Wholesale Florists - A Great Local Resource
Baskets, pre-packaged foods, cellophane, and enhancements — you’ll find all this and more through wholesalers outside of your area, but have you located a florists’ facility in your own backyard that provides alternative inventory?
If not, keep searching. You’re missing out on a bounty of items that can be purchased on site a minimum of six days a week.
My region includes four such wholesalers, with the closest being five minutes away from my workspace. They have a $30 minimum. Their baskets are shallow and not gift basket friendly, but gift merchandise and enhancements are attractive and plentiful.
You won’t find everything required for gift basket design at every local wholesaler, but it’s still good to know each one’s location and what they sell.
How many wholesale florists are in your area, or are you still searching for local suppliers?
Why Taking Inventory is a Worthwhile Investment
Like you, I enjoy browsing through favorite stores to see what’s new and different.
I don’t always find something, but one product usually says to me, “You’ve been waiting to take me home.”
This weekend as I browsed, a familiar paper tag was hung or placed on shelves and hooks, and I immediately knew that merchandise in the area had been inventoried.
I first became aware of the inventory process when I worked at Alexander’s, a former east coast department store. Inventory was always completed in January to account for merchandise value, uncover slow sellers, and track shortages (both what needed to be ordered and theft).
Taking inventory of our own products is just as important, allowing us to track items that:
I’m a firm believer in taking the best of the corporate world’s procedures and transferring those processes into our own businesses. That’s what inventory control is reviewed in chapter 9 of How to Start a Home-Based Gift Basket Business.
Review the quantities and styles of your baskets, snacks, and supplies before visiting this month’s trade shows so that you’re on track and ready to buy exactly what customers want.
If you’re having trouble understanding the inventory process, what’s the one thing you want to know so that you can complete this task and move forward confidently?
Buy Gift Basket Products According to Color, Not Occasion
Right now, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year are the main reasons for gift basket creation, and with that comes buying choices that will either make or break your post-New Year’s sales.
Veteran designers know all too well about what to select, as they’ve graduated from the school of hard knocks and don’t plan on returning in the future. Here’s what they’ve learned for your benefit.
1. Purchase products with foil packaging or appropriate colors that do not include special occasion words such as Happy Holidays or Happy New Year.
If these products don’t sell, you cannot return them, which means it’s either thrown away or added to your own dinner or snack menu.
2. Enhancements in colors of red and green or blue and white can be purchased in abundance, as you’ll add these supplies to gift baskets during the year.
Valentine’s Day baskets will absorb many of the red-colored enhancements, while the others will be added to Administrative Professionals Day, Easter and Mother’s Day themes.
3. Buy sleighs and drums in moderation. Clients appreciate receiving holiday containers, so shapes reflecting those themes are plentiful right now.
Do your best to estimate the quantity required. When the containers are sold, return to offering generic baskets that you turn into holiday gifts through color choices. This is better than looking at sleighs and drums in your inventory during the summer months.
When I first started my business, I was stuck with holiday inventory when the season ended. What’s one product that you carried into another season because you bought too much?
Gift Basket Finds at Flea Markets - Good or Bad?
In the late 1990s there was an energetic discussion on the former AOL message board about whether buying baskets and other supplies from flea markets, swap meets and garage sales was good or bad.
Some designers expressed their outrage about re-purposing used items, while others expressed happiness that there was little competition for these products from the designers against this practice.
Ten years later the debate continues on Internet forums.
Where do you stand? Are you for or against second-hand items in gift baskets, and why?
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