Tips to Increase Sympathy Sales in Your Floral Business
Lori missed the members-only sympathy webinar for a long-scheduled doctor's appointment — and spent the next day fielding member questions she couldn't answer. So Vonda recruited Audrey Kristoff, Flower Clique's product manager (keeper of the exclusive bouquets, wedding galleries, and Celebration of Life books), for a Friday-morning recap. What follows is a crash course in one of the most overlooked growth areas in a flower shop: sympathy sales.
The funeral business is shifting — fast
Sympathy flowers are what Vonda calls necessary sales — nobody in the do-it-yourself crowd is making their own funeral flowers — and many owners wrongly assume the category can't grow. But the business underneath it is changing dramatically. Cremations now account for almost 58% of dispositions versus a little over 36% for burials; as recently as 2016 it was roughly even. Costs are moving too: a traditional cremation that ran about $4,000 in 2016 now averages $6,900, and over the last five years burial costs rose just over 6% while cremation costs rose more than 11%. As Audrey puts it, funeral homes are businesses, and they shift with the trends — florists need to do the same. (The statistics come from the National Funeral Directors Association.)
Two more numbers worth knowing: despite the talk of conglomerates buying everything up, 89.2% of funeral homes are still individually or family owned — small businesses with three full-time and four part-time employees, remarkably like a flower shop. And the average funeral home handles about 113 deaths a year. Audrey ran the math: if the local florist provides even three pieces per service, that's roughly 340 arrangements a year from a single relationship.
Selling for a celebration of life
Cremation doesn't mean fewer flowers — it means different flowers. There's often an urn or a photo as the focal point, flanked by arrangements on the funeral home's pillars rather than a casket spray. And because a celebration of life is a more personalized service than a traditional funeral, the sales conversation should be bigger, not smaller. Don't stop at "something for the urn" — suggest multiple personalized pieces that tell the story of the person's life. (Vonda covers this in depth in the new Sympathy Prep School course launching after Mother's Day.)
How to win the funeral director relationship
The webinar's member panel — Ralph Giordano of Giordano's Floral Creations and Trish Engle of K'nees Florist in Moline, Illinois — agreed on the single most important factor: be available. Ralph tells his funeral directors to text him at night, because a 10 p.m. order can still make the next day's flower truck. Vonda's own shop sealed its funeral home relationship on a Mother's Day Saturday when the director called in a panic: they'd forgotten to order a casket spray and the family was arriving in half an hour. She dropped everything and made it happen — and the funeral home never forgot. If you're courting a funeral director, the moment you save their rear end is the moment the relationship is made.
Beyond availability: bring food (chocolate never hurts), make a proper appointment, and arrive with something in hand to leave behind. Then talk business. The funeral director has the family's undivided attention, already holds their trust, and takes the financial risk on the order — so a commission or volume discount is fair. Members reported paying anywhere from 10% to 30%, with 20% common. If that sounds steep, Vonda breaks down the comparison: incoming wire orders cost you 27%, and even an in-store sale carries roughly 10% between sales credit and card fees. Twenty percent for orders someone else sells for you — often just an email saying "here's what the family ordered" — is a bargain.
Price it to be profitable
Flower Clique just published the third volume of its Celebration of Life book specifically because Vonda repriced every product for current flower and hard-goods costs. Audrey's advice applies to everyone, member or not: audit your sympathy pricing on your website and with your funeral homes. Some members even got pushback from third-party "tribute store" platforms telling them their new prices were too high — and held firm. Why put in all that labor if you're not going to make money on it?
Key takeaways
- Sympathy is a growable category: one funeral home relationship can be worth hundreds of arrangements a year.
- Cremations now far outnumber burials — sell multiple personalized pieces for celebrations of life, not just "something for the urn."
- Availability wins the relationship: share your cell number, take the late-night texts, and be the shop that saves the day.
- A 10–20% commission or volume discount for the funeral home is cheaper than wire-order fees — and they do the selling for you.
- Reprice your sympathy offerings for today's costs, and don't let anyone talk you back down.