By Cheryl Overland

With the county fair only weeks after the annual Hy-Vee companywide rose sale, we decided to use the fair as our store’s theme to promote the corporate rose sale. When picturing the fair, all I could think about were award ribbons on crafts and animals and 4-H projects. The idea of the Floral Hall with award ribbons ran through my head. The top award is always the grand champion and of course our roses are grand champion quality, so this is how our theme developed.

Activities were planned and executed, including an outdoor petting zoo. Our in-store dietician promoted dairy in everyday lifestyle. In keeping with the theme, we offered coloring pages, a spin-to-win wheel and other carnival games. Even the area dairy princess and milkmaid attended with a baby calf that customers were allowed to interact with and bottle-feed.

Displays in the floral shop were created using old pallets to construct small cattle stanchions and a pigpen. After all, you can’t have a fair without the famous Wilbur and Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web. The cattle stanchions were put on top of the 16-foot bouquet cooler and filled with Balloon Buddy cows and “hay.” The cooler was filled with roses and tied in with our everyday bouquets for higher profit. The pigpen was worked into our main display, Charlotte’s web was created out of fabric and Charlotte was hung from the ceiling. Many animal and barn balloon bouquets were fashioned to decorate.

The fuel saver program at Hy-Vee was also used to promote the rose sale. A penny per rose was given to the customer and to promote this we incorporated fuel saver balloons and talking signs. We also scheduled a demo person, staffed next to the out-of-department rose station, with a sign-up table for any customers not already on the fuel saver card program.

During the annual rose sale other areas of the department usually suffer in sales, so we decided to increase cross merchandising. We incorporated the roses next to our everyday bouquets, hoping that people would choose both. This strategy worked well and customers purchased both items, helping to blend out the profit.

Additional cross merchandising included the following.

• Bright green watermelons and juicy red tomatoes were put in pallet crates on our main display. Both sold very well.

• The bakery made fresh mini donuts, cinnamon rolls and created very cute animal face cookies. These were a hit and tasty too.

• Candy bouquets were created and sold to promote asking your date to the fair.

• Fuel savers were offered on each rose sale. The fuel saver was a penny per rose, so 50 roses purchased earned you a 50-cent saver and 100 roses purchased earned you a $1-saver. We offered roses in their grower sleeves of 25 for a 25-cent saver and they did quite well.

Point-of-sale materials are always sent from our corporate office for every large promotion. I also sent in a sign order to our corporate sign shop and explained our theme. The banner they made turned out great and I took a photograph of the pig pictured holding roses and a grand champion ribbon and created clipa art that we could put on all of our signage.

Assorted sizes of signage were created and many talking signs were created to use as silent sellers. The signs also bragged about the fuel saver that was attached to each purchase of a rose with “a penny saved is a penny earned” or “put money in your piggy bank with grand champion roses.”

To advertise, we used radio call-ins, in-store intercom ads and talking window signs on the doors and cash registers. This helped make our rose sale a huge success.

The display created a great sales increase and our customers had a lot of fun with this event. A lot of pictures were taken next to our pigpen and people commented on how unique and creative the display was. We signed up extra fuel saver card recipients and the games inside offered something fun for kids on a rainy day. Overall, the promotion and fair theme were a tremendous success.

Cheryl Overland is the floral manager at Hy-Vee in Albert Lea, MN. She can be contacted at 1019@[email protected] or 507/373-2180.