Episode 65: Floral Industry Predictions and Updates for 2021 with Bill LaFever, President of Bill Doran Company
One year after the pandemic upended the floral world, everyone is asking the same question: where do we go from here — and what will Mother's Day look like? To answer it, Vonda and Lori bring back one of their most-listened-to guests: Bill LaFever, president of Bill Doran Company, a wholesale florist with 31 locations across the United States. This episode shares the highlights of his recent Flower Clique webinar — the most-requested recording the team has ever had — plus an extended Q&A with questions straight from flower shop owners.
What really happened a year ago
Bill walks through the images that haunted the industry in spring 2020: packaged flowers dumped at every level because demand vanished, flights stopped, and wholesalers closed — adding transportation cost to unsellable product made no financial sense. South American farms sent their workers home rather than risk spreading COVID through the buses and villages they served, and roses and hydrangeas grew wild in the meantime. Then came the whiplash: about 70 percent of floral cargo rides in the belly of passenger planes, so when passenger flights stopped, there was no way to move flowers even as demand roared back. Mother's Day 2020 turned out surprisingly strong — record numbers for many shops — and the fall holidays stayed strong too.
2021: book early, because availability is disappearing
Bill admits he sounds like a broken record telling florists to pre-book — but this year the message is sharper. It's no longer just that prices won't drop; it's that availability will simply disappear. He tells the story of a small Ecuadorian farm that usually offers his company 400,000 rose stems for Mother's Day. This year the offer was about 100,000 — not over price, but because cold weather and sleet mean the cuttings won't be ready, and as the farmer told him, nothing mother nature can do will bring them back in time. Bill Doran is even moving its Mother's Day order cutoff earlier and telling its own sales staff not to over-promise specific varieties like Quicksand or Mother of Pearl. His advice to retailers: get on the phone with your vendor of choice now, expect substitutions, sell color tones instead of specific varieties, and consider standing orders if you're a regular wedding house.
Pricing pressure is coming from every direction: strong demand, average-at-best supply, and freight costs that have jumped by roughly a third, with air freight, trucking, and gas prices all climbing. Grower consolidation has also cut supply of basics — even white carnations are hard to find — as the big South American growers shut down unprofitable product lines. Meanwhile, California production keeps shrinking as farms convert acreage to cannabis and battle labor and water costs, pushing specialty and novelty crops to Mexico and South America — where growers have gotten dramatically better, with stock, anemones, and scabiosa now on par with or better than West Coast product.
The roaring twenties — and enhanced flowers
Will demand collapse when the world reopens? Bill thinks the opposite. Pandemic gifting created new flower-buying habits, and the postponed weddings are stacking up so fast that venues are booking Tuesday and Wednesday ceremonies — there are only so many altars. One colleague predicts the 2020s will be the new roaring twenties, with decadence and flowers everywhere. The wildcard trend: tinted and dyed product. Bill urges florists not to be the bottleneck just because it's not their cup of tea — farms are tinting enormous volumes, from four-color carnations (an expensive, labor-intensive process involving quadrant-split stems and temperature-controlled rooms) to painted foliage in gold, silver, copper, and even hot pink. One retailer's tip: skip the word "dyed" — customers hear it and worry about vase life. Call them "enhanced," because, as she put it, some flowers just need a little makeup. As Vonda adds from the new Sales Prep School training: just because you don't like it doesn't mean you don't sell it.
Listener Q&A: substitutions, plants, and hard goods
In the Q&A, members asked how to keep customers satisfied amid shortages. The panel's answer: communicate, stay with the integrity of the look and color palette, and deliver the substitution with confidence — if you're not excited about the orange roses, the customer won't be either. And never blame your supplier; Bill tells his own salespeople that beating up the grower only makes you look like you chose poorly. On plants: relief will take longer than cut flowers, because growing cycles can't be rushed and "green baby" demand from millennials has skyrocketed — though Bill jokes shops might start coaching customers to actually keep their plants alive. On hard goods: manufacturers canceled purchase orders en masse in March 2020, and with nine-month turnarounds and three price increases in nine months, containers likely won't normalize until mid-summer. In the meantime, for hard-to-find items like small clear cylinders, the hosts' advice is to grab glass wherever you can — Dollar Tree and Walmart included.
Key takeaways
- Pre-book Mother's Day product now — this year the risk isn't higher prices, it's no availability at all.
- Sell color palettes, tones, and textures rather than promising specific varieties; Pinterest demand outstrips what farms can grow.
- Never blame your supplier in front of a customer — offer the solution and move on.
- Don't dismiss tinted, "enhanced," and painted product; consumers are buying it, and you shouldn't be the bottleneck.
- Expect plant and hard-goods shortages to outlast cut-flower shortages — plan substitutions and source containers creatively.
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist