Imagine this
Imagine that you are at a festival. The sun is shining and the grass is tickling under your feet. You see through your sunglasses a big stage and a live performance of Michael Kiwanuka (wonderful music) You take a sip of your drink and you are enjoying everything!
Flowers are not a 'theme'
A few weeks ago I was at the Sziget festival in Budapest. Sziget is the 7th biggest festival in the world. On this island in Budapest, you will meet lots of people who are enjoying the music, the sun, and drinks! And the most important thing; they are having a good time! What is see there is that some products related to flowers, like little bags of flower seeds are being handed out. You can even marry at the festival underneath a giant construction with lots of flowers. But flowers, in general, are not present and a festival feeling with flowers is not a theme (yet) for the visitors to this festival.
Young people buy online
The main public during Sziget is ‘the younger’ people. Let’s say between 20 – 40 years The coincidence is that one week later I read an article about the consumption of cut flowers in the Netherlands. In this research is written that the younger generation (18-29) is buying their flowers for almost 30% online. The people of 30+ are buying only 20% of the flowers online and the generation of 40+ even less. And imagine that The Netherlands is not the leading country in e-commerce.
Generation Y
In The United States of America, the ‘generation Y’ (born 1980-2000) is buying nearly 35% of they’re flowers online. The Association of American Florist predicts that this percentage will go up to 50% or more in the coming years. Next the facts of the Asian numbers of e-commerce. Average annual spend in Shanghai from e-commerce platforms is total 15.000 euros according to Alipay.
An opportunity!
The biggest thing and conclusion you can make about these studies is that younger people will see less and fewer flowers. They will visit a flower shop less and less. And eventually, they will only see flowers when they order flowers online. The real and physical connection between flowers and happiness will fade away. So why not ‘make it easy’ for the younger people and show them our flowers in places where they are having a good time? Give them the festival feeling with flowers! More than 500.000 people from 100 countries visited the edition of Sziget 2019. Next year I hope the weather is a bit better. And I hope I'll feel the sun rays on my face, the grass tickling under my feet. And through my sunglasses, I would love to see a sea of happy people with flowers in their hands!
Join me!
Will you join me in creating a festival feeling with flowers? Making it happen? Let's do it together with all of us breeders and growers in the amazing industry of floriculture! Send me an email: [email protected] and we'll see if we can connect enough businesses to create a festival feeling with flowers!
