Cheap blooms and how to shop on a budget

If you have browsed around your local or online florist, you may have noticed how special deals, seasonal flowers and other cheap blooms they can offer. In addition to everything, they even manage to offer discounted flowers while they include free gifts or even free delivery. How do florists get their prices so low? Well, it largely depends on your source. Before your new arrangement hits your doorstep, you need to realize that it first goes through a number of channels. The grower cultivates them before selling them to a distributor or wholesaler who then sells them to florists and eventually these flowers are made available to the public. Each stage of this process results in higher prices, and from a florist’s point of view, keeping prices as low as possible is key to a successful business.

International auction

Around the world there are various events that attract florists from near and far. Florists simply can’t resist the chance to get their hands on fresh flowers at a discounted price. The Dutch Watch Auction is the largest event of its kind in North America and they have a phenomenal variety of cheap blooms for sale. It’s not even your conventional auction. It’s a “reverse auction” where the price goes lower and lower until someone makes a bid. The first to bid gets the flowers at the agreed price. Bidding is also done electronically, so there’s no dispute about who wins which bid.

Passing the savings on

The largest auction in the world is the Alasameer Auction and it attracts 7,000 growers from all over the world. The FloraHolland auction started in 1911 and shows how long these events can last. Canada organizes three flower auctions. One in Vancouver, another in Toronto and the third in Montreal. The first of which was the Vancouver Flower Auction which began in 1963. At these shows, cheap blooms can be sold at the rate of 2,800 sales every hour! It goes without saying that the deals can get quite competitive which is great news for the consumer. The lower the wholesale prices, the less the customer will pay. Now, while some might say that florists will keep the prices the same and hang on to the extra savings, that’s not always the case. Sure, they may enjoy a slightly higher profit, but they’ll also pass some savings on to their customers. By offering lower prices, they can attract more buyers and this will result in increased turnover.

Therefore, if you are ordering cheap blooms from an experienced florist, you should be familiar with the flower auctions in your area. The other important factor to remember is that florists can buy large quantities of flowers. So even if you got in touch with the grower and bought direct, you’d still end up paying the same price as you would your florist because you won’t benefit from the bulk order discount your florist gets.