am on plan #168 v2 on how I will survive and why everyone needs to keep looking at their strategy .. thinking of new ways to do it and – going back to #1 – if necessary changing the business model again!.

That said – and even if there are more lockdowns - I believe Christmas will happen and people will be desperate to have some cheer even if it’s a remote workshop, a delivered bouquet to a loved one or even just a dreaded Poinsettia delivered to their homes!

So whilst I write this in the middle of a heatwave now is the time to start thinking, sorting and preparing because we are actually one of the best placed industries to send cheer (festive or otherwise) whatever else is happening .... now where did I put that tinsel!

Caroline Marshall-Foster

Editor