Mass Market News

As local florists are consolidating and closing their shops, the shifting tides present opportunities for IGCs to embrace flowers. As traditional florists close up shop, IGCs are looking to fill the gap, but floral departments require staff with a particular set of skills. For example, when a florist went out of business half a mile down the street from Bayside Garden Center, the IGC saw a chance to expand its reach by opening its own flower shop, called Bayside Floral Design, in 2003. “We decided to move into their existing space to expand our floral and prevent another competitor,” says Andy Kolowith, general manager of Bayside Garden Center and Bayside Floral Design in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Like Bayside, more IGCs are finding new opportunities in flowers. In her 2018 Floral Insights and Industry Forecast, Slow Flowers founder Debra Prinzing predicted the trend of retail garden centers opening or reviving in-house floral shops. She cited examples like Windmill Gardens, which brought floral design back in house two years ago for the first time in about 15 years. After renting out retail space in its store to other florists for several years, Windmill Gardens reclaimed its flower shop, rebranding it as Windmill Floral Studio . “A lot of traditional florists have gone out of business,” says Ben DeGoede, Sr., owner of Windmill Gardens in Sumner, Washington. “The lack of competition meant less choices for customers. That’s why we got back into floral.” Can flower power boost your IGC to new heights? “This is an incredible opportunity to connect with consumers who have not traditionally walked into a garden center,” Prinzing says. Although floral is by no means an easy add-on, a flower shop can help tap into growth — if you do it right. Finding the right staff The biggest hurdle in launching a floral division is finding the right staff to manage it. Prinzing sees this challenge play out at grocery stores that lump the floral department together with produce, instead of finding floral experts. “That’s a recipe for disaster,” says Prinzing, who winces every time she sees inexperienced managers place […]

Source: www.gardencentermag.com