Flower Sales Blossoming at Supermarkets
It’s not all hearts and flowers in the blossom business this Valentine’s Day.
The traditional corner florist shop is finding itself squeezed on all sides in its pursuit of your flower funds, and the biggest culprit is the local supermarket. If you think ham and eggs don’t mix with baby’s breath and carnations, think again.
Just last week, Hughes Markets Inc. completed a nine-month effort to put full-time flower arrangers in all 46 stores in time for Valentine’s Day--a big change from the old days when all you could find there were a few potted pothos plants near the plum tomatoes.
Lucky Stores moved into full-service flower sections in Southern California about 15 months ago and now has 25 such centers. Lucky’s Northern California stores began the same process about five years ago, and Ralphs Grocery Co. also is planning to have floral designers assigned to all new stores.
Although self-service flower displays cropped up first in Southern California grocery stores, the region basically lagged behind the East Coast in flower departments with operations where designers make everything from bridal bouquets to funeral sprays. But not anymore.
“We haven’t had any requests to do a funeral yet, but we have had wedding requests,” said Dottie Shipley, floral merchandiser for Hughes. “We have customers who come in and ask every single week for us to refill their vases. . . . I don’t think we’ve even come close to reaching our peak. We’re the baby department in the supermarket.”
That baby department is getting its first real test today, with the orgy of bouquet-buying known as Valentine’s Day. On Sunday, Hughes florists began filling bud vases in preparation. Making bouquets took up much of Monday and Tuesday. The moment of truth comes at 10 a.m. for most of the Hughes stores, when its florists take their places for the last-minute rush.
“It’s pretty scary,” Shipley said.
It’s scary in a different way for floral entrepreneurs, the ones who don’t have a rent-free alcove in a larger store, who can’t buy in such volume that they can afford to cut prices, whose profits are being diluted by competitors with names like Safeway and Lucky and Vons.
Concern and resentment were greatest 25 years ago, when Alpha Beta started selling fresh flowers in self-service refrigerated cases, said Michael Brady, executive vice president of the Southern California Floral Assn. They bloomed anew when manned floral stations first started to hit the region within the past three to five years.
“But it is easing up some,” Brady said. “The perception we get from the consumer is that this (the supermarket flower shop) is good for a one-time deal, but if I’m sending flowers for a funeral, I’ll deal with a retail florist.”
Late last year, the Produce Marketing Assn. surveyed 2,500 supermarkets across the country and found that 99% have some sort of flower section.
By far the most common is a “limited service” section where flowers are kept in cases, but there’s a designated employee to care for the merchandise and answer questions. About 20% have “extended full-service” departments complete with a designer. In 1982, only 7% of the markets surveyed had full-time floral workers.
The reason for the increase is twofold, said Jan DeLyser, executive vice president of the Fresh Produce Council. When a rush of remodeling and new supermarket construction began about five years ago, companies began expanding their produce and--by default--their flower sections.
“And the recent evolution is also because consumers are busier and more into one-stop shopping,” DeLyser said. “It’s been tied in with the busy life style and the ability to go to the supermarket for the food shopping needs as well as the floral needs.”
What is assuaging some flower shop owners’ fears about supermarkets though is that flower buying overall is increasing--even though supermarket sales of mums and marguerites are jumping faster than total sales.
Between 1986 and 1988, overall flower sales rose 16%, from $657.3 million to $763.2 million. At the same time, supermarket flower sales jumped 31%, from $79.4 million to $104.2 million, according to the Food Marketing Assn.
Still, Jacob Maarse, owner of Jacob Maarse Florist Inc. in Pasadena, argued that a grocery store could never compete with him for that special bridal bouquet or funeral spray. But he does admit that markets have already taken away the Easter business and are nipping furiously at Christmas. At one time, he said, he sold 3,000 Calla lilies during the Easter season; today it’s about 100. Poinsettia sales are also down, he said.
“As a florist, I am not too much concerned about it,” Maarse said. “If people wanted something lovely for Valentine’s Day, you could never get that in a supermarket.”
