Economy Crisis V.S. Valentine's Day

In the past few years, I'd noticed the trend of flower sales drop during Valentine period. What is the Valentine period? Usually it's the week from February 7 to Valentine's Day on 14th. Usually, the whole week will be as busy as hell. People ordering flowers through the phone; Internet orders shooting out of the printer till the paper is out; lots of walk in inquiries and roses pre-ordering. But this year is kind of weird. People don't tend to start ordering till the 2 days before Valentine's Day. It seems that people thought about not to spend at the beginning but at the end they feel that they still need to spend on flowers/roses for Valentine... It's kind of sad that to see the retail industry volume had dropped big time. Although you can say that on the 13th and the 14th, flower shop is the most popular store out of all retails. but whatever been made over these 2 days were used to cover the expenses during the dead month of January... Anyway, so far it seems to be a smooth Valentine for most of the shops. No major crises had happens in the industry and the weather had permitted for most of the deliveries. In the past few years, people had choose to pick up flowers in store more often than have them delivered. Our delivery orders had decreased about 50% from last year; but the pick up orders had increased. From the sudden increase of dramatic walk-in sales on 13th and 14th, you can feel the panic and the stress from people looking for flower shops and see if they still have roses available. We ordered about 2500 roses (75% red, others are mixed color), red color were sold out at 5pm, one hour before we closed the store. I know some other store were out at 2pm since they didn't stock up too crazy. However, the spending power has dropped big time this year. More single, 2/3-roses or mixed bouquet sales than dozen roses sale. People would rather spend on dozen tulips more than dozen roses~ Economy crises do have a big impact on the flora industry. It's the global issue that the demand on gift giving items had decreased. On flora industry, it affects on quality and selection of fresh flower supplies, increased cost of shipping and less flora suppliers to choose from if more suppliers can not survive through this economy crises. Hopefully the situation will get a bit better in the next few years.

Red cube vase arrangement with Grass Heart:

Red roses - Forever Young
Hot pink asters
Variegated Pitt
Salal
Lily Grasses+Bear Grasses
Oasis for Fresh
Red Glass Cube