Tulips, daffodils, lilies and roses — customers are ready for the bright-colored, spring flower selection. Easter lands on Sunday, April 5 and Passover starts Friday, April 3 and ends the evening of Saturday, April 11. Be sure to order your supplies ahead of time and create a pre-holiday display to let the consumers know what is available in floral. Here are some merchandising tips:

• Hard goods: The first item on the to-do list should be to secure hard goods for upgrading. This is the time of year for flowering potted plants, so determine if your shop has all of the items needed to capture the full sales in upgrades. Baskets, containers, spring-colored ribbon, Mylar balloons and holiday picks are all items that should be ordered in advance to maximize your sales. To make your Easter upgrades extra special, use Easter grass in place of Spanish moss for an added pop of color. Additionally, make sure to order the care cards/tags for all of your potted varieties, as customers really appreciate this informative tag to let them know the proper care and handling of their new floral purchase.

• Pre-holiday display: Build a holiday display with Easter and Passover balloons as well as sample product in order to advertise the spring holidays in floral to your customers. Make fresh vase arrangements using carrots or jellybeans in the bottom of the vase, showing the creativity of floral. Add some blooming plants, upgraded foliage and inflate some Mylar spring and Easter balloons to finish the preview.

• Holiday display plan: After all of your orders are placed, draw a display plan to determine where your incoming product will be merchandised. Check with your store director to determine the location of supplemental, out-of-department displays, trying to utilize the heavy traffic areas in your store. Secure additional display fixtures such as produce crates for the extra product ordered. Use color blocking and flower groupings to create appealing displays to lead customers into your floral department. Skirt your fresh bouquets off of the sides of your potted plants to capture all floral sales. Create a large Easter basket display and put all of your fresh bouquets in the center, as this is the only time it is safe to keep all your eggs (or flowers) in one basket. Because many flowering plants, such as hydrangeas, require lots of water, schedule floral assistants accordingly so proper care can be given to all of your products.

• Signage: Customers should be able to easily identify prices for every item on the sales floor. Add some trendy chalkboard signs to your displays. Be clever with signs such as “Egg-cellent Ideas for Easter,” “Some Bunny Loves You,” “For Peeps Sake,” and “Be a Chick Magnet,” with these flowers.

• Easter Baskets: As our customers are always searching for that extra time, prepared Easter baskets may be an easy add-on sale to your department. From traditional cellophane-wrapped candy and toy baskets, to floral specific baskets with 4-inch plants included, or bud vases, there are many options that can be created. Themed baskets are also popular — movie theme, dorm room theme and sports theme to name a few.

Floral has endless possibilities and it’s time to spring into action.

Karli Nelson and Denise McPartland are account managers at The Elite Flower in Miami. They can be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected].