Hi Retail Florist Friend!
As a retail flower shop owner for over a decade, I've learned a few pro tips about profitability that are worth sharing.
I've gathered the best tips from all my retail florist friends and EveryStem members too. And I'm sharing them here with you! (And if you have a tip to share please email it to me and I'll add it here.)
PRO TIP 1. Calculate your recipes accurately.
If you want to use EveryStem to calculate your retail designs without calculating extras of each bunch. In your flower library enter each flower as a "stem" and enter "the stems per pack" as 1. This will allow you to build recipes without calculating the extras of each bunch as cost in your EveryStem event.
For example: Roses come in a pack of 25 stems. So if I use 6 in a recipe with the rose set to stem and a pack of 25, I'll end up with 19 extras and those extras will be calculated into my profit margin on the summary page. But, if I create an item with the rose as a pack of 1 stem, those extras will not be calculated.
This is for when you are pricing out your retail menus, recipes, and designs, but keep in mind those extras are not free so when it comes time to order flowers, you'll want to be sure to stick close to full pack quantities to avoid over-buying.
You can easily set up multiple items adjusting the stems per pack.
For example:
Rose, Standard - 1st. (this can be your item name in EveryStem for a stem pack of 1 )
Rose, Standard - 25st. (this can be your item name in EveryStem for a stem pack of 25)
PRO TIP 2. Watch the numbers every week.
Use EveryStem to build retail arrangements on-the-fly.
Many of our retail EveryStem members use the software on a daily basis.
Here are the steps.
1. Create an event for the week
2. Add the flowers you have on-hand for daily orders with updated prices
3. Build recipes as you take orders based on the Quoted Price (that's the price you are charging your customer for the design)
4. Grab the flowers and design the arrangements
5. At the end of the week, you'll have a full picture of your profit margin for the entire week and how many flowers you used on your Summary Page. It's AWESOME!
PRO TIP 3. Get the most out of the big florist holidays.
Plan ahead for large holidays. Set smart goals and do everything in your power to sell out! And learn from your experiences by reviewing your holiday and looking at what can be improved for the following year.
See the "How to have your most profitable Valentine's Day (also applies to other high volume holidays)" article in this folder for more details.
(P.S. The best browsers for EveryStem are Chrome, Safari or Firefox- other browsers that have hidden security settings or blockers may not be compatible with EveryStem depending on the settings.)