The Floral Insight Newsletter—June 27th, 2024
Greetings from the Wizard!
Another month has passed, and The Bloom Show continues to thrive. On June 11, 2024, at 1 PM EST, Christi Lopez of Propel Business Coaching took over The Bloom Show, delving into marketing strategies tailored for the floral industry. Christi explained how a clear marketing plan acts like a GPS for a business, guiding it to achieve its goals. She shared steps to develop a robust marketing strategy, including identifying the audience, setting goals, and choosing the right tools such as social media, email, and ads. Additionally, she provided tips on ensuring all marketing efforts work together seamlessly. This informative episode was broadcast on Instagram and LinkedIn and is available for listening on The Bloom Show podcast.
Christi Lopez has been collaborating with us for a significant part of this year. This is part of our effort as a company to bring value to our community and business success to all.
Exciting news: The Bloom Show will be covering Chrysanthemum Week, potentially live, which promises to be a lot of fun. Keep an eye out for what Sahid Nahim of New Bloom Solutions and the host of The Bloom Show will cover. Additionally, Sahid and The Bloom Show will be attending Fun N Sun, hosting the “That Flower Feeling” panel and two live shows during the event. Williee Armellini will join as a special guest co-host, honoring one of the media pioneers of our floral industry.
As we mentioned last week, The Bloom Show will be attending Expoflor, offering exhibitors the opportunity to be featured and share their booth and story with our audience of over 30k floral industry professionals. Spaces are limited, so if you’re interested in being featured, please email MyMy at connect@newbloomsolutions.com for more information.
In June, we had the pleasure of collaborating with AFIF as part of the Bloom Together Initiative to honor Williee Armellini and his new book, “Flowers Come From Where?” This event was an effort by AFIF to support networking and building community, aligning perfectly with the spirit of the Bloom Together Initiative.
Sahid Nahim, President of New Bloom Solutions, was in attendance and stated, “Events like this help connect our floral industry, and this one was extra special with the opportunity to honor Williee Armellini, one of our floral industry media pioneers whom I respect and appreciate highly. The Bloom Together Initiative’s intention is to help the floral industry celebrate and showcase the power of networking, collaboration, and community building across all sectors of the floral industry.”
We are also excited to start working on our annual floral industry events and conventions calendar, which will feature all the global floral industry B2B events and conventions happening in 2025. We are accepting entries to be featured as sponsors. If you are interested, please reach out. Limited spaces are available.
We had the pleasure of having Camron King of Certified American Grown on The Bloom Show last June 25, 2024. After some technical difficulties, the show went live and it was a great episode. Camron spoke of the importance of Certified American Grown to our industry and shared how CAG heads efforts towards sustainability. Make sure to tune in to learn more about one of our partner collaborators, the Certified American Grown Association.
July is shaping up to be a great month, and we are excited to get it going and get it started with having Deborah Zoellick of IFPA as a guest on the Bloom Show on July 16th. From navigating financial challenges in floral marketing to cost optimization strategies, balancing profitability and sustainability, and more, Deborah has some strategies to share with supermarket flower buyers and floral suppliers for success.
And now for some thoughts from the wizard on some of the current economic, logistic problems, and global issues that may have an impact on you and your business.
On June 27th, the exchange rate for the Colombian peso was 1 USD = 4,147.47 COP. This is very good for Colombian flower exporters. I am sure a lot of growers with a decent cash position are buying lots of forwards and taking advantage of the current exchange.
Many of late May and June’s economic signals have been favorable. Retail sales increased in May after a slow April. We are seeing solid economic growth being driven by the consumer. Retail sales are now up year over year. The increase spending is being supported by the strong job market and wage gains. Inflation is still a problem but recently is being seen more in the service sector and less in the retail goods side.
On a positive side as well storage and warehouse costs dropped in 2023.These are the first declines we have seen in rents since the pandemic.
Wholesale inventories are also increasing to support increases in sales. Productivity is expected to increase the second half of this year to help level and maybe even reduce costs.
We always hear about lots of cash on the sidelines.
US companies are holding a record $4.11 trillion in the first quarter of 2024. This is over 12.8% over the same period in 2023. It is up $1.28 trillion from pre-pandemic levels. Part of this growth is due to high interest levels.
Helping inflation has been the drop in import costs. Imports dropped 0.4% in May, which is the largest monthly drop since December 2023. The price of Diesel has fallen for 8 consecutive weeks. The futures market has also been dropping on diesel. The price of diesel has dropped almost .34 cents a gallon during that 8-week period. Compared to a year ago, it is down 7.1 cents.
Large retailers, including Macy’s, Walmart, Target, and many more, have been cutting prices to retain customers.
Inflation slowed more in May than was expected. The core cpi increased to 3.4% year over year, which is slightly less the 3.5% that was predicted. Not quite enough for the fed to cut interest rates quite yet. However, 10-year interest rates are currently dropping in anticipation of rate cuts.
Global air Cargo volume is up 12% year over year in May. A lot of this is due to high e-commerce volume from China to Europe and North America. The demand and rates for air transport are higher than usual going into the usual slower summer season. Some companies are advancing orders for Christmas to avoid rising costs and a greater capacity shortage than we are seeing now. The volume of air freight is still quite high from Asia and the Middle East to Europe and North America. A lot of this is from lack of capacity and delays of Ocean containers due to the Conflict in Gaza. Spot rates have stayed strong starting the summer season due to outbound volume increases. Ocean container prices are closing in on covid-era costs due congestion in many ports around the world.
Fed ex is adjusting to take advantage of the international surge of e commerce by decreasing daytime domestic flights and increasing international routes.
The long-range weather prediction is showing for an intense Atlantic and Gulf Coast Hurricane season. We could see a record number of named storms. This above average season influences all types of logistics especially ocean transport.
Price increase have continued to squeeze distributors. Hiring in some cases has been challenging and at premium wages. Unfortunately, this becomes a trickle down ending up taking a toll on the consumer’s wallet. A good example of this is that new home construction dropped to a four year low in May. Inflationary prices on materials, labor, and high interest rates are. the major cause of this trend. The average hourly pay for warehouse workers has risen 40% in the last five years. To $18.99 according to the ITS logistic report. These increases are putting pressure on many customers to use more technology and automation. Some large floral companies are moving to some robotics to keep costs down.
The good news we are at a point of more positives than negatives and things are getting better. Demand is increasing and the supply chain is relatively good despite a few glitches. We have many economic concerns as well as some rising cost and labor challenges. Many consumers are shopping for deals putting major pressure on selling prices. Consumer confidence dropped slightly in June.
Some companies are reporting sales and profit growth have slowed while others are reporting increases and indicated growth opportunities exist and have great optimism for the future.
So regardless of which part of the floral chain you identify with currently innovation is extremely important for your future survival. Changing old practices that do not work in today’s business environment will hopefully put you in the optimism category.
Warm regards and thanks for reading my rants,
The Flower Wizard
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