Welcome back to between bells valentine's Day maybe the biggest day for lovers,
but this year it's going to be the biggest pain for florists.
That's because the day of love falls on a monday. What does that mean?
Well, some florist are,
they just can't be ready for weekend pickups by major transportation carriers.
Not only that many florists are still feeling the effects
from supply chain shortages caused by you guessed it.
Covid
joining us now to discuss more on what the industry is up against is Christina,
Istanbul ceo and founder of Farm Girl Flowers Christina.
Welcome to the show.
So I did not know this or didn't realize that I
should say valentine's day hasn't fallen on a monday since 2011.
So what are some of the main issues about monday that's
making it so difficult for all the florist out there.
Yes, I was just starting out in 2011.
So I didn't really realize how bad it could be until this year as well.
Um, you know, a Monday delivery is, is just really hard for small businesses like us.
You know, larger companies have the scale that, you know,
some of the large translation carriers will provide
a sunday pick up for monday delivery.
But for small companies like us, that's not an option.
So we have to, you know, try to convince people to order early.
We have um, one location that can deliver for monday, but that's it.
So it's putting a lot of that risk on
one location shoulders to carry the whole company,
which is not what you want to do.
You know? Yeah, I imagine that's not ideal.
That one company,
how have supply chain issues affected the business and
of course those high prices for flowers this year.
Yeah,
I mean we're paying double essentially for the same
flowers that we can get in two weeks.
We'll get for half the price.
Um it's not usually the way, but given the shortage, you know,
you can't really blame it supply and demand, right?
So if there's, you know, a shortage everywhere in the world for flowers,
you're gonna have to pay a premium and then you need to pass that on to the,
your consumers, which consumers don't like.
I understand that it's,
it's like that in every industry right now and and the florist industry is,
is no different than that.
So if there's a ripple effect that, you know, if I wasn't in flowers,
I wouldn't understand either.
But it goes all the way back to container prices with seeds and tubers,
that's how you get them here.
And then the growing cycles delayed and things like that.
So there's just,
there's so many things at play here that if
you're not in the industry would have no idea.
You're just having sticker shock when you see the price is.
Yeah,
I think it's a ripple effect that so many of us don't know about how have
these shortages impacted your orders and of course
customers this year for the past year.
Yeah. So in lots of ways we've had to mitigate risk this year.
Um last february, there was all those crazy storms and uh you know,
we experienced huge losses because of those over $5 billion of losses.
So this year going into the holiday, the first thing I was thinking as a ceo is,
you know, how do I mitigate risk?
So we don't have the same thing happened that happened last year,
happened this year, especially in a riskier day of the week as welfare delivery.
So Um you know, the first thing I thought of it,
like we were definitely leaving money on the table.
We're doing less orders.
So that way, you know,
if you know everything goes wrong like it did
last year we can still survive as a company.
That's my number one responsibility to my team is to preserve jobs.
And so that's the first thing then.
The second thing is, you know,
how do we absorb these costs and not have to pass 100% on to our consumers and not,
you know, basically, you know, overpriced.
You know, if our product is the highest in the, in our category,
we're gonna price ourselves out of the market.
So how can we blend that and spread it out over a month instead of a week.
You know, just looking at, you know,
tactics and strategies like that is what we're looking looking to do and are doing,
let's talk about Farm Girl flowers, just launching its first ever luxe collection.
Can you talk to me about the inspiration behind these collections?
The bouquet behind you right now by the way is absolutely gorgeous.
Thank you. This is this is an example of one of our luck's product lines.
Again, with your last question,
this kind of segways perfectly because if we're going to leave money on the table,
we want to make sure that we are providing the
best product possible for the few that we can,
we can do the much fewer than than we would do if it were on like a friday.
Um, and if supply chain issues weren't costing, you know, making us, you know,
pay double the price for flowers.
So you know, we launched a luxe line,
we think that's the thing that differentiates us
from our category from everyone else were the only
large scale direct to consumer e commerce flower
company that's owned and primarily run by women.
And we think that matters because we know what women want and also, you know,
throughout the year, 81% of the time it's women buying for women.
Everybody thinks men by men only buy at valentine's day.
So you know, the luxe line is to accommodate, you know, the fewer orders we can take,
we want to like just, you know, knock it out of the park with,
you know what women actually want and what they want is
a gorgeous bouquet not stale red roses and baby's breath.
And so that's what we're providing this year.
I'm constantly sending my girlfriends flowers so
I love this very quickly Christina.
Which friends are you expecting in the floral industry for the next few months?
For the next year?
Yeah, I think bright colors, really bright suit, like what I'm wearing,
we take a lot of inspiration from the runways and
what we're seeing on the runways are really bright colors.
I think we're all kind of in like this, you know, ho hum like their third year of Covid,
um you know, we really want something to brighten our lives up and so,
you know in the past a lot of times
there's been trends of like very muted palettes being the
thing and now I think it's all about punchy
bright colors to kind of brighten up your life,
which we all need right now, I have to say your outfit is totally inspiring me.
I know what to do with this red blazer next time I wear it, you look amazing.
Love the bright colors, Love the flowers, Christina,
Istanbul ceo and founder of Farm Girl Flowers,
Thank you so much and Happy valentine's Day