Florpartners Turns Over A New Leaf For Plant And Flower Sales With Intactix's pro/space Software
Software enhances performance and ability to quantify return on inventory investment for plants and flowers.
Revitalizing the growing fields of space and category management for products that must be sold within three days of shelf placement is a daunting business challenge for floral retailers. However, Florpartners — a wholly owned subsidiary of Flower Auction Holland — is seeing more than new leaves and blossoms in the plant and flower sections it builds with Intactix space management software pro/space. In test stores, the merchandising company is seeing an increase in plant and flower sales by as much as 30%.
Based in Naaldwijk, Holland, Florpartners links the Dutch-based growers of plants and flowers with retailers across Europe through its visual and analytical space management and forecasting services. Pioneering the concept of space management and analysis for plants and flowers, Florpartners is part of one of the largest cooperative flower auctions in the world. The company advises and supports wholesalers, producers, and breeders of plants and flowers who focus on retail marketing segments, including supermarkets, garden centers, do-it-yourself stores, petrol stations, and florist groups around the world.
According to Retail Project Manager Iwan Weijenberg, pro/space's 3-D imaging allows his team to build planograms of flower bouquets and plants that look realistic to the produce managers and store staff who arrange displays in stores. Additionally, the software solution answers some of the specialized needs of people who merchandise live products.
"Because we have a fresh product," he said, "the way we merchandise it is different than for other consumer packaged goods. While plants may be in stores for a week, flowers must be sold within three days of placement in shop, or they are gone. Basically, they are either sold, or they are waste. This kind of timeframe makes it even more crucial to present these products in the most appealing way possible, so that retailers can not only maximize space but also minimize waste."
Florpartners has been using Intactix's pro/space for the past six months, and the floral service company is reporting good results, thanks to the enhanced visualization of the 32-bit space planning software.
pro/space provides advanced fixturing capabilities, which include the 3-D visual representations of round shelves, buckets, stacked displays, and more imaging not possible in other space management solutions. According to Weijenberg, the software also provides analysis tools that can be used to measure and report the performance and sales volumes of particular products or entire sections, and it fills a unique niche in the retail segments that carry plants and flowers.
"About a year and a half ago," he said, "we started working on ways to answer retailers and manufacturers who ask, 'What's my turnover for plants and flowers, and what's my benefit per square meter?' At that time, no one could tell them. Although many retailers now use bar codes to provide point-of-sale data for analysis, most of them do not analyze plants and flowers separately from the entire produce section. This has left a gap in reporting and analysis, and it has made it increasingly difficult for the growers of plants and flowers to prove return on inventory investment to the retail organizations that stock their products."
"Florpartners is really moving best practices for space management into the spotlight with the detailed analysis and highly visual work they are doing on behalf of the growers of plants and flowers across Holland," said Intactix General Manager, BeNeLux, Clem Herman. "This team of people is accomplishing something brand new for plants and flowers. At the same time, what they're doing with merchandising and analysis is something that has already proven concrete benefits to retailers and manufacturers in other product areas for years. If you take a closer look, it's easy to see that Florpartners is growing more than sales and business for their customers, they're expanding their abilities to meet the needs of today's consumer."
Answering the call of retailers and manufacturers who embrace the challenge of analyzing the floor and shelf space dedicated to plants and flowers, Florpartners provides both planogramming and analysis of these sections as well as support for their physical presence in store. This includes lighting, black wall backgrounds, and other elements to enhance the display of these products. And, according to Weijenberg, the benefits of their approach are both qualitative and quantitative.
"The qualitative benefits of our merchandising solutions involve consistency," he said, "because every retailer with the same plant and flower formula or planogram gets the same plants and flowers. When we look at this quantitatively — depending on the specifics at hand — we believe we can increase the plant and flower sales by at least 10% to 20%. In test stores, we've seen this as high as approximately 30%. This increase is directly related to the enhanced quality of the presentation on the shelf and the ability to actually analyze the other merchandising elements related to the products-things like days of supply, sales volume and performance, and other data types."
Looking to the future, Weijenberg sees an increase in the electronic transmission of both the imaging data his team uses to build merchandising plans, and the distribution of planograms themselves to store managers.
"Some suppliers send us pictures of the flowers and plants by email today," he said. "In the future, we hope to see them posting these images and the space plans we build on company intranets or using the Internet to distribute them more quickly. This could enhance speed to market of these products; which, if managed properly, can mean more growth for their performance and movement in the stores. At the end of the day, ideal presentation in the store is crucial to the plants and flower branches in retail. That includes both the quality of the products that are there, and the way they look and feel to customers. Anything we can do to enhance that is well worth the effort."
Revitalizing the growing fields of space and category management for products that must be sold within three days of shelf placement is a daunting business challenge for floral retailers. However, Florpartners — a wholly owned subsidiary of Flower Auction Holland — is seeing more than new leaves and blossoms in the plant and flower sections it builds with Intactix space management software pro/space. In test stores, the merchandising company is seeing an increase in plant and flower sales by as much as 30%.
Based in Naaldwijk, Holland, Florpartners links the Dutch-based growers of plants and flowers with retailers across Europe through its visual and analytical space management and forecasting services. Pioneering the concept of space management and analysis for plants and flowers, Florpartners is part of one of the largest cooperative flower auctions in the world. The company advises and supports wholesalers, producers, and breeders of plants and flowers who focus on retail marketing segments, including supermarkets, garden centers, do-it-yourself stores, petrol stations, and florist groups around the world.
According to Retail Project Manager Iwan Weijenberg, pro/space's 3-D imaging allows his team to build planograms of flower bouquets and plants that look realistic to the produce managers and store staff who arrange displays in stores. Additionally, the software solution answers some of the specialized needs of people who merchandise live products.
"Because we have a fresh product," he said, "the way we merchandise it is different than for other consumer packaged goods. While plants may be in stores for a week, flowers must be sold within three days of placement in shop, or they are gone. Basically, they are either sold, or they are waste. This kind of timeframe makes it even more crucial to present these products in the most appealing way possible, so that retailers can not only maximize space but also minimize waste."
Florpartners has been using Intactix's pro/space for the past six months, and the floral service company is reporting good results, thanks to the enhanced visualization of the 32-bit space planning software.
pro/space provides advanced fixturing capabilities, which include the 3-D visual representations of round shelves, buckets, stacked displays, and more imaging not possible in other space management solutions. According to Weijenberg, the software also provides analysis tools that can be used to measure and report the performance and sales volumes of particular products or entire sections, and it fills a unique niche in the retail segments that carry plants and flowers.
"About a year and a half ago," he said, "we started working on ways to answer retailers and manufacturers who ask, 'What's my turnover for plants and flowers, and what's my benefit per square meter?' At that time, no one could tell them. Although many retailers now use bar codes to provide point-of-sale data for analysis, most of them do not analyze plants and flowers separately from the entire produce section. This has left a gap in reporting and analysis, and it has made it increasingly difficult for the growers of plants and flowers to prove return on inventory investment to the retail organizations that stock their products."
"Florpartners is really moving best practices for space management into the spotlight with the detailed analysis and highly visual work they are doing on behalf of the growers of plants and flowers across Holland," said Intactix General Manager, BeNeLux, Clem Herman. "This team of people is accomplishing something brand new for plants and flowers. At the same time, what they're doing with merchandising and analysis is something that has already proven concrete benefits to retailers and manufacturers in other product areas for years. If you take a closer look, it's easy to see that Florpartners is growing more than sales and business for their customers, they're expanding their abilities to meet the needs of today's consumer."
Answering the call of retailers and manufacturers who embrace the challenge of analyzing the floor and shelf space dedicated to plants and flowers, Florpartners provides both planogramming and analysis of these sections as well as support for their physical presence in store. This includes lighting, black wall backgrounds, and other elements to enhance the display of these products. And, according to Weijenberg, the benefits of their approach are both qualitative and quantitative.
"The qualitative benefits of our merchandising solutions involve consistency," he said, "because every retailer with the same plant and flower formula or planogram gets the same plants and flowers. When we look at this quantitatively — depending on the specifics at hand — we believe we can increase the plant and flower sales by at least 10% to 20%. In test stores, we've seen this as high as approximately 30%. This increase is directly related to the enhanced quality of the presentation on the shelf and the ability to actually analyze the other merchandising elements related to the products-things like days of supply, sales volume and performance, and other data types."
Looking to the future, Weijenberg sees an increase in the electronic transmission of both the imaging data his team uses to build merchandising plans, and the distribution of planograms themselves to store managers.
"Some suppliers send us pictures of the flowers and plants by email today," he said. "In the future, we hope to see them posting these images and the space plans we build on company intranets or using the Internet to distribute them more quickly. This could enhance speed to market of these products; which, if managed properly, can mean more growth for their performance and movement in the stores. At the end of the day, ideal presentation in the store is crucial to the plants and flower branches in retail. That includes both the quality of the products that are there, and the way they look and feel to customers. Anything we can do to enhance that is well worth the effort."
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