Bouquet Subscriptions. Flower Shares. Flower CSA. Flower Subscription.

So many names this product can go by.

You may have some questions swirling in your head such as:

What is even a bouquet subscription? Will I have the blooms to fill the pre-orders? Why even take pre-orders? How do I even start or sell a bouquet subscription, especially as a new flower farmer? Is it profitable? Is it a good fit for my flower farming business? Is it unique enough with it’s increase of popularity? What does a bouquet subscription execution look like?

These are valid questions and concerns. I’m sure you have even more! Today, let’s tackle what is the big deal with bouquet subscriptions, the pros and cons of offering it for your business along with the nitty gritty details on how to sell and execute this product offering.

Why we went the bouquet subscription route…

Over seven years ago now, in the early phases of conceptualizing the flower farming business that would eventually become Sierra Flower Farm, I researched the different potential sales outlets and models that could align with my vision of what I wanted in this endeavor. Much like you may be doing right at this moment. With a mere growing space of 1,500 square feet, I also needed to maximize my price per stem. For us, this automatically crossed selling wholesale off the list.

I needed to sell direct to consumer.

With two toddlers in tow and being a stay at home mom, I also had to take that into consideration as well. It needed to be manageable and flexible for the season in life I was currently in. With our home and yard being so tiny, I also knew I didn’t want to necessarily sell out of my home through a farm stand or pickup from the house. Partly because I like privacy, partly because my house is always a wreck (some things don’t change much) and lastly… I think I was embarrassed by the size growing plot I started with. So silly, but there it is.

My first year in flower farming, or rather just the planning phase, I thought Sierra Flower Farm was just going to be a side hustle. A small cut flower garden, after all, it wasn’t like I was working with acres of growing space.

There was a couple things wrong with my thought process… okay perhaps more than a couple…

Let’s start with the fact that I wanted to grow way more flowers and more variety of flowers than a few customers could support. I just didn’t want to say “no” to a pretty flower, they were all so beautiful and intoxicating! Even on my small scale, I could pack the plants in. I was still producing more than what I could sell at market. I had dreams of a larger property, which meant I needed to make the flowers really earn their keep and upgrades. Also, growing flowers is expensive and really even more so on a small scale without bulk discounts. Purchasing in small batches translates often to paying premium prices.

Secondly, I did not anticipate how quickly Sierra Flower Farm would turn into my third child and I really didn’t anticipate the demand for locally grown flowers.

I saw a gap in our community offerings of local flowers, they weren’t a common or accessible product, especially in our town. I knew I personally craved fresh flowers. I also realized I shouldn’t be my target customer. There I sat wanting to provide a product and experience I yearned for personally but that also goes against everything marketing and business I knew. I went for it anyways. Well, it came to be I really underestimated how hungry people were for fresh flowers! Sometimes you see a gap and potentially it can be from the lack of demand… that has not been the case.

Doors opened for us by becoming vendors at the cute local vintage pop up shop I’ve mentioned a bajillion times by now along with becoming vendors at a farmer’s market about forty minutes away from us. A farmer’s market that we did not anticipate being invited to attend, another wrong assumption.

Still, I did not want to let go of my initial dream of delivering flowers and the flexibility of my girls being involved with the business. From the very beginning, my girls being part of the flower farm was essential to me. I wanted them to experience hard work, turning a passion into a livelihood or in the case of flower farming: a lifestyle. I wanted them to know they can take a dream and make it happen. They needed to be part of the process from seed sowing to delivering flowers to customers to understand.

This led me to the CSA concept.

What is even a CSA?

Though you probably understand what a “CSA” is, just in case I’m going to dive into it a bit.

“CSA” in this context stands for “Community Supported Agriculture.” A CSA model is an incredibly common sales model for market growers and farmers. A CSA is where customers pay upfront, sometimes months in advance, to the grower/rancher and in turn get a “share” of the harvest. This has been used for vegetables, dairy, or meat typically but these days flowers are becoming more commonplace as a stand alone offering or paired with the before mentioned products.

Seven years ago, there were OG flower farmers who were tip toeing into a similar type model, though it was far from common. Especially in our neck of the woods, there hadn’t really been something like that offered by a flower farmer before.

Back then, I had a basic idea of the CSA model. We have some grower friends who had offered a “Bountiful Basket” product that was their version of a CSA offering. Each week, they would deliver a crate full of fun vegetables, fruit and even sometimes local honey to your doorstep and in it they would include a list of what was in those baskets along with a recipe or two. When Graham and I were still newlyweds, his parents would get weekly deliveries of these baskets. Well, when they were out of town… we got the basket! Those Bountiful Baskets were so much fun and there is nothing like local fresh vegetables and herbs!

The Bountiful Baskets was what I had previously experienced in the realm of CSA product offerings. I loved the feeling of going through all the delicious goodies, a change up from the mundane crops stocked in grocery stores. After all, this was even before the great kale everything phase! I think I just time stamped myself…

I wanted to invoke a similar feeling… but with flowers.

In the early years, when we were vendors at a Saturday farmer’s market along with being core vendors at the monthly pop up shop, flexibility flew out the window. Though there was so much good that came from those experiences such as connections and memories: I knew that they were both temporary outlets for what I truly wanted out of Sierra Flower Farm. Even in those early days, I focused on trying to build a flower CSA. I knew ultimately I needed flexibility, guaranteed sales, repeat customers and a product that would ultimately grow with us over the seasons.

Some Pros & Cons of a Bouquet Subscription

Flexibility: Pro

Though we did become vendors at multiple locations, as the girls grew, we outgrew being able to be vendors. I needed something that could be done a majority at home while they played and wouldn’t take too much time to get the flowers directly into the hands of the customer.

I also needed the flexibility of working within our harvesting/growing season. Often times I would have business owners want me to hit a target date of having flowers that really wasn’t realistic. I know the ebbs and flows of our growing season and I needed to be able to be flexible with that.

There is flexibility of being able to use the ingredients that are blooming in your field. As a new grower on a nano-level amount of growing space, I didn’t have a huge amount of flowers consistently. You are not trying to satisfy a certain color palette or flower variety. Simply, just filling the bouquet to value in a beautiful way. With that same line of thought, it also gave the flexibility that if I did have a request from a Bride on color, I could reserve those flowers for the wedding and use other colors to fill the bouquet subscription orders.

Along with flexibility, I needed to get more lean in my business investments, especially those nickel and dime ones…

The sales been made: Pro

We live in Nevada- it is the state of casinos and gambling. I do not like to gamble. Sure, we’ll take calculated risks but I am not a gambler. Being vendors oftentimes felt like a gamble. Farming is unpredictable enough. Putting in the money for booth rentals, labor, time, product, dragging my family to help all for maybe making some okay sales. The day I calculated the hours I worked prepping and selling at farmer’s market by taking the money we earned that day and dividing by the hours spent, removing booth rental, food cost and entertainment cost for the girls… I was absolutely shocked at the number. It was a decent market day and by the time I broke everything down I was making cents an hour. This isn’t even including the cost of product. Being a vendor was gobbling up my time and resources leaving our business stagnant from the growth it needed. This is when I decided to not be a vendor any longer.

From the beginning, I ultimately wanted to offer two main products: wedding florals and bouquet subscriptions.

The main thing both of these product offerings have in common is the sale has already been made and we are under contract. Though pop-ups and such can be fun, they can lead to burnout. At least that was my case but these outlets weren’t my end goals with my flower farming business. They were a way to get some cash flow and get some recognition, which is really important especially in the beginning but that doesn’t mean it’s meant to last for everyone. I found, I don’t love sales that aren’t guaranteed. I don’t love pouring myself and flowers into something that may or may not sale. Once in a while, it’s fun. As the core product offering/outlet… not so much. By having pre-sales, I can better prepare and crop plan more lean for a certain allotted amount of subscription members instead of planting and hoping it will all sell and be profitable.

The sales been made: Con

There are two sides to the taking pre-sales coin.

You are holding onto liabilities.

Especially as a new grower and business owner, holding onto someone else’s money can be a stressor and it is not for everyone!

There is a certain amount of pressure that comes with taking a customer’s money upfront. After all, you are holding it potentially for months before the first stem is ready for harvest out of the field. This type of pressure may be out of your comfort zone where you would prefer a quick exchange of goods for cash without you having to hold on to advanced payment. There are a lot of different events that could happen such as: crop loss, members moving then wanting a refund or other life altering changes. This is why it imperative to lay out your terms/conditions and what will happen if X happened.

You can also explore taking payments for your subscriptions if that works better for you holding onto only some of the money at one time. I will say, typically you don’t want to go week-by-week in payments since the idea behind a subscription is they are committed to you financially upfront. With that said, with some of our larger offerings in the past, we had given the option of making it in two payments. I didn’t find that being in our best interest and sometimes we would have members get even argumentative when the payment came out with them thinking they had already paid in full. It just was an extra concern in the midst of the season that we decided wasn’t worth dealing with.

Cash flow on the off-season: Pro

Flower farming isn’t cheap. Sure, you can get boot-scrappy but overall, it is not a cheap endeavor. For most flower farmers, it is also a highly seasonal business. Much of the investments for your flower farming business will most likely to be made during your low to no cashflow season: seeds, bulbs, tubers, plugs, infrastructure, fertilizer, compost, irrigation… oh the list goes on! By having customers support your business by pre-purchasing through a bouquet subscription, it can bring much needed cash flow to better cover your business needs.

Subscription members are committed to you: Pro

Having repeat customers is huge.

Repeat customers, especially for those kitchen table like products such as a mixed bouquet, is essential. Unlike selling wedding flowers that come with a more premium price, a mixed bouquet needs to be affordable for the customer. The way these flowers begin being more profitable is when you can sell to the same customer over and over. It takes less time, resources and effort to keep a customer rather than gaining new ones (though we want new ones too, we simply want our cake and to eat it too!).

Through a bouquet subscription, once again, the sale has been made. Your customer is committed to you for the entirety of the bouquet subscription you sold them. Bouquet Subscriptions also bring a more trusting relationship between you and the members, naturally, since you are consistently delivering to them over the course of the season.

I like learning what our members’ favorite flowers are, least favorite flowers, special occasions and just overall: anything about them. I enjoy talking to them each week through text, hearing about their new grand babies and even getting vacation selfies! This is what works for me. I find it is much easier to have a small amount of repeat customers I can fairly rely on than to try to cast out a broad net and maybe catch a few. I also really come to simply enjoy our members, we have some who have been with us going on our seventh season now.

Also, your subscription members are the best advertisement ever! There is nothing like a genuine positive review on your business and product based on their experience. If that’s not good enough: usually your ideal customers you already have, will have friends and family with similar traits and most likely will be another ideal customer for your business. Our subscription members are truly ten times more profitable than getting a one off sale from someone. Less effort. More time gained. Better focus and prioritizing. At least in my experience. Our bouquet subscription members are part of the Sierra Flower Farm family. I would rather have a small amount of amazing members who really support us than hundreds who may or may not “get” us.

Not all subscription members are a good fit: Con

Though it has been incredibly rare, we have had folks sign up with us and not truly understand what they were getting into. Sometimes for one reason or another: it isn’t a good fit. That’s okay. At that time, you will have to weigh if you can continue with them as a subscription member for the duration or if they need to be refunded and let go. I do recommend not reacting in the moment and giving yourself some time and space to reflect on the necessary action that needs to be taken with professionalism and empathy. Dealing with dissatisfied customers is a whole topic in itself which we will be releasing a blog on soon. Just know: it is okay. You will have plenty of subscription members who are the glass slipper to your Cinderella!

You’ll quickly increase you design skills: Pro

I may only have my hands on flowers about seven months of the year but boy do we assemble a lot of bouquets during that window! If you are particularly interested in floral designing, putting together weekly bouquets will make you a stronger designer. I wanted practice on hand-tied bouquets for wedding work. Not saying our mixed bouquets are exactly wedding bouquets, because they aren’t, but the motion of putting the bouquets together are fairly similar. From the beginning, I wanted to provide a bouquet that was nicely arranged for our customers where all they had to do was plunk them in water. I have had much feedback over the years where members were surprised at how well rounded the bouquets were arranged. That is the beauty of a hand-tied bouquet!

You will familiarize yourself with the different design components and uses of those components. This will elevate your knowledge, even if you decide not to floral design and perhaps sell to a florist in conjunction with offering a bouquet subscription.

This leads me to my last point…

Plays well with others: Pro

Bouquet subscriptions plays off well with other product offerings.

If you’ve checked out our blog on The Importance of Deciding on a Product Before Crop Planning then you are familiar with what I call “snowball” product offerings. For the most part, any which way you slice and dice your potential product offerings, bouquet subscriptions are most likely one of the easiest snowball products to incorporate.

For us, we are focusing a lot on weddings but the weddings don’t require every stem we produce. The bouquet subscription allows us to move product earlier in the week and leave mid-week and weekends open for events. Not only does it allow us to sell more blooms, it also keeps us harvesting from the field to keep it in peak production. For the most part, due to the flexibility of the bouquet subscription, you can pair it with: market, wholesale orders, grocery store orders, farm stands, etc. We had success pairing bouquet subscriptions when we were taking on weddings, farmer’s market and in between pop ups.

I’m sure there are some pros/cons that I have glazed over but these were the big ones that have stuck out to me over the years.

Now let’s get into how to put this product together from sales to delivery.

Customizing Bouquet Subscriptions that works for you!

As our mantra in flower farming goes: flower farming is not one size fits all. Your bouquet subscription doesn’t have to be either.

Over the seasons we have experimented, tweaked, refined and changed our bouquet subscription offerings. Each season we are changing something with it!

Much like reviewing your crop notes from the season is important as the flower farmer, it is important to revisit your product offerings to as the flower farming business owner. What worked? What didn’t work? Where could you improve in quality of product, customer relations and quality of life for yourself?

This season we have settled down and decided to only offer a full season pass option and removing our seasonal options. This means our members are with us over the course of twenty four weeks instead of over eight weeks at a time. We dive into the evolution of our bouquet subscriptions along with the why’s in this blog.

Back to you.

What are your strengths?

Are you a natural floral designer and want to utilize that skill?

Are you an incredible grower with lots of volume and want to sell DIY buckets?

Maybe you feel more confident putting together arrangements than bouquets, you can absolutely do that instead!

What are your weaknesses?

Do you want the opportunity to become a stronger designer? Making bouquets weekly is a great starting point!

How long is your season, or rather, how long do you want your selling season to be?

One of the reasons I went with seasonal subscriptions in the beginning was it was less pressure for me. At first, I only sold every other week bouquets and broke our members up into “a” and “b” weeks. I wasn’t confident enough that I would have enough flowers each week to fulfill more than that. Perhaps you know you can produce consistent product and want to jump right into full weekly offerings, that is awesome! The great thing about bouquet subscriptions is they can grow with you and can be customized in a way that best works with your flower farming business. You can go weekly, every other week, peak season months, monthly- it truly is one of the most customizable, and in some ways lax, product a flower farmer can offer! Once you decide and start selling them, you do need to stick with what you sold your members for the season though!

We have offered many versions of the bouquet subscriptions over the years. We started with the seasonal options, as mentioned: SPRINGing for Flowers, SUNsational Flowers, FALLing for Flowers. I do enjoy a good pun! Each season ran over the course of eight weeks. Though in the beginning we only offered every other week, four bouquets, as we became more consistent with product we did add in weekly options, so eight bouquets. In 2020, food security was a thing and we did begin offering a vegetable csa (share) along with flowers. Last year, due to demand of our loyal customers, we offered a true traditional CSA that we call our Bouquet Season Pass which runs over twenty four weeks with the choice of weekly or bi-weekly pickup options, twenty four or twelve bouquets, with the option of adding a vegetable share.

Typically, for us, our season goes about Mid-April when the tulips are ready through Mid October. I try to have subscriptions done by late September, before the kill frosts really start to come on. If I still have flowers, often times our members go on a week by week basis of getting the flowers. I tally up the bouquets and invoice them after we’re officially finished for the season. A slightly backwards approach from the beginning of the season. I figure if they can trust me with their money for as long as they did, I can put faith in them too at the end of the season. One of the great parts about subscription members, you really begin to build a trusting relationship!

You will need to figure out what you want your bouquet subscription to look like. Some things for you to consider:

Length of bouquet subscription
Frequency of deliveries/pickups
Amount of members you can handle
Pickup or delivery?
Actual product
Price
How to sell subscriptions, especially as a newer grower
Transportation/Packaging
Communication with subscription members

You may already have a vision for what you want your bouquet subscription to be like. I am here to tell you, each season will present new challenges that most likely would have never crossed your mind had they not reared their ugly heads. You are dealing with a natural product and humans. Both are wonderful but also unpredictable. Let’s see if we can help you fortify your vision and get the wheels turning on some parts that may not have crossed your mind.

First, let’s chat selling those subscriptions!

Selling Bouquet Subscriptions… before you have flowers….

Going back to the whole idea that bouquet subscriptions are pre-sales. As a more established flower farmer, this isn’t much of a problem. After all, once you have at least one growing season under your belt, you should have some kind of photos of the flowers, right? Right.

What if this is your first season? Some other growers would encourage a first year flower farmer to not attempt a bouquet subscription at least until year two. They have some good reasons but ultimately it comes down to: “you have one chance for a good first impression.” “You need to be able to have quality and consistent product to leave a good impression and gain those lifetime loyal members.” Definitely some food for thought. In the early stages of Sierra Flower Farm, I had been told many times that what I was doing is “impossible” and that I “can’t” or “shouldn’t” do it… I am not going to even go there with you. Through our various blogs and videos, we have given you advice and tools for you to make the best decision for yourself and your flower farming business. If you think you can tackle taking on a bouquet subscription product year one, I am here to cheer you on!

With that said, how are you going to sell products without or limited photos?

You are going to sell yourself and your journey.

You are going to take photos of the process of your seed sowing, seedlings growing, rows being prepped and planted. Buckets of blooms and bouquets are obviously more ideal but there is an argument to be made that showing you in your flower farming journey is more personal. I would recommend staying away from borrowing photos from other growers or using stock photos on your website. Maybe show the actual varieties you are growing, snag some permission from your suppliers. If you’re artistic, maybe water color a bouquet you are envisioning on selling. Build up the anticipation and while you do it, begin to build a trusting relationship with your potential customers. A great way to do that is to also blog or vlog about your flower farming endeavor! It doesn’t have to be long winded (sorry.. this post especially is huge) or fancy. With the world of reels, what more do you need than a phone?

How many members should you take on?

This is another customizable number that will be unique to your business needs and life in general. We approached close to forty, with it being mainly just me except for when I could rope in Graham, that was hitting my breaking point. We did close to that again but with weddings and a single employee and it was still a lot for us.

Take into consideration your limits and know you can always add more spots later! This leads me to the next part that is probably breeding some anxiety in the pit of your stomach…

How much to grow for you bouquet subscriptions?

I don’t think I can give you an exact number or answer on this. There are a lot of variants in climate, soil, cultivar selections, whether you also have established perennials to supplement, your bouquet recipes and design. I’m sure there’s more but that’s what is crossing my mind at the moment.

A super conservative approach is to bank on one stem per plant per harvest so about 2-3 stems per week. Once again, super conservative number. If you are looking at one cuts, then it is one cut one stem. We have a couple blogs to better help you crop plan so if you haven’t checked them out already, the links are below. We also have given to our Flower Farming Newsletter Subscribers, an entire master crop plan workbook plus a companion sheet for free, so sign up if you need a little more help in this area and download those goodies!

Crop Planning for the Flower Farmer

Being the Conductor of Your Field

I will say that I am someone who probably over prepares. I look out in the field and even though there’s a ton of crops, I tend to panic it’s not enough. Once I begin harvesting and getting those stems… I always find I barely harvested a drop in the bucket worth! Choose repeat bloomers, bigger components and stay up on succession planting and you will be solid!

Selling Bouquet Subscriptions

Not only are you wanting to entice your potential customers with the beauty and uniqueness of the bouquet subscription you are selling but it also should be a fuss-free and a pleasant process.

These days we sell our subscriptions through our website, email campaigns are huge for us to use in conjunction. In the beginning, we also displayed subscriptions as a product offering on our chalkboard menu when at market or a pop up. We sold a majority of our subscriptions that way those first couple years. Even still, sometimes we still do pop ups and a customer comes to sign up with us in person. Sometimes hitting the pavement and being out in the community where you can explain your offerings face to face is an incredible tool, especially early on.

With the website, we also take any payments offered: ApplePay, PayPal, and Stripe. Basically, if our website host offers it, we allow it. We want our members at sign up to be able to choose their most convenient payment method. I know I am team not getting up to get my card when I can just use PayPal or ApplePay… yes I can be that lazy. Though we have taken sign ups from members through Square invoices or in person at a pop-up, if I can, I push everyone to purchase through our website so I can better track orders. I also love it when sales happen while I am literally drooling on my pillow dead asleep.

As mentioned, pretty flower photos help a ton but coupling those photos with a beautiful description of the flowers you are growing will allow members to also envision what the bouquets will look like. If you are a writer, this will come easily to you! Once they see what the bouquet subscription is all about, they have drop downs to select pickup location, package and any add-ons we are offering.

At signup, you also should collect some key information on your members. Oftentimes, our subscriptions are also given as gifts so even though much of the information is automatically given for the cardholder, that does not mean we are getting the necessary information to be able to communicate with the member who will be receiving the flowers during the season. Also, we have also found sometimes the billing address related to the card the purchaser is using is different than their home address or other place they want for delivery. This was huge for us when we used to do home deliveries and since the pandemic hit is still information we need. There have been times where we had members in quarantine and we were able to do a no-contact delivery for them so they could still have their blooms. Pretty important when you’re stuck at home for a week or two! This is a safety net to make sure we are getting the most updated and necessary information upfront. I also have a section where they can leave special notes or instructions such as sensitivity to scents. Lastly, we list our terms and conditions. They must acknowledge that they read and agreed to them before they are able to check out. In the world of chargebacks, this is a biggie.

Keep the selling of your flowers clean, easy and efficient. It is the first contact you will be having with your subscription members.

What should your bouquets look like?

I know deciding exactly what product and how I wanted to package it was something I spent time pondering on. A bouquet or arrangement and what size?

You can take many different approaches with the general idea of a bouquet subscription. For us, I decided to keep it simple and offer fluffy bouquets while trying to keep it at a reasonable price point. I also wanted to make it worth my time and effort so couldn’t price it too low either.

The amount of stems and style of bouquets change throughout the season, depending on what’s in bloom. Earlier in the season the bouquets won’t be quite as fluffy as they are towards the end of the season.

Once again, this is really your decision. We go over design components with some example bouquet designs in this blog in case you are looking for a starting point.

Really, it is a balance of filling each bouquet to value while also making sure they look fulfilled.

As small scale growers, many of us can’t sell twenty stems of tulips for ten dollars. The mass producers get away with it because they have space and volume on their side. This is where I have come to rely on my design skills over the years with hand-tied bouquets or launching the season with an arrangement in a vase that is theirs to keep. Presentation is everything! Along with presentation, providing a unique experience for our members.

You may find yourself having to give technically a little more in “value” in terms of amount of stems for the bouquet to look fulfilled. Does this make sense? I find this to be more common in spring where the flowers are simply more expensive, slender and dainty. Come summer, the cost evens out more. It is common to see spring subscriptions at a higher price point than summer ones partly for this reason. For us, I’ve always looked at spring as a loss leader but worth it to gain those repeat customers. You make those bouquets too small, your customers may not see the full value. They don’t understand the cost behind those blooms, they only can really compare to what they see in the stores. This is a consideration for you to take when looking at when you want to have bouquet subscriptions ready for your members and price.

My workflow from harvest to assembly

Typically either the day before or that morning while sipping my coffee of harvesting, I start creating my bouquet recipe. Then I start calculating the amount of stems/bunches that need to be harvested to fill orders that week. Create a list and assign the harvesting amongst myself and other team members. We get out there early and before the pollinator traffic hour happens!

The stems go into clean buckets with a CVBN tablet. We keep the buckets in the shade until we move them into the cooler. We allow the flowers to condition for a minimum of three hours but preferably overnight. The key to quality flowers is to get that field heat off them, whether it is a cool room with air-conditioning or a cooler.

On assembly day, we lay the stems out in order, grab and assemble. Two to three people can assemble, two people actually putting bouquets together and one person wrapping, placing flower food in the sleeve and placing the bouquets in fresh water also treated with a CVBN tablet. On the buckets, we also place a label of the pickup location it is to go to.

On delivery day, the flowers are loaded up and we head on out! Upon delivery, a text is sent to our members to let them know the flowers are waiting for them.

Deciding on a price point

Sometimes price will be determined by what your market can handle. You may be in a more rural area filled with DIYers where you have a hard time moving bouquets for more than $20. Perhaps you are in an area with wealth where spending $50 on a bouquet is a drop in the bucket. As long as you can still make a profit, there is really nothing wrong with either one! I would caution, don’t assemble $50 worth of flowers and sell it for $20. Fill it to value as best you can, use bigger components and grow more affordable varieties. Skip the Cloni ranunculus for mixed bouquets and use Elegance. Skip over dahlias and use sunflowers instead. Grow the varieties that fit with your product and price point. I know as growers, we want to grow all the pretties and luxurious varieties but unless you are getting into wedding work or can truly sell them for what they are worth, skip them. If you are stumped on which varieties to grow for a bouquet subscription, check out the blog here. For our Flower Farming Newsletter Subscribers, we also have a free printable for you listing some of our favorite ingredients we’ve used over the years in our bouquet subscriptions, broken down into seasons. You can find that on the “flower farming subscribers only” page.

When deciding on your price point take into consideration your expenses, if you also need to collect sales tax and if you are delivering to homes or a pick up location gas/mileage/time, labor costs, your chosen packaging materials, flower food, etc.

This coming season is going to be tricky when it comes to price points. Truly, by summer who knows what we’ll be paying for gas alone! You will want to make sure, to the best you can, that your subscriptions will still be profitable even with the increase of prices and inflation. Inflation of costs can also work to your advantage if you can get customers to lock in with you before prices go up. The answer may be taking on as many subscriptions as you can! The more volume, the more profitable you become. We increased our prices by five percent for the 2022 season in anticipation for inflation, which we thought was plenty with wiggle room… not so sure now but we shall see.

On average, I have seen other growers sell bouquet subscriptions anywhere from $15 per bouquet to $65 per bouquet. We land somewhere in the middle. You will have to decide how casual or luxurious of a product and experience you want to provide, how fluffy and what varieties you are planning on using in conjunction. with what you target customer is willing to pay.

One caveat I would mention and encourage you to consider: be careful price competition amongst your own product offerings.

For us, we typically give more of discount to our members for putting money up front. Bouquets that are similar in size that we may sell at a pop up has a higher price point than for our members. There are arguments to invert this reasoning with prices. I just recommend taking it into consideration. I feel our members need a reward and not what I see as kind of a punishment. They are putting their money behind us well in advance, there is power and appreciation behind that gesture.

On Site Pickup, Pickup Locations or Home Delivery?

You will need to decide how you want to coordinate getting the bouquets to your members.

In the world of Amazon deliveries and food subscription boxes, customers love when bouquets come to their door steps but that may not be a realistic approach for you.

On site pickup can be convenient but also not so convenient. Sometimes having a separation, especially if you are growing on your private residence, can have it’s benefits. If you decide to host farm-pickups you may want to set some kind of boundaries or time windows to allow yourself to work since sometimes folks can be chatty.

We are currently using pickup locations. We have partnered with a variety of small businesses. I just realized today that three out of the four hosting businesses are women owned, which is so neat! We try to make pickup locations as convenient for members and hosting business owners alike. We didn’t go for one specific style location in the mix we have a golf course club house, vintage shop, our family’s accounting office in a historical building (super cute) and lastly a paint your own clay art studio. We love our hosting businesses and most of them we’ve been there going on our third season now. We reached out to the vintage shop and art studio owners, forced our way at the family accounting office and was approached by the golf course. We have been welcomed and in turn we try to give our thanks through bouquets, veggies, wreaths and other surprises. If you like the idea of partnering with another small business as a pickup location, reach out! You may be surprised at how welcoming they are and the delight they find in getting to see pretty flowers each week.

Now that we have gone sold you on bouquet subscriptions, chatted selling, creating and delivering let’s dive into the final details of this product!

We’re so spoiled by our hosting businesses, they even advertise for us!

The business side of bouquet subscriptions

Though our subscription offering as evolved over the years, there have been a few things that we have tried to stay consistent with over the years when it comes to our bouquet subscription.

Welcome and Educate!

We still educate our customers, this does not go away and really it shouldn’t. Once you aren’t having to educate customers you probably aren’t gaining new ones then. I will admit though, that I love our repeat members who know the routine!

We have a FAQs page that goes over questions or issues that we deemed need to be addressed. We encourage our potential members to read through that before signing up with us.

At sign up, we also have terms and conditions, as mentioned, they must accept in order to purchase. It’s important for people to know if “x” happens then we will do “y." All sales final is a big one to have as well, in case you are confronted with chargebacks.

Close to the beginning of the season, I send a welcome email with all the must know details pertaining to the upcoming season. Information on how to care for your flowers, recommendations for transporting your flowers and details about their chosen pick up sites. I also give them links to the FAQs page once again, along with the terms and conditions that were agreed to upon sign up. In between all the details, we welcome them, thank them, show them what’s happening, give dates of when we will have first pickups and I like to include blogs of flowers they can anticipate seeing during the season. It is an essential email but also a fun one! I also ensure them we are here if they have any questions/concerns or if they have planned vacations so we can coordinate around that. It also outlines terms as far as how many times we can we can switch up pickup dates- you know the not-so-fun part of the gig. We try our best to do it in a positive manner but also giving them the information they need to know up front. We do try to be accommodating within reason.

Keeping Track of Your Members

Though we would prefer changes in pickups didn’t happen… they happen.

There are some growers who approach their CSA/Bouquet Subscriptions without accomodating: you don’t pick up you don’t get the product. The reasoning behind this isn’t horrible. We are working within the confines of the season, that product is already allotted from them, having to deal with doubling or adding on additional weeks while keeping track can be a pain. Sometimes, members can abuse it.

I get it.

I try to be accommodating within reason. Life happens. Vacations happen. I would rather have to move around their pickups a couple times during the season than not have them as members at all. Typically planned events, our members tell us in the beginning of the season. I do have listed in the terms/conditions that they need to tell us a minimum 48 hours in advance if they are unable to make their pickup, I also prefer to have the name of a person who may be picking up on their behalf, to let our hosting businesses know. I am happy to move pickups once or twice during the season but if it becomes more than that, they can have a friend pickup on their behalf and gift it to them or we donate it to an organization/family of our choice. If members completely forget to pick up their bouquet, the first time I’ll replace it. After that, the hosting businesses get to donate the flowers how they see fit.

How I keep track of all of this in my season’s workbook. Remember that fancy crop planning workbook we shared with you a couple months ago (if you are a Flower Farming Newsletter Subscriber). As mentioned before, I keep a Numbers workbook for my season. One of the sections I keep is all my subscription members information. If I can have it all in one place, it makes my life easier. In that workbook is a sheet with the member’s information such as: contact, any notes given at sign up, address (in case we have to deliver to their home for some reason), pickup location, package choice, etc. Basically all the information that I gathered from when they signed up. Sometimes I get additional texts/emails from members and update that information as well. I have a sheet for each pickup location or when I did seasonally, I broke it into seasons.

The way you lay out your sheet to track your members is really customizable to what works best for your brain. Along with the general information sheet I also have one to track pickups. In the beginning when I only had a few members and one pickup location, keeping track of pickups wasn’t too complicated. Once I began adding home deliveries then transitioning to pickup locations… it began to get complicated. Each season I managed to make it more complicated. My solution? A quick spreadsheet that once I know my first week of deliveries I list that week number with bouquet number. Since we are going over the course of twenty four weeks, minds get forgetful. With having all the dates and members listed out, if a member tells be they are going out of town I can quickly add a note for that week. I use little asterisks once the bouquet had been delivered. This helps me when I am putting my weekly orders together and to better keep track of members, if I owe them bouquets or perhaps they added on a bouquet that I still need to charge for. It’s just another safety net of information. Check out the screenshots of examples below.

Pickup day, transportation & Delivery of flowers

Needing bouquet subscriptions to be able to coexist with our weddings, we were selective in our schedule for harvesting, assembling and delivery/pickup day for our bouquet subscription.

With the bouquet subscription, I was looking to have it earlier in the week, that way later in the week I can reserve the next harvest of blooms for weddings. We settled on pickup day being on Wednesday, we used to do Tuesday but found the turnaround to have them harvested, conditioned and assembled all on Monday too much, since we are trying to make Sunday more family focused these days. This also leaves me the remainder of the week to focus on weddings I have scheduled for pickups or delivery/installs. This schedule made sense for us, sharing the “why’s” behind our schedule hopefully helps you ask some questions for your own life/business.

Going on our third season of having pickup locations, we always take a checklist relevant to each pickup location. Actually two, one for myself and one to leave with the flowers. The checklist is my extra layer of communication to our customers. Since we do have customers who opt for every other week pickup, or sometimes people change their pickup week, add bouquets, or other changes, the checklist is a way to double check the right customers are picking up on that day.

Flowers are always delivered in plenty of water. When the subscription was smaller and inexpensive jars/vases were easier to come by, I would deliver bouquets in individual containers nestled together in old vintage milk crates. I am obsessed with old milk crates, they are cute and hold the containers nicely.

As our subscription grew and I really didn’t love leaving crates at the hosting businesses for a week, we switched to delivering bouquets in just buckets of water. Visually not my favorite but it began to make more sense, more efficient and easier for the hosting businesses to store until I came and picked up the buckets the following week. Which is why we decided to do something special for our members.

First delivery comes with a container

First delivery, we always gift them a vase that is theirs to use all season long.

We used to deliver in cylinder vases or mason jars but since 2020 they aren’t as easy or inexpensive to come by and enough members didn’t return them. In response, we provide them a container up front so we know they have one, that is theirs. I also try to choose cute, a container that could go with almost any decor for them to enjoy. I also found, when I went cuter, they didn’t try to give the container back, haha! We started getting the backwards problem! We try to stay away from plastic sleeves and such but last year we had issues with members not bringing water with them or a container, these were mostly the seasonal members who came on mid season. As a result, I will most likely leave some compostable coffee cups with the flowers in case anyone is in need. If you budget allows for it though, eco-fresh wraps can also be a solid choice!

Communication is life!

Direct to consumer does not come without a price. Your members need clear communication. I always try to be upfront on an as needed basis, our true ideal customers are understanding and rational. They know in the event of a crop gap or some bizarre allergic reaction I have… we always make it up to them!

In turn, I ask they also communicate to me. If they are unhappy or something is going on, if they don’t tell me then they rob me the opportunity to fix it, which is a disservice to both of us. Communication is so crucial! It also helps to better establish more of a positive relationship with our customers.

Making it more personal

Something I have noticed over the years is the craving of human connections.

In the world of big corporations and desired purchases being through a click of a button rather than through a person, I like to remind our customers that we are their farmer and we do appreciate them. The human connection is what makes us different. Our journey. Our struggles. Our grit. Our wins. Our members love being part of our story.

I love to give hand written cards to our members in the beginning and end of the season to make sure: that even if we haven’t gotten to physically see each other, that we are the face and farmer behind the weekly blooms and that we very much value them. It makes it more personal than an email. Totally worth the hand cramps!

We made it to the end, yay!

The goal with this blog post was to give you a buffet of food for thought on approaching a bouquet subscription. If you decide it is a direct to consumer product you want to add into your product offerings, even as a first year flower farmer, that this post has been helpful in guiding you. Be sure to read our correlating blog that dives more into the evolution of our bouquet subscription over the years to give you a peek into our “why’s” and “how’s” over the seasons.

Join us Thursday March 10, 2022 at 6pm PST over on our YouTube Channel for a livestream all about bouquet subscriptions! Bring your questions and we will attempt to answer them! After a two week break, we are excited to be back with our flower friends!

Flower Farming Business: Bouquet Subscriptions