Our fall poinsettia sale was quite the success this past holiday season. The class at the University of Georgia that grows our poinsettias every year, HORT 4070, adeptly grew approximately 500 6” potted plants and 300 8” potted plants, of which 98% of the total were sold. A whopping 285 of our poinsettias were grown to order for an on campus department, UGA Food services, which requested unique and mostly non-red varieties for a special holiday theme implemented in our dining halls all across campus.
Not only were we able to connect our chapter to a large portion of the student body in a significant way, this also meant that we, to our genuine delight, had the privilege of working with some truly extraordinary non-traditional varieties, such as Ice Punch, Sparkling Punch, Red Glitter, Luv U Soft Pink, Poinsettia Pure White, Poinsettia Pink, Winter Rose Early Red, Peppermint Ruffles, and Enduring Marble. Many of the cuttings for these varieties were generously donated by Dummen, a German company that breeds poinsettias. Other varieties grown for our usual target market included Leona Red, Charon Red, Robyn Red, Astro Red, Centurion Red, Aries Red, Herra Red, Prestige Red, and Solar Pink generously donated by Beekenkamp, a Dutch company that also breeds poinsettias.
It was obvious early on in the semester that, to our humble pleasure, the reputation that we carry for growing quality poinsettias precedes us. In the first few weeks of the semester, we received pre-orders from several churches and administrative offices that had ordered from us in years passed. Before we even started marketing we’d already pre-sold nearly 150 of our poinsettias. Combined with the Food Services order, this meant that over half of the plants in our greenhouse already had buyers.
In addition to making calls to eligible entities and posting flyers as we have always done in the past, we made up our own special business card which we handed out in a new, old-fashioned ‘hit the pavement and knock on doors’ strategy in which we walked the streets of downtown Athens and greeted business owners and managers with our proposition to supply them with our handsomely grown poinsettias just in time for the holidays. We actually landed a very sizeable order that way. The Classic Center, Athens’ premiere convention center and performing arts theatre, which traditionally buys from major chains, decided to buy 70 poinsettias from us that year instead, which felt like a big win.
Following the arrangements that we made to fill large pre-orders, we set out to host an open-house to sell our remaining plants, of which we had roughly 200. The Athens Banner Herald, the city’s major newspaper, did a story on our sale, which proved to be incredibly successful marketing.
Weeks and days before our open-house date, December 2nd, we received a flood of calls and emails requesting that we reserve plants for pick-up on the day of the sale. We complied with these requests and found that nearly all of our remaining colored poinsettias (of which there were 40 remaining) were now off the market, as were a large chunk of our traditional red. In the first couple of hours of our actual sale, we had large influxes of people come to our greenhouse to buy in assorted quantities. The few remaining non-red poinsettias and our larger 8” potted poinsettias sold out first.
All in all, we learned a lot from this particular sale. While we definitely consider ourselves successful, we also see the importance of being able to realistically critique ourselves and discover ways that we can do better in the years to follow. For instance, we weren’t due to make the large delivery to our Food Services department by the time of our open-house sale. This meant that we had all of these incredibly eye-catching and unique varieties in our greenhouse that were already pre-sold, out of reach, and highly coveted by a large portion of our customers.
Additionally, not everyone who had come to our sale had necessarily seen the newspaper advertisement and a good many were incredibly fond of the idea of being able to make reservations for plants in the future (especially the colorful non-red varieties that had sold out first). Considering the fact that the colorful non-red varieties had not sold nearly quite so well in the previous year, this caused us to reflect on how customer preferences change year to year and inspired us to reflect on possible strategies we could employ in response to this obstacle.
During the sale, we asked for the contact information of our more enthusiastic customers and decided that for our next poinsettia sale, we would get in touch with these customers regarding their affinities. We may try a more "grow-to-order" strategy this next holiday season and, given the enthusiasm we witnessed, grow a larger number of more unique, non-red varieties that are not commonly seen on the general market. In any case, we recognize that experience is the greatest teacher and feel equipped with both our victories and reflections for improvements to have another successful sale next season!
Emily Currens
President, Fall 2017-Spring 2018