Blog exclusive…..

Embargoed until Friday 2nd July

The Jack & Jill Children’s Foundation launches www.jackandjillflowers.ie

First Irish children’s charity to launch dedicated website for flowers with 15% of purchase price supporting sick children nationwide

(Friday 2nd July 2010) The Jack & Jill Children’s Foundation has launched www.jackandjillflowers.ie a new way of supporting sick children nationwide with home nursing care and respite where people can order flowers online or over the phone for delivery anywhere in Ireland or overseas, with 15% of the purchase price of the flowers going directly to Jack & Jill. The new initiative was launched by Jonathan Irwin CEO of Jack & Jill and his daughter Lily O’Brien at the children’s charity annual Golf Classic in Rathsallagh, Co. Wicklow today.

www.jackandjillflowers.ie is run by Flowers Made Easy, a family based business, originally started by Mary Grant over 20 years ago, which has become Ireland’s leading online florist, with 3 times more hits and visits than any other online florist website in Ireland. Jack & Jill Flowers accepts orders from anywhere in the world for flowers, plants and gifts for delivery anywhere in Ireland or overseas. The site is fully managed and administered by Flowers Made Easy, with Jack & Jill overseeing and monitoring orders.

Welcoming the new fundraising initiative, Jonathan Irwin CEO of Jack & Jill said, “We want to thank Eamonn Grant and his team for making www.jackandjillflowers.ie happen which means that people can buy their flowers and at the same time support Jack & Jill to the tune of 15% per purchase. We’ve already had a great reaction from our families to this, with many people promising to make all their flower purchases through Jack & Jill. With only 19% of our funding coming from the State, we rely on mobile phone recycling, public donations and creative initiatives like this one to do what we do. It gives me great pride to officially launch Jack & Jill Flowers.”

The Jack & Jill Children’s Foundation was set up in 1997 by Jonathan Irwin and his wife MaryAnn O’Brien (MD of Lily O’Brien’s) to help young children in Ireland who are born with or develop brain damage and who suffer severe intellectual and physical developmental delay as a result. They decided to set up Jack & Jill based on their own experience with their son Jack whose short life showed them the ideal way in which little children can be nursed at home. From their experience evolved the Jack & Jill model of home nursing and respite care that supports 300 families in Ireland today and has helped over 1,200 children and their families since 1997. The service includes home visits, advice, information, funding, lobbying and bereavement support. Jack & Jill requires €3 million per annum to operate this service and, with only 19% coming from the State, the Foundation raises the bulk of its budget through mobile phone recycling and public donations. See www.jackandjill.ie

Ends.

Further information: Jonathan Irwin 087 2558451 or Carmel Doyle 087 2473537

Eamonn Grant, Director, Flowers Made Easy, 01 217 6100

The world of buying flowers on the international markets can be a tough game. Prices of flowers are through the roof this week from the dutch auction.

Last week was an odd one, with International Mother’s Day falling on Sunday May the 9th this year. Because we in Ireland, share the same Mother’s Day as the UK which falls on a different date to international mothers day, prices were due to increase anyway, with an increase in demand from other countries around the world. We were all expecting that increase to happen, but you would expect that after all the panic buying during International Mother’s Day week (week 16) that the prices would drop back off to a more normal level, but they haven’t!!

So what’s happened?

To understand that, maybe we should try and explain a little bit about how the Dutch Auction system works.

The Dutch Flower Auction System is very unique in how it trades flowers.

The Dutch Auction Clock

The dutch flower auctions has always owed its strong position to “the clock”. This method of selling is known as the ‘Dutch auction’.  The Dutch auction works by buyers bidding on products in what could be described as a reverse auction. The price starts high and drops until the product is sold. This means that you need to be sure of the confidence of the market and the potential demand for a product on a given day, to be able to get the products you need at the best prices. If you are unsure you can end up missing out on the product or paying more that you should for the product. This works well, because it means that products get sold at a higher price when demand is high and a lower price when there isn’t as much of a demand. It means that growers can plan their seasons based on demand predictions and try to optimise their production to match the demand on the auction.

A very wide and deep assortment of flowers and plants are available though the Flora Holland auction clocks on a daily basis. Every day, 39 auction clocks are in operation at FloraHolland centers. This means 125,000 auction transactions every day. In other words, 12 billion cut flowers and over half a million plants a year.

Remote Buying takes advantage of new market demand, economic developments and technological possibilities,  dealers buy a lot of their products remotely. With the help of such services as Remote Buying FloraHolland is able to attract an increasing number of (international) buyers to the auction. And the stronger the ‘purchasing power’, the more attractive it is for growers to trade their products through FloraHolland. Image auctioning  is also popular the case of image auctioning, flowers and plants no longer appear in front of the clock but photographs of the products are displayed in the auction rooms. The main advantage is that flowers and plants can be taken out of the cold stores to the customer immediately after they are sold.  Projection auctioning To ensure the clock remains attractive, the auction process needs to be continually renewed and improved. At the Aalsmeer location, all the traditional clocks have already been replaced by large projected clocks. The projected clocks have been redesigned to offer even more information to buyers. This allows you as a grower to display your logo and photographs while your products are being auctioned. This assists buyers in their purchasing decisions.  

So what’s happened this week?

Demand was at high last week, and it appears that it was a reasonably successful time for florists, wholesalers and growers on the continent, considering the recession etc.  So it appears growers sold everything they forecasted to sell and some more by all accounts, which is great for the business in general. However due to the cold weather in spring 2010, it seems that growers have been under production pressure in Holland which has caused the price of flowers to go up on the auction because they don’t that the volume of product available to meet the auctions demands. It’s nobody’s fault, it’s simply the ecomonics of the system working themselves out. This sort of a supply vs demand gap happens very rarely and most of the time it happens for a single product type, like for example, Hydrangea stems were €7 + on the auction running up to the 07/07/2007. It seems that there was a huge increase in Weddings on that one particular day which caused an run on white flowers, like Hydragea.

So buyers on the auction this week are under serious pressure. They can’t buy flowers at a reasonable price because supply is down. Growers can’t produce them fast enough at the moment because of the hectic week last week and the cold weather in general. With international flight restrictions also having some effect of certain products from different parts of the world, things are set to be unstable for the coming days.

Despite all of this, at Flowers Made Easy, we will still have the same availability, at the same prices as if it were a normal week thanks to the wonderful efforts of our partners in Holland.

Hopefully for everyone concerned, it will come back to some sort of normality next week.

Please feel free to post comments below.

Sources for this article & other interesting info I found when researching this article:

http://www.floraholland.com/en/AboutFloraHolland/Auctioning/Pages/default.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Tulip_Craze

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Flower_Exchange

Head Shops are springing up all over Ireland. It appears that for the first time, a Florist has been replaced by a head shop!

Check out an article in the Irish Independent here: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/courts/headshop-landlord-gets-injunction-to-close-store-2107618.html 

It’s probably a sign of the ecomonic times we live is as well as several other factors including the publicity that every new headshop gets when they open but I thought it was interesting to see that there is obviously more money in flower food than flowers!

Anyway it appears that as of last night, an injuction has been issued by the courts against the tenant to prevent them operating as a Head Shop.

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. It’s dissapointing to see another florist close in Ireland as it seems that there is more and more closing every week.

Fathers Day is on June 20th, 2010. Something we forget about the Dad’s so we thought a mention here might help people chalk it into their diaries.

We will have a huge range of gifts this year for Father’s Day – More to follow on that later in the year.

So you love your Mum….

Well then it’s time to prove it on your BLOG.

Yes, we want you to blog about how great your mum is on your blog or website.

We want reasons why she is so great. We want stories of wonderful things she has done for you, silly things you’ve done to annoy her and anything else about you Mum that you think people might enjoy reading on your blog.

Facebook Friends can join too! Simply add yourself as a friend of the Flowers Made Easy Fan Page here and post as a fan on the page.

HOW TO ENTER:

1. Post about your Mum, Ma, Mother Mama or Ould’ One on your Blog

2.Create a LINK BACK to our blog (so we know that you have entered) http://blog.flowersmadeeasy.ie

The Perfect Prize  - A wonderfully massive Bouquet of Flowers Delivered and a superly tasty box of Lily O’Briens chocolates to your Mum on time for Mothers Day!

THE WINNER will be announced later next week.

Time to figure out who’s the biggest Mummies Boy or girl!

Please tell as many people as you can about this competition.

And if you don’t want to blog yourself, please feel free to write a post about the blog competition to see if any of your readers would be interested.

Best of luck to all!

Mothers Day Flowers is all we are talking about internally for the next 2 weeks in Flowers Made Easy. The first day of March has switched our focus to ensure we are ready for the rush of flower orders, for delivery anywhere in Ireland for Mothers Day which is on March 14th. In the coming days we will be launching our new collection of fresh flowers on our site www.flowersmadeeasy.ie

This year we have our new online florist website live and you can now select from our huge range of flowers and gifts online. We will also be launching 2 other sites in the next weeks so stay tuned to see what we have to offer.

You can also order chocolates, wines, teddy bears, plants, orchids and much much more on from our online flower shop. Our delivery network covers the whole Ireland from our base in Dublin, Ireland’s capital city. We pride ourselves on our quality of service and the quality of our product so if your looking for something to send to your Mum this Mothers Day, try www.flowersmadeeasy.ie and you won’t be disappointed.

We’ve been nominated for a Blog award for Best Irish Business blog this year! We are certainly honoured to be considered. We didn’t even realise we had been nominated, so thank you for the surprise.

Very tough competition in the space this year so we will certainly put in that extra effort to see if we can pick up an award .

Wonderfully greatful for the nomination!

Welcome to the brain of a Flowers Made Easy staff member. It’s all about to kick off in a big way for us this week with Valentine’s Day (Sunday, February 14th, 2010) only 7 days away.

So what will happen in the next seven days?

Job 1: Greenery -

We received delivery of what looks like a pallet full of Greenery last night, so Monday and Tuesday will be spent preparing all the greenery for the 12 Red Roses bouquets ordered for Valentines Day. Will it be fresh? Absolutely. It either comes from Irish Growers or in Vacum packs from our suppliers in Holland.

Job 2:  Sleeves, Ribbons and Bows:

Thankfully we have most of this done already. The perfect job to fill those quite moments in the snow in January!

Job 3: Order the Roses:

We placed our first order on Friday for Roses that won’t be cut until tomorrow and delivered to us on Wednesday and Thursday. Then it’s into the cold room for them where they will be recut, stripped, prepared, individually checked and placed ready for our florists to work their magic on them!

Job 4: Phones on the ready:

We are ready and waiting for your call. With our customer service team ramped up by 500% this week we hope to be able to handle all your orders queries and questions as fast as possible.

The Website:

We are working franctically on a whole new website so hopefully we will be be able to get it up and running before the order volumes go through the roof.

PR / Publicity / Marketing

This kicks in full steam ahead on Monday morning. With our Press Releases going out first thing, followed by (hopefully) radio interviews and phone interviews with the press in the run up to the big day..

It’s 2.30am so time for a few hours sleep to prepare for what will be a hectic week.

Stay Tuned for more updates…

It certainly has been. We have done photo shoots, prepared for Valentines Day, Re organised the Flowers HQ Warehouse in Sandyford, sent photos out to wedding magazines, Done a stock take, prepared for the Wedding Show this weekend in the RDS, launched the beta version of our new UK Flowers website www.FlowersMadeEasy.co.uk , Launched the dates for 2010 for www.theflowerschool.ie which is proving very popular indeed! 

So what’s going to happen now with all that done?

Well lots more. We are giving our blog a make over next week, we will launching a new version of www.flowersmadeeasy.ie hopefully before Valentines Day, followed by more International sites.

We are hoping to pull off a big publicity stunt before Valentines Day so hopefully you will see us!

More dedicated blogging for 2010.

We thought we would let you know about what we have available this Christmas. As always, we can provide you with everything you need, be in flowers for your home, flower arrangements for your Christmas Party or Flowers or Gift Baskets for your friends relatives or corporate clients as a wonderfully fresh present, this Christmas.

This year we have some fantastic offers on all our products.

Our full Christmas Range of Flowers is available here under Christmas Flowers

Our full Range of Plants is listed under our Christmas Plants Range .

Flowers are a wonderful gift, they provide a fantastic lift to any room in a home or an office.

Internationally based customers

Flowers are the perfect way to say “Wish I was There” at Christmas. No matter where in the world you are, be in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Dubai or Abu Dhabi, Flowers ordered online on Flowers Made Easy, will be delivered fresh on a day choosen by you in advance. It’s the perfect gift because you can choose when it’s delivered and all our bouquets are hand made to order and delivered to the door you choose.

The Flower School

Following on from the incredibly successful launch of Ireland’s newest and freshest Floristry Training Course, you can now buy the gift of learning on the Flowers Made Easy website. We have courses to suit everybody, from 1 night seasonal courses to Module based commercial floristy, with Modules covering, Funeral and Sympathy flowers, Florist Bouquet Design and Wedding Floristry. 

Simply click here to buy a Flower School Voucher this Christmas. It is the perfect gift for someone you know who loves being creative or alternatively, for someone you know who may be involved in a wedding in 2010.

To Buy a Voucher Click here: www.flowersmadeeasy.ie/FlowerSchool

For more information go to: www.theflowerschool.ie

So why not give the gift of flowers this year and Dublin Florist, Flowers made Easy look after it for you.