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August 18, 2008 |
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GROWING YOUR BUSINESS TOGETHER |
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contents
Your Website = Your Credibility
Stanford University's Top Ten Guidelines
'Whole Paycheck' No Longer
All economic levels are impacted, even those 'deep pockets'
Brighten Every Room
Martha Stewart on Perfect Flowers
Survey Says
Staff count holds steady
Upcoming Events
Retail Conference 2008
October 17 - 19, Ottawa, Lord Elgin Hotel
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your website = your credibility
"Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility," a research summary from the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, lists 10 guidelines for building your Website's credibility. The guidelines are based on three years of research. Here they are, edited for the floral industry:
1. Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site. Build credibility by listing and linking to third-party sites – research, survey results, and source materials. Make sure the links work.
2. Show that there's a real organization behind your site. If you have a blog, that's one thing, but if you want to be taken seriously, post a physical address or at the very least list a membership with the Chamber of Commerce or an industry association.
3. Highlight your expertise. List any awards won, accreditations, or credentials. If you are affiliated with any credible organization, make it clear.
4. Show that you are honest and trustworthy. Write or have an expert write a brief biography about you and your team.
5. Make it easy to contact you. Don't make it a frustrating experience for people to find your contact information – list name, email, phone, and cell numbers on your home page as well as a separate contact page that provides your full mailing address.
6. Design your site so it looks professional. Use only high quality images on your Website; pay attention to layout, graphics, and typography. Enlist the help of a professional Web designer – don't look amateurish.
7. Make your site easy to use - and useful. Provide user-friendly navigation bars – special effects won't wow people if they can't get to the information they want and need. Also, provide useful information so that your Website can also be a resource. 8. Update your site's content often. Put it this way, how much credibility will you give to someone if his Website says, "Last updated in 1999?"
9. Use restraint with any promotional content. Avoid ads – your Website should be a subtle way of advertising your abilities and services, not everyone else's.
10. Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem. Can you refj this?
Source: Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility: A Research Summary from the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab. Stanford University
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'whole paycheck' no longer?
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| Whole Foods is making it easy for customers to see the week's specials, with "hang tags" placed strategically throughout the store. |
Whole Foods is making it easy for customers to see the week's specials, with "hang tags" placed strategically throughout the store.
Organic fruit, wild-caught salmon and certified flowers may still line the aisles of Whole Foods nationwide, but, according to an Aug. 2 New York Times story, the rotten economy is threatening to spoil the high-end grocer's bottom line. In response, Whole Foods is trying to recast itself in an unexpected role: a place for bargains.
Since early 2006, Whole Foods Market's stock has decreased by more than 70 percent. And while that drop isn't entirely pegged to recent economic crises — including those in mortgage and lending industries — dismal economic forecasts haven't helped the swanky grocer and onetime "Wall Street darling" draw in customers.
To counteract the decline, the company is now "offering deeper discounts, adding lower-priced store brands and emphasizing value in its advertising," according to the story. That emphasis in the store means samples of designer cheese now share the aisles with grab- and-go sale lists. The hang-tags (on recycled paper) list about five reduced-price items, with amount saved as obvious as any Safeway insert (see photo).
"We are a lot more competitive than people give us credit for," said Walter Robb, the company's co-president, who dismissed the company's popular nickname, Whole Paycheck, as unfair. "We challenge anyone on like items."
A recent national survey "found that 20 percent of shoppers have changed where they buy groceries and household essentials because of the economy," according to the story. That's a trend that could have repercussions beyond gourmet markets such as Whole Foods, since many supermarket chains have been adding more expensive food and gift items over the past several years — often in an effort to compete with high-end grocers.
"It's becoming clear that this worsening economic environment is having an impact on consumers at all economic levels," said Mitchell P. Corwin, an analyst at Morningstar. "The Whole Paycheck image can really hurt you."
Try this:
Cater to budget-conscious (which describes even the most deep-pocketed ones) with a weekly "special" (or a "happy hour") featuring in season or simply in abundance flowers
Source: SAF
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brighten every room in your home with perfect flowers
 There is absolutely no doubt about it: I love flowers! I love growing both flowers and foliage. And I love flower-arranging. If I didn’t have my current job, I might become a floral designer. Then I could own one of the many interesting flower shops in New York City that provide other flower lovers with magnificent arrangements and bouquets for their homes and offices and for special occasions.
My love affair with one of nature’s loveliest creations began when I was a child. My father taught me how to grow myriad cutting flowers from seed. I planted tulip and hyacinth and narcissus bulbs. I developed patience by learning how to sow long-germinating snapdragons, the seeds of which are so minuscule that I wondered how something so microscopic could turn into anything important. I discovered the difference between iris rhizomes and dahlia tubers. Fleshy roots miraculously sprouted green shoots that would leaf out and send up sturdy stalks of perfumed bearded beauties or fluffy, dinner-plate-size, showoff dahlias.
When I grew up and began establishing my own houses and designing my own gardens, I always included a cutting garden, a separate area where I would plant a succession of flowering plants that would provide me with blossoms from April to October, from tiny lilies of the valley and Muscari to huge dahlias and chrysanthemums. Then I would place arrangements on every table, windowsill and chest of drawers.
As my gardening skills improved — and, for sure, the results some years were infinitely better than others — I realized that some flowers were much better suited to indoor arrangements than others. And some plants that are grown principally for their luscious foliage displays — either in outside containers (alocasias, coleus, geraniums) or as mass plantings in the shade garden (hostas, Rheum, Hellebores, Jacob’s ladder) — are equally well suited to vases, serving as dramatic accents or as statements on their own.
I grow an assortment of plants in my Bedford, N.Y., garden that work well as what I call floral-arrangement contenders. And I am always finding new ones that surprise me with their versatility. Last year, an odd new plant showed up in the cutting garden: a form of milkweed. It turned out to be a real conversation piece indoors, so I planted more this year. Other plants are discarded, even during the first year, when I realize their lack of utility. The short-stemmed type of snapdragon, the miniature zinnias, the rather strongly scented marigolds and the dwarf version of ageratum have all been deemed not useful and quickly removed.
Other plants have surprised me, too. Clematis, a flowering vine usually trained to climb a trellis or pergola, has become of great interest to floral arrangers — its flowers are both long-lasting and dramatic. Likewise, the saber leaves of Cordyline, the colorful foliage and fluffy puffs of Cotinus, the giant elephant’s ears of Alocasias, and the almost-black or mottled leaves of Colocasias are now found in striking arrangements or standing solo.
Cut stems of all kinds of orchids and even fruit on branches — crab apples, hardy kiwi fruit, blackberries and elderberries — are finding their way into my vases. Sometimes, when I am trying to figure out which arrangement to put on the dinner table, I am inspired by a walk through the woods, where I snip dozens of fern fronds for a beautiful display in a simple container.
Mixing lots of plant materials can work on large and small scales. One way to unify disparate flower forms and textures is to stick to a largely monochromatic palette of purples, pinks, whites, golden yellows or even greens. Sometimes it is fun to contrast colors and shapes, pairing spikes of gladiolus with circular dahlias, or red-black sunflowers with lime-green hollyhocks.
And don’t think you have to use a traditional vase. I employ all kinds of containers to hold flowers, often grouping several small ones to create an arrangement. If you use a delicate porcelain piece, be certain to line it first with a bit of plastic to prevent the metal flower frog from scratching the surface, or use floral clay to affix the frog to the bowl.
By: Martha Stewart
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survey says: staff count holds steady
The average number of personnel per retail florist shop has remained fairly constant over the past seven years, despite consolidation in number of establishments. In 2006, the most recent data available, the average number of employees was 4.86, virtually unchanged from a year ago (4.82) and not far off from a high of 5.24 in 2001.
Source: SAF
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Flowers Canada Retail represents all segments of the Canadian Retail Floral Industry.
Our goal is helping you reach yours.
99 Fifth Ave., Suite #305 Ottawa, ON K1S 5P5
ph 1.800.447.5147 fax 1.866.671.8091
email flowers@flowerscanada.org web www.flowerscanada.org
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