This is a collection of the "best" Valentines stories that can help florists plan for their own shop.

Valentines 1993 Sunday holiday

Before the holiday no one seemed to know for sure just how the 3 day weekend with Valentines on Sunday would come out. Some florists were up over past years, most seemed just under and a goodly number were down as much as 50%.

That special Touch (Brookings OR) overall for the week was about the same as last year. They kept 3 drivers busy all day Saturday but only 1 on Sunday with the shop open 9-2. "We were still delivering "Oops, I forgot Valentines" orders on the Wednesday afterwards.

Flowers Plus (Clackamas OR) did an excellent business with hotels and motels in the area. "They were offering a Valentines package of a room, meals and wrapped roses." They also reported that their in store specials and Spring arrangements did well and out sold straight roses.

Anderson McIlnay (Salem OR) enjoyed the fact that orders were spread out- not concentrated like is normal on the 14th. Schools and business deliveries were strong on the 12th (Friday) and residential deliveries were big on Saturday. Weekend work was more than expected and they had to put 4 drivers on the road both days.

"An order came on the Mercury for delivery between noon and 4 on the 12th. We tried to deliver but could not find the address. We sent a mercury message back to the sending florist to verify the address. Sure enough, the order sender, after contacting the customer, replied with "oops, typed the wrong set of numbers." We attempted delivery again but still no such address could be found. Contacted the ordering florist again and this time they finally told us "the customer says its a basement apartment so its number may not match the house upstairs". Our driver went out a third time and could not find it so he went house to house to every door on the block until it was found". That's service above and beyond the call of duty.

Flowers Imagine That (Lebanon OR) also lost business because of the schools as they ran head long into a newly announced school district rule- "No deliveries to schools. Not to teachers or to students. Too disruptive".

"For the last 3 or 4 years our drivers have worn tuxedos on Valentines day. One customer walked the delivery man out on the front steps this year and give him a big kiss for all to see. "I hope all my neighbors are watching" she said.

Valentines 1994 Monday holiday

Flower Boutique (Redmond OR) "We were swamped from Friday on with lots of walk ins, especially at lunch time and right after work. Sold lots of roses & mixed bouquets with sales splitting about 1/2 and 1/2. Last year our big seller was coffee mugs with flowers but this year no one wanted mugs". Oh well.

Showers of Flowers (Westport WA) lives in a town heavily dependent on fishing. With the fishing season in full swing in Alaska most of the men of the town were not even in the area, let alone on the shore. Modern technology to the rescue!! Cellular phones on the ships allowed lots of phone in orders for those wives and sweethearts left behind.

Valentines 1995 Tuesday holiday

Overall shops reported sales to be much higher than last year even in the north Willamette valley where 2 to 6 inches of snow fell on the 12th. Most urban areas from Portland to Salem were shut down with very little traffic on the roads.

Anonymous (a new shop) had disaster strike! "At noon on Valentines Day the designer I hired walked out. She said she was not feeling well but later we found out she was fine but didn’t like the work load. That left my mom, my sister and myself. I just could not think about it or I probably would have started to cry so we did what had to be done and we survived. We had people standing wall to wall and our parking lot was full plus cars were parked on the street. The customers were very understanding but we had to tell them if they wanted an arrangement they would have to come back later or take a hand tied one for now. We sold a lot of hand-tieds. My father and husband were doing the deliveries and we all finally finished up about 9 p.m.

Nybacks (Klamath Falls OR) is in a 2 day town. "This town has always been on a 2 day holiday schedule and no one, I mean no one, will order ahead. Each year we go through second thoughts 4 or 5 days before Valentines day and this year was no different with people running around saying we ordered too much on Saturday and Sunday. But, like our notes showed from years past, things broke loose on Monday and we sold it all. We were considerably up over last year and we poor designers were up till 3 am Monday night but we only had to work till 7 pm on Tuesday so that wasn't too bad."

Olsons (Salem OR) had a "wild one"- quite a bit busier than last year. "From our experience and from what we had read, we knew that mid week holidays were always better than Saturday, Sunday or Monday dates like last year so we were geared up but it still was a lot to do.

Margarets (Cathlamet WA) reported an absolutely phenomenal holiday! Up at least 30% over last year and it was the first holiday she could recall having trouble filling all orders on Valentines Day itself. "We cut off accepting orders at 1 pm on the 14th and told all later callers that we could only deliver on the 15th but we still had trouble. It wasn't so much a last minute rush as a steady stream all day long and I think it was mostly due to our first ever advertising mail out. We have been here a long time but we have never tried a mail out before- it worked! We had plenty of delivery ability but our design team could not keep up with the unexpected onslaught.

A young man called on the 15th from Alaska. He had completely forgotten his girlfriend the day before so to save his neck he ordered 5 dozen roses. It sounded like a joke at first but he convinced us he was for real so we filled the order.

Bob Hungerford (Portland OR) may be a retired wholesale florist but you wouldn't have known it on Valentines day. For fun he works for a local flower shop each holiday as a delivery man and he sure had fun this time around. With 6" of snow and ice on the hilly streets of the city, he happily bounced and slid around in his station wagon into places that saner, I mean, less adventurous people dared not go. He slid down one hill and bounced off a mail box and the curb only to find a cul-de-sac at the bottom rather than an exit. Since he could not move his car he enlisted the help of a group of sledding children to push and pull him up the hill. He convinced them it was a "challenging adventure" and they enjoyed it! Many people were downright surprised to see him with fresh flowers as they had given up trying to get out themselves and figured no one could get in.

Floral Creations (Palmer Alaska) is located next to a glacier which has the nasty habit of causing storms. Storm warnings were out in force on Valentines day but flowers had to be delivered so the brave drivers worked at full speed and got all deliveries done by late Tuesday afternoon. Just before a major 5 day wind and snow storm hit which closed everything down for 150 miles.

Oregon Roses (Hillsboro OR) had excellent production quality due to the strong sunshine the 2 weeks before Valentines. "The orders are still 70% red but over the years we have seen a growing acceptance of other colors though red will always be predominate". They had 2 groups of panicked florists this year that needed help. "We received an unusual number of calls from shops which needed roses because they had purchased bargain priced imported roses which were bad on arrival. After the snow fell in this area on Sunday we also got a number of calls cancelling orders because they feared the holiday would be a local flop but by Monday afternoon they had all called back and re-ordered plus many added to their original requests

Valentines 1996 Wednesday holiday

The Flowering Jade in Tualatin OR was one of the hard hit shops where flood and Valentines day hit together. The Tualatin river became the Tualatin lake for a week, spread into the heart of the town and into shops and homes. By Thursday night, Feb 8th, it was apparent that trouble for the shop was brewing and Gary Shigeno sandbagged the doors to prepare for what might come in the night. By Friday morning the parking lot was 2 to 3 feet deep and only people in boats could get close to the building but even those in boats were being kept out of the area by the police to stop looting.

Gary had recently closed a 2nd shop location 10 miles away but still had a lease and keys so with plenty of fast hard work they reopened it and had a full service flower shop running by Saturday night. Hungerfords had taken out the coolers in the 2nd shop just a week before but they were able to loan substitutes at no charge to help out.

Ever tried to answer the phone when your shop is under water? They transferred the main shop phone to their house and stationed a person there until it could be switched to the 2nd shop on Monday but the water did destroy the wire service machine and wire orders had to be done by regular phone for the holiday. The paperwork for all pre-orders for the holiday was stranded in the flooded shop and could not be retrieved until they waded in on Sunday but overall Gary says he figured sales were only cut 25 to 30% versus what he expected for the period. "Many people called on Monday and Tuesday and were totally surprised we were open at all since the water was still high in many local areas. We used the 2nd location to do all our work for Valentines day since we had to clean up the silt and mud and sanitize everything in the regular shop before opening for business there again. We were fortunate as we have a tile floor and the water only came up 3" inside the shop so there were no rugs to destroy and no structural damage."

The White Rose (Albany OR) reported a very smooth holiday with no flooding. "We were lucky." reported Jim Somppi, "Our store is just high enough that the water didn't reach us even though the river is next door. We had concerned friends and customers who called us to ask if we needed any help but we are high enough that we had no problems. My real concern was for other florists who had to deal with these weather related problems.

"My favorite order this year was from a young man who ordered flowers for his girl friend to pick up. It was part of a treasure hunt and our shop was just one part of this game. The enclosure card gave the clue to find her next stop on the hunt."

Klamath Flower Shop (Klamath Falls OR) reminded us all that a holiday mid week really makes a difference. "I have seen lots of Valentine days come by but I tend to forget from one year to the next that mid week versus week end makes such a positive difference. Sales were very high- well up over last year."

We heard from one of our customers located in a Hawaiian resort hotel that she had 8 weddings scheduled for Valentines day itself and had done 13 in the 3 previous weeks!

Another reported turning down orders starting Saturday- a full 5 days before Valentines. "We had reached the limit of what we knew we could do and it was better for both us and the customer to turn excessive orders down"

Albertsons Floral (Mountain Home ID) asked all its staff to wear fancy rented tuxedos for the day- "adds a dramatic touch" and reported strong sales. "I did a lot more custom wraps this year than last", reported Linda Earle, store manager. "We do them up very nice with fancy cello and a bow and allow customers to create their choice for a hand held bouquet. They chose everything from simple single roses to expensive large mixes of variety flowers. The idea was so popular that I really needed one person just to help customers do this all day."

Sunshine Floral (Ephrata WA) was prepared for those unavoidable crabby customers with pre arranged "good attitude". "We just determine that we wont let them upset us and regardless of what those few say or do we don't let them ruin our holiday. This year we had lots of stock, had done our advertising early and had everything ready but didn't have many pre-orders to show for all the work. Then on the 13th things started cooking and on the 14th it went crazy. Sold out of roses so we just kept selling what we had on hand. It was a very good holiday for us."

Heidis Hallmark (Eugene OR) reported that old familiar feeling of disaster pending and relief. "Its always the same- about 3 days before the holiday I think I must be out of my mind to have ordered so much, that there is no way we can sell all this. Then it all breaks and we somehow sell it all. We ran out of everything except red carnations by the time it was over. I have done almost 40 of these Valentines and I would say this was our busiest ever."

Cottage Flowers (Ketchum ID) cheerfully reported that this year was their most organized ever! They wanted people who knew flowers to answer the phone but didn't want to use design staff for this job so they approached 2 of their own larger customers and hired them to help out. The shop assigned one of their regular full time staff to keep the temporary delivery drivers in order and avoided all mix ups. They even had enough "spare" time to fill and deliver an order for 150 balloons which the customer had forgotten to place until Valentines day itself.

Valentines 1997 Friday holiday

Washougal Floral (Washougal WA) is closed for Valentines day. After studying her records for the past seven years Bobbi, a wise woman of 63, discovered she had made a profit one year, broke even four years, and lost money three years."We mailed notices of our closing for that holiday to our customers... and I went to Phoenix without feeling guilty."

Pembertons (Salem OR) turned down 250 orders this year- mostly roses-, rather than promise what they could not deliver. They used 5 vans and 10 taxicabs which they kept going all day on the 14^th plus 2 vans on Saturday till 5 pm.

Anonymous- "I’m so frustrated! I did the books [for Valentines] and its true that I did over order on teddy bears and a few flowers, but after all, who knows what to expect? After payroll, I will have a very small profit- All that work for nothing. I’d love to give my girls a bonus for all the hard work they did but I can’t afford it. When all is said and done I would rather not do the holiday at all."

Cindi’s Floral (Boise ID) was robbed at gun point on Feb 7^th at closing time. They were held captive briefly while he stole an employees car to get away. The police mentioned that the shop was an easy mark with just 3 women there and they went through violence counseling and a crime prevention workshop afterwards.

Valentines 1998 Saturday holiday

The pre-holiday word for this year was "expect low sales, from 10% to 30% less than last year." The most common comment heard afterwards was, "We did better than we expected." A few shops reported disappointing sales and a few claimed sales above last year but the majority of northwest florists had to admit that the dire forecasts just didn't materialize. Almost everyone had to buy more product by Friday. Friday actually turned out to be the BIG sales/delivery day. Saturday, the 14th, was relatively manageable for most shops.) And of course, someone out there just had to ask, "Did anybody make any MONEY from all this craziness?" A question worth asking.

Jack Malcom, Flowers by Malcom, Gresham, OR reports that he had to cut off his Mercury orders by Friday noon. "We had 70 dozen roses to deliver on Saturday plus all the other flowers so we just had to stop." Jack thought the mild weather was a big plus for his sales this year. The roses his shop received were excellent quality (mostly from South America) and were available clear through Saturday. Jack mentioned that Valentines is the only world wide holiday, celebrated by Europeans, Asians, everybody...on Feb. 14th. That's why there is such a demand for flowers.

Gail Kerns, Landpark Florist, Sacramento, CA explains, "Sales were a little less than last year but more than I expected. We are in a strip mall and the good weather brought us lots of walk-ins on Saturday. I use a buying service from the San Francisco market for my flowers. We split our orders all year so that we are regular customers of several suppliers. I think this really makes a difference in the quality we get during holidays."

One long time florist who now works for a supermarket related that a friend has just returned from New York City where roses in uptown Manhattan were selling for $199/dozen. If you wanted them in an imported, French, crystal vase they were $1400! She said, "I told my customers how lucky they were that my roses were only $65. Of course, I had the $19.95 "Newberry" roses too, but they aren't the same as the $65 "Nordstrom" roses. That's what I call them because customers just don't understand how roses are graded. You can't pay "Newberry" prices and get "Nordstrom" roses.

Deveney Herb, Betty's Flowers, Lebanon, OR says that her shop was busy all week. She averaged 3 hours of sleep, opening at 5AM and working until midnight several days. Her employees worked about 50 hours each. In her local area a friendly group of florists often buy in cooperation to save money. "We also share with each other, usually on a replacement basis, so no money has to exchange hands. We treat each other as associates rather than competitors."

Joanne Williams, Cottage Flowers, Hermistan, OR said, "From past experience we expected it to split between Friday and Saturday and it did, 200 deliveries on Friday, 150 deliveries on Saturday." They tried a new idea that worked really well. One part-time employee got the full-time job of routing deliveries. They also sent deliveries out the front door instead of through the design area which greatly reduced the stress of the designers.

Two anonymous shops report "We're very disappointed. We did about half of what we did last year." One dejected owner says, "I'm not going to do this next year. Two poor sales years in a row is enough for me. The men in this town don't shop for beauty, they just go for the cheapest prices. My business does fine all the rest of the year and people appreciate my style and quality, so why should I put myself through all this work only to lose money?"

Valentines 1999 Sunday holiday

Our "scientific" poll results- Sales:

10% said "wonderful, better than last year".

42% reported "good, busier than expected".

44% were "OK, so so", or had left over product.

4% moaned "awful, might lose the shop over this".

Best delivery tip: White Rose (Albany OR) came up with an excellent idea to speed up deliveries. "We hired the teens from our church youth group to ride along, not as drivers, but as runners. The driver found the building, gave the flowers to the teen to run in and deliver, and the driver did not have to find a parking place- just circled the block. What a time saver!"

A Special Touch (Anchorage, Alaska) was pleasantly surprised by sales. Sheila Munger said she was "expecting less business because people told me that Valentines day on a Sunday would be less but as near as I can tell we sold just as much as last year. We promoted the idea of early delivery and the "older" customers [with established marriages] thought it was a great idea to get the flowers to their wife on Wednesday or Thursday in her office so the co-workers could see them. It really spread our work load out and we were able to go home every night and not go to work till 8 am instead of 4 am like other years.

One big concern was the weather. It ranged from 20 below zero to 60 below at times and we worried a lot about frozen flowers coming in to us but everything came through OK."

Kahului Florist, in Maui, Hawaii, had no concerns about frozen flowers and Wayne Tokumoto reported better sales than last year. "Earlier delivery really spread things out as we stressed Wednesday, Thursday and Friday deliveries and gave special promotions such as free balloons to get people to take it early. It really worked and we were not as tired on the 15^th because of it."

Pemberton’s (Salem OR) enjoyed having business more spread out over the week. "It was not so crazy, even on Friday when it was busiest" said Vi Pemberton. "We were not open on Sunday because after a hard week like this we need to get reacquainted with our families. We go to church and spend the day together."

Probst Flowers (Grants Pass OR) chose to stay open Sunday and were pleased with 65 deliveries, "which we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise". "Sales were a lot better than expected overall and we were pleasantly surprised. Wednesday and Thursday were slow and we wondered what would happen because we anticipated and bought for an increase based on our past experiences of Sunday Valentines. It seemed like the pre-orders we had for Friday, Saturday and Sunday were equal to a "normal" Valentines Day if we had done them all on one day so it was great to have them spread out. On Friday we started having men coming in saying "My wife is the only one at her work without flowers on her desk- help!" Sunday we planned to work only until 4 but it was after 5:30 when we left."

Valentines 2000 Monday holiday

The response from our survey of February 15 was consistent. People were upbeat, had good sales and were all exhausted! We heard of many shops "at least as good as last year" , most with "better sales than we have seen at Valentines in a long time" and a few off the charts.

Carousel Flowers (Medford OR) Carol Neering told us that "Valentines started for us on the Wednesday before with lots of walk in’s who either pre-ordered or bought on the spot to take with them. This is the first year we have had so many do this but it seemed many people were going away for the weekend and took flowers with them. We always suggested Sunday delivery to our customers but most wanted them on Monday and to be delivered to the work place. We worked Sunday and had the Monday orders ready to go by that night so we felt ahead of the game Monday and had time to really wait on the customers.

Expressions in Bloom (Corvallis OR) told Olsons (Salem OR) of an idea for extra delivery help. They had asked for volunteers from their church to do deliveries and the money that normally went to the drivers is donated to the youth group for summer camp scholarships. Olsons had tried this with good success last year and this year they were able to double their normal delivery staff with these volunteers. "By about 1:15 we had all our orders out the door headed for delivery."

A tornado touched down in Idaho Falls ID between 4 and 5 PM on the 14^th which definitely cut into afternoon sales as the area lost power.

One shop staff joked that their boss was so eager to get out of doing Valentines this year that she "must have planned that emergency gall bladder operation she had 3 days beforehand."

Best Attitude Award goes to Debbie, at Tree House Floral (Cave Junction OR). Two weeks before Valentines she told me she was looking forward to the holiday. The day after Valentines she was very tired but talking about how much "fun" she had had. Her slogan is that "Florists spread joy through the magic we work with flowers" and she lives this out well.

Primrose Lane (Filer ID) found her cash flow improved this year. "We did $5 off on all prepaid and pre-ordered dozens of roses and did 10 times our usual sales of full dozens." reported Susie Boone. "Our town of 2,000 usually just calls in orders and charges to our house accounts but not this year." To make things smoother for the designers Susie pushes 3 arrangements which she has designed to sell at 3 popular price points between $20 and $35. "We give them cutsie names like "Sweetheart special" and put fliers all over town, at the schools, Kiwanis, and everywhere else we can. We gear everything for these 3 pieces or a dozen roses and made up 75 of the mid range piece and 35 of each of the others. By the end of the day we only had a handful left. The customers look in our cooler and see a vast array of different arrangements even though there are only those 3 because we use different colors in each vase and vary the height somewhat but it’s the same types of flowers and its all assembly line production work. Any 12 year old can be easily trained to make our 3 pieces and this allows us to have "custom made" arrangements at good prices."

Valentines 2001 Wednesday holiday

Primrose Lane (Filer ID) had her first year with 2 stores. "I took what the one store did last year and doubled it. Then I saw the industry scoop that Wednesday would be up 30% over last year so I cautiously increased that by 20% and we hit it right on target. We turned away only 2 or 3 orders and are totally cleaned out. One reason we did so well was the good advice on WWW.Floristboard.com which is hosted by City Floral of Everett WA. It is a free bullitan board service on the internet where florists post tips that have helped them. I learned a lot from them and have made new floral friends too."