Gift bouquets are often where people start, putting together a lovely mixture of flowers from the garden.
The dictionary definition of a bouquet is:
"An attractively arranged bunch of flowers, especially one presented as a gift"
So before you can work out your costings, here's the series of questions you need to ask yourself.
Are you selling by the number of stems, or by the price of the flowers?
Will you only be using flowers you've grown or will you be buying in?
How long will you spend picking the flowers, conditioning them, and making them up?
How will you be presenting the bouquet?
Will you be delivering the bouquet?
How will customers place their order with you and pay for it?
How much of my expenses will be assigned to each bouquet.
What profit do i want to make?
Let's take you through each of those questions in more detail
1. If you are making a 30 stems bouquet, will it contain any flower that's on the field, or only those of a certain value? For example, will you include higher value roses if you have them? What proportion of the bouquet will be flowers and what fillers / foliage? . If you are selling by the price of the flowers, which price are you using? your retail price, your wholesale price, or your wholesalers price? if it's a mixture of these you may be losing out.
2. Although the flowers you grow should be being sold at at least the price of the wholesalers, but if you have to buy in flowers there will be delivery / postage / or mileage/time/pickup costs. So if you only use your prices, the moment you have to buy in you may be losing out. You also have to bear in mind that if you pick from your field, if something isn't of saleable quality, you won't pick it, but with bought in flowers you may need to overbuy, so that you have more flowers than you need in case of any breakages.
3. How much do you need to pay yourself, or your member of staff if they are making it. If it takes 15 minutes to pick the flowers, and 15 minutes to make and wrap it (even when you're experienced) you need to include 30 minutes of someone's time. What if it takes longer than that? What hourly rate are you going to use - Minimum wage?, Higher living wage? A contractors wage? Similar to an Accountant?
4. How will you be presenting the bouquet. There's a big difference in price between a rubber band and a sheet of newspaper, and a cellophane wrapped hand tied in a tissue bed in a gift bag, with a business card and a gift tag. probably £2-£3 difference on each bouquet. However you plan to wrap it, ensure that you've taken everything into account, and add it into the price.
5. How will you be delivering the bouquet? and more importantly when? - if it's on your way home from the field, there's a huge difference in price cost to "by eleven a.m to the town 20 miles from you" If you are including delivery in your price, you need to state the time, or charge an additional amount for a specified delivery time
6. How will customers tell you they want to buy a bouquet? Is your website set up to take credit card payments and tell you the minute an order comes in - if so take into account PayPal / stripe / credit card charges. If they need to phone you or email you, have you taken into account the time you need to spend taking the order or getting back to them to confirm it? Will you have to send them an invoice? or wait for a cheque to clear? Will you need cash on delivery? What if they're not in.?
7. Providing you account for all the above things, then you will break even. Now you need to take into account your additional expenses. What proportion of them will you assign to each bouquet? Will your expenses be evenly spread across the year? will you assign more to some products than others?
8. How much profit do you want to make on top? 20% ? 50%? 100%? - you may just want to even things up to the next price point, when you're starting out.
It’s difficult to think about all of these things on their own, so here’s an example of me making one of my gift bouquets, and then i’ll take you through the pricing below
For most of my gift bouquets, i’m working on 35-39 stems of flowers and foliage and I work out my wholesale cost for them.
here’s how I make up the mix
6 Focal flowers @ 80p average (here Dahlias)
19 Secondary flowers @ 50p average (here Sweet Williams, Cosmos, Acidanthera, Statice)
5 Spires / Air @ 60p average (here Antirrhinum)
5-9 Pieces of Foliage @ 40p average (here Aster, Physocarpus, Eucalyptus)
Which gives me a usual cost of £20-£21 per bouquet.
It takes me 15 minutes to pick the bouquet flowers, and 15 minutes to make and wrap the bouquet, and I like to cost my time at £20 per hour, - so £10
The floristry costs are £2.79 for the vase, 10p for paper and tissue wrap and the raffia, the bag is 69p, and the business card and tag that I add are 10p, so cost for floristry is £3.68
The vast majority of the customers buying bouquets will pay online via my website, so I also have to take into account Paypal / Stripe payments. Stripe is cheaper at 89p for this payment, but some customers pay by PayPal, so I have to allow for £1.97 in my calculations.
So i’ve now got to £21 + £10 + £3.68 + £1.97 = £36.65
It would be tempting to sell this lovely bouquet at this price, because after all you’ve taken into account all your costs. BUT
that’s just the cost price, which should have taken into account all your “Cost of sales” but what about all your expenses for the year? What about your profit?
I sell this bouquet at £49, and I choose the flowers that will go in it. If my customers could tell me what to use, or what colours (apart from an occasional can it have some “x” in it) then i’d have to charge at least £10 more.
Now it’s your turn, - use the worksheet below to work out your prices.