Features
An Opportunity Presented Itself
We successfully identified a niche market in the floricultural industry. It is rare that you find an undeveloped market, and when you are first on the scene, you have to make it count. We experienced remarkable growth (taking into account our short track record) with the Protea Bouquet sales. The customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The positive feedback is reinforced by the fact that during December 2005 (the third month) 78% of our orders were repeat orders. The conclusion that can be drawn is that we have to reach as many first-time buyers as possible, because we have more than a 75% chance that they will order again or refer a friend. The quality of our Protea Bouquets obviously speaks for themselves. The Protea Bouquets are the defining product of the company, followed by the Protea seed and flower jewelry.
The Challenges That Lies Ahead
The number one challenge is to inform and educate consumers about Protea flowers and their advantages. Very few people know what they are. Herein lies an opportunity and a challenge. The search engines (Google, MSN and Yahoo!) has been a terrific way to reach potential new buyers. Web surfers who search for ‘Protea’ obviously know what they are looking for. DiscoverProtea.com shows up as a sponsored link for every search for ‘Protea’. The challenge facing us is to inform and educate consumers that these are ‘flowers beyond the ordinary’; in order to increase the number of searches. In a small way we have started the education process with our monthly newsletter. Once again, most subscribers to the newsletter are those who already know what Proteas are, we need to reach those who don’t. The San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park carry our Protea Seed Starter Packs in their gift stores and we need figure out a way to further capitalize on this.
We positioned Sugarbush Cottage to keep that competitive advantage. We grow avocados and South African flowers and Australian green foliage. Our Business Plan identified South African and Australian flowers, consisting of Protea, Leucadendron, Leucospermum, Banksia and waxflower to be grown in the fields adjacent to the avocado grove. Various other fillers and Cape Greens are also grown to compliment the cut-flower harvest. Propagation of in the Proteaceae family is being conducted in the greenhouse. Special emphasis was placed on environmental concerns and promoting Proteaceae within the floricultural industry.
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