Integrating a wedding program into supermarket floral departments
Integrating a wedding program into supermarket floral departments
Integrating a wedding program into your supermarket floral department can be both wise customer service and a profitable experience. According to Thumbtack.com, an online marketplace that matches local service providers and consumers through an online directory, the average couple in the U.S. will spend $1,134 on flowers for their wedding in 2016. Why not capture some of that revenue in the supermarket setting?
“With traditional retail flower shops disappearing, we see more sales evolving with weddings. Weddings can be very profitable if your floral team is following stem pricing and labor charges,” Vickye Kleinschmidt, floral category manager at Coborn’s in St. Cloud, MN, told The Produce News. “With our outstanding staff we are able to handle six weddings a weekend. Because of the volume of fresh flowers we sell, we feature many varieties of flowers on hand. Brides can touch and smell the flowers when placing their wedding order.”
Kleinschmidt finds that many of the company’s wedding orders come from customers who have already bought flowers from the store in the past, which reinforces the importance of great customer service. “With many of the brides who come in, we have created their prom and dance corsages — we already have an intimate relationship with them,” said Kleinschmidt. “We provide for weddings anywhere from $99.99 to upscale, high-profile events. Whatever the budget, we guarantee the bride will be extremely happy. Many times the bride has featured us in their wedding program — you can’t buy that [kind of] advertising.”
And the wedding work is very important to the overall success of any supermarket floral program. “You have a captive audience that is mesmerized by your flowers and commenting on them all day,” Kleinschmidt said. “When you provide floral for a wedding and do it well, the work speaks for itself and the advertising costs you nothing.”
Plus, weddings are only one of many life events that involve the need for flowers from Coborn’s. “We do the ‘circle of life’ flowers from birth to death,” said Kleinschmidt. “We have guests who have written in their wills, ‘funeral flowers cannot come from anywhere but Coborn’s.’ Our guests are very proud of our florals.”
The Coborn’s floral department has grown and changed dramatically over the decades. “It started out as a bucket shop and evolved into a large-volume, go-to, full-service floral,” Kleinschmidt said. “Guests love coming in each week and seeing what is new and trendy, and sometimes to just say ‘hi.’ Having a floral department in a grocery store setting is one of the most economical gifts we can give our guests.”
