Customers who pre-order for Valentine’s Day at Keser’s Flowers are thanked with a shorter wait. Shown, co-owners Meagan Salinsky and Kevin Keser, and team members Steve Gray and Tracy Bass.busy weekday holiday, with customers dropping in to pick up something fast after work, some wait time will be inevitable, but Keser said he and his team have a two-step plan to speed things along.
Most florists are predicting an increase in Valentine’s Day sales on this year’s Tuesday holiday. For a florist in Glastonbury, Connecticut, that means planning ahead for crowd control.
“In our point-and-click world, no customer likes to wait in line,” said Kevin Keser of Keser’s Flowers. (He’s right about that. In a survey of business owners, 70 percent said their customers will wait in line for five minutes — max.)
On a busy weekday holiday, with customers dropping in to pick up something fast after work, some wait time will be inevitable, but Keser said he and his team have a two-step plan to speed things along.
- Turn customers who pre-order into VIPs. Keser and his team set up two check-out lines on Valentine’s Day: one for order pick-up and the other for last-minute shoppers. Through pre-holiday marketing, “our goal is to teach the walk-in customer each year to pre-order,” Keser said. The designated pre-order line, which moves at a faster clip, is an added incentive. “This format has worked well for years and takes the rush away from tired people on both ends of the sale,” he explained.
- Give walk-ins options — and distractions. For customers who haven’t planned ahead — and you know you’ll have them — the Keser team sets up seasonal point-of-sale products that make the grab-and-go effort more efficient and the wait time more engaging. (That’s an approach many retail experts advocate; giving customers something to look at in line will help the time pass more quickly.) In the showroom, walk-in customers will also find ready-made arrangements at a variety of price points, “from a single rose to several dozen vased to go,” Keser said.
Have a Valentine’s Day planning tip that could help others increase sales? We love hearing and sharing them. Email mwestbrook@safnow.org.
