How traditional flower business is attaining new identity?

Ferns N Petals(F&P) having pioneered the concept of flowers and gifts in the country today has become a driver of marketplace innovation and a contributor in local economies. Started in 1994, today the brand enjoys the rich retail presence. Recently, the brand participated in Opportunity India Show 2018 recently concluded in the capital city New Delhi. The brand is scouting suitable opportunities for its cake and flower business.  Sharma was speaking at the sidelines of the show.

Interview Excerpts..

How do you see the growth opportunities in the gifting segment? What are the factors propelling growth in this segment?

Gone are the days when selling flowers used to be a challenge. Retail sector has been governed by the youth who they have disposable income. Hence, gifting as the segment has been taken very positively. We are working towards a concept called ‘bring my flowers’ . Under this service we would be delivering flowers at the doorstep just like you get newspaper in the morning. People will enjoy flowers in their day to day life without having any specific occasion.

What kind of retail footprint the brand has right now including company owned and franchised stores? How many franchised stores the brand is looking to open?

We have 340 stores right now pan India; among this the count of company owned stores is 150. We plan to open around 30 new stores in next two months at different locations.  On an average we are opening ten stores every month. We will continue to grow with same momentum.

What kind of challenges do you see in this category? Also what kind of support you plan to offer to your franchisees?

Man power is one of the biggest challenges. We don’t have any centralized system where we can train manpower. We will help them in all means starting from choosing the right location to store interior to training the human resource to merchandise support and also provide them online platform to do business. The startup cost of our franchise is around 18 lakh rupees.

How you plan to expand your only cake stores? How many more stores the company is looking to open for this format?

We already have 50 stores of this format. And, we plan to have 200 plus outlets over next two years.

How does cake format is different from regular confectionary shops we do see?

Our cake format compliments our flower business. It is an obvious choice of people to gift cake along with the flowers. We did extensive research involving two year before we introduced the cake outlet. We are way price competitive as compared to luxury bakery shops.

What is the average size of these two formats?

The flower shop is spread across 200 plus sq.ft.  and the area requirement  for cake shop is  400 sq.ft.