All Saints’ Day (1 November) is, for most Spanish flower shops, the highest-turnover week of the year — ahead of Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. It’s also the one handled worst: a huge volume concentrated into three days, a product that can’t be late and customers who all appear at once. This is the checklist for reaching 1 November without running short of flowers or being left with too much stock.
If you’re reading this in September or early October, you’re in good time. If it’s the last week, skip straight to the organisation section: the buying has already been decided.
Before ordering anything, look at what happened last year. Not from memory — from memory we all remember the Saturday we couldn’t keep up and forget the three slow days.
What you need to know:
If you track sales in management software, that’s two minutes looking at the history. If you use a notebook, spend some time with last year’s pages: even half-complete, it’s better than deciding by eye.
Divide what you had left over by what you bought. If it’s above 10%, next year you can buy less and earn the same. At All Saints’ the temptation to overbuy is huge because the fear of running out on 1 November is real — but that week’s waste eats a significant part of the campaign’s extra profit.
At All Saints’ you don’t buy what you want, you buy what you’ve reserved. Chrysanthemums, carnations and cemetery flowers are committed weeks in advance, and whoever calls in October pays more and chooses less.
The difference between a profitable campaign and an exhausting one is often here: in how many different things you try to sell.
Put together a short, clear range: three or four arrangement designs at stepped price points (for example an entry one, a mid one and a large one), two or three bouquets and the plants. That covers 90% of what you’ll be asked for, you buy in concentrated volume —which is how you buy cheaply— and your team can make them in batches without asking you about every piece.
Cost each design before the campaign, not after. With the campaign price of flowers, not July’s. It’s the only way to know whether the €35 arrangement still leaves you a margin when chrysanthemums have gone up 30%.
Keeping last year’s price “so as not to scare the customer off” while flower prices have risen. In a very high-volume week, a badly calculated margin gets multiplied: you sell more than ever and end up earning less than the year before. If you need to go up, go up — the All Saints’ customer compares little and values a well-made piece that arrives on time.
This is where it’s decided whether the week will be hard or unbearable.
When the worst is over is when you learn. Spend half an hour noting three things, while they’re fresh:
Those three notes are worth more than any advice you might read next October. If you can also review them alongside your sales history, the first part of next year’s campaign is already done.
None of the above needs software: it can be done with a notebook and a clear head, and many flower shops do just that. What changes with florist management software is how much time it takes you and what slips through the cracks.
In Evoflor, specifically: orders come in with their date, time slot and location and the day screen sorts them for you; cemetery deliveries are grouped into a route instead of a list of loose addresses; each arrangement design is saved as a recipe with its cost and margin, so updating campaign prices means changing the flower price and seeing what happens; and at the end you have the campaign history without having noted anything down separately.
When should you start preparing for All Saints’ Day? Buying, six to eight weeks before: by October the wholesaler has already committed the campaign flowers. Organising the counter and delivery, in the two weeks beforehand.
Which flowers sell most for All Saints’ Day? Chrysanthemums are still king in most of Spain, alongside carnations, gladioli and seasonal flowers; plants gain ground every year because they last longer at the cemetery. The proportion varies a lot by area: your own history beats any national average.
Should you raise prices during the campaign? You should adjust them to the real cost of flowers that week, which goes up. Keeping last year’s price while costs rise means selling more and earning less. Cost your designs at campaign prices before printing the price list.
How do I avoid running out of flowers on 1 November? By reserving in writing with the wholesaler, splitting delivery into two batches and having an alternative supplier for the essentials. And by looking at last year’s sales curve by day, not just the total.
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