1.3 Spend per head

Spend per head

Retail bouquet at the end of May

Retail bouquet at the end of May

The Spend per Head is the amount each customer spends with you on each transaction.

If a retail customer buys a bunch of a single variety = £5-£10

If a retail customer buys a market style bouquet = £15-£25

If a retail customer buys a wrapped gift bouquet = £35-£75

If a wholesale customer (e.g florist) buys several buckets of flowers = £50-£100 

if a retail customer buys several buckets of flowers = £150-£300

If a customer wants flowers for a party or wedding = £200-£2000(or more)

The ideal customer spends a good amount per transaction, and comes back for repeat transactions.

What’s the average that your customers spend with you?


Back in the 1990’s when I worked for Homebase, my first Garden Centre management role was at the Portsmouth store. This was a Category C store (the smallest category ) but the Garden Centre was a category B. The category rating mattered a huge amount to me, because it was what my bonus was based on, and as I’d just bought my first house at this time, every penny counted. The category was calculated on how much each customer spent - spend per head, and so we tried every trick in the book to make sure that all of our customers spent as much on our Garden Centre products as possible.

  • We made sure there were "pick up“ lines on every checkout end.

  • We were vigilant on all our special offer displays to make sure they were never empty, and always looked great.

  • We offered excellent customer service, and I went to great lengths every week to make sure all the staff were informed about all our new lines, so they could suggest extra goods to go with what was already selected. (Known as add-on sales) .

  • We made sure we never had “out of stocks” in our dry goods lines (how many chemicals did we sell for the garden back then!)

  • And our topping up and “pulling forward” of goods to make sure our displays were always full and inviting was an art form.

I use a lot of these tricks now to encourage my customers to spend more.

Which of these retail ‘tricks’ might work for you?