Most florist shops today employ a variety of marketing tactics to attract customers, from stylish mannequins, ornate windows to promotional posters.
However, some places are so subtle that customers hardly notice their tactics. Take the grocery store or the supermarket, for example. What do you see first when you walk in there?
Many answers will be flowers. Bright, fresh bouquets of flowers are displayed to invite shoppers inside these locations. And of course, this form is not random at all but a wise business strategy that not everyone knows.
Paco Underhill, founder and CEO of behavioral research and consulting firm Envirosell, said: “It’s very, very simple. If you can attract people’s sight and smell, they’ll shop less. Much more planned. Flowers are aesthetically beautiful and when you get close to them you smell their fragrance. This makes your brain think ‘they’re worth buying’. Maybe in many people’s plans it’s not. There is a ‘buy flowers’ section, but when they pass by a place selling in a supermarket, they tend to stop to look and choose to buy more than when passing a store outside.”
Ashwani Monga, a professor of marketing at Rutgers Business School, said: “The fresh flowers also give the impression that this store offers natural, delicious food. Consumers will think if the store owner has If they can import and preserve fresh flowers, they won’t sell old food.”
This psychological “blow” is one of the ways supermarkets/convenience stores indirectly affect your shopping behavior.
According to an expert, flowers are a highly profitable commodity. They may only account for 1% to 3% of total sales but their profit margins can be as high as 47%, a report by an international manufacturers association says.
In many places in the US, shops/supermarkets can import flowers for $7.50/bundle but sell them for $15. The reason is because most of those flowers are shipped from South America, where production costs are much cheaper.
Photo: Internet.
The director of a production association said that convenience stores/supermarkets selling flowers have been around for more than 30 years. Many places have been quick to grasp the fact that consumers have less time to shop in direct competition with outside florists.
Even the Covid-19 pandemic has not hindered the flower business of supermarkets/convenience stores. “People still have to go to supermarkets to buy necessities. In the context of having to stay at home because of the epidemic, they even want to buy flowers to create a little joy in life,” an expert said.
At the moment, when inflation increases, some experts still expect flower sales to increase sharply despite the fact that consumers limit spending on non-essential items.
“You may not be able to afford a $200 dinner or gas to drive to that restaurant. However, you can still reward yourself with a bouquet of flowers,” one expert shared.
Source: CNN
Source: Vietnam Insider