I'm sure that I've made just about every pricing mistake a florist could make at some point. And the good news? I'm sharing my Big 3 with you today so you can avoid the same pitfalls.
And avoiding these mistakes is a very good idea because pricing is one of the most important things any business owner will do. Price right and your business moves ahead and you thrive. Price badly and, well, the opposite happens.
So let's look at my Big 3 pricing mistakes every florist should avoid.
Mistake #1: Underpricing
Many, many florists make the mistake of setting their prices too low. For clarity, when I say "too low", I mean placing a value on your work that is less than what the market will pay.
Alway remember, floristry and floral design is a luxury purchase. What we do takes skill and expertise and is not an everyday purchase that most people will make.
People expect to pay a premium. In fact, many WANT to pay a premium.
I've coached a number of floral designers who wanted to focus on higher end clients — those in the $400 - $500 per order range. However, many of these florists only had a most expensive product on their website of $250.
So, they'd attract a high-end customer to their website and...they'd leave without buying. Clearly this wasn't a florist catering to their needs. They suffered from underpricing, a common florist pricing mistake.
And you don't have to be targeting high-end customers to be underpricing. If you're aiming for an average transaction value of $100, but most of the products you sell are $30-$50, it's time to rethink your pricing.
How to tell if you're underpricing
Three ways to check if you're underpricing your services:
- Has someone bought the highest priced product in your online catalogue? If yes, add higher price points.
- If you think you need to compete on price and be cheap, it’s likely you’re underpricing.
- Are there other designers in your area who charge significantly higher than you? Don't worry about the cheaper ones, if other florists are commanding higher prices, you should too.
Mistake #2: Assuming being cheap is how you get business
It's common to assume that price is the most important thing to a customer.
Nope. Certainly not most customers at least.
Let's think about the restaurant industry for a moment as it has so many parallels to floristry. When you think of a cheap restaurant, McDonalds comes quickly to mind.
Their entire business model? Volume. In other words, churn out an immense amount of cookie-cutter orders. No real personalisation, culinary expertise or hands-on customer engagement.
In fact, the ONLY way to make money as a fast-food restaurant is to have a an iron-clad process and move a crap load of product.
This is not a recipe for success for most florists who make the pricing mistake of trying to be cheap. Leave the fast-food flower business to the wire services, Trader Joes and Woolies. They appeal to a certain price-driven customer who cares less about expertise and what you have to offer.
On the other hand, at the other end of the restaurant spectrum, are places like Heston Blumenthal's restaurant. Phenomenal customer service, exquisite food prepared by food "artists", an experience you'll never forget — at $300 per person.
The most lucrative place for florists to compete is somewhere in between.
One final thought on avoiding the "cheap" pricing mistake florists make: here's what a nameless wire service charges for a gerbera bouquet:
- 12 stems gerbera bouquet = $39.99 + tax
- + shipping = $14.99
- Order Total: $58.99
Wire services sell thousands of these orders every day. You don't need to be the cheapest option out there.
Mistake #3: Set-and-forget pricing
We've all been guilty of carefully calculating our prices, posting them on our website and then...never changing them. This is the third florist pricing mistake, what I call set-and-forget pricing.
Instead, I want you to adopt a new mindset: new day, new customers, new prices. And here's why: we found that on any given day, more than 80% of the customers ordering from our website where NEW customers — they had never visited our website before.
This means they don’t know (or care) what we changed yesterday for a dozen roses. They just want to know that, yes, we can help them and that we make it easy.
In fact, this is also true if you’re focused on weddings and events. It doesn’t matter if you misquoted the last client. Today is a new bride so don't make the same florist pricing mistake by using outdated prices.
Perhaps you made table arrangements over the weekend but you wished you had budgeted more product. Easy, update your pricing right now before the next enquiry comes in.
New day, new customers.
Help avoiding florist pricing mistakes
Knowing the pricing mistakes to avoid is one thing but the real challenge is the stories we tell ourselves. Any of these sounds familiar?
- I’m new, I can't charge that much
- It's too competitive here, I need to be cheap
- The only way to build my portfolio is to do work for free
- My customers won’t pay that much
- I need more experience to charge more
- I feel bad charging “that much”
I’m here to tell you that NONE of these stories are true.
So, if pricing is an area you struggle with, I’m here to help. Find out more about my Flower Boss Bootcamp with a free 20 minute Mini-Session with me.
💖
Kathleen
P.S. I've done a podcast on this topic which you may like. Find it on Spotify here or listen on the player below.
