Guide
Slow Season Ideas for Flower Shops (January and February)
The best slow season ideas for a flower shop bring in money that repeats: standing orders for offices, small ticketed workshops, and Valentine’s pre-orders opened by mid-January. Use the rest of the quiet time to reprice, clean up your catalog and service your cooler, so the spring holidays start from better numbers.
Winter is not one long slow stretch. It usually has three parts: the quiet weeks after New Year’s, the climb to Valentine’s Day, and the lull after the 14th. Pull your sales by week from last year to find your own version, because a shop with a lot of sympathy or corporate work will see a different curve. Then plan each part on purpose. Most of this works best if you start in November or December, but none of it is too late to start in January.
Six ways to bring in money in January and February
You do not need all six. Pick the two that suit your shop and your neighborhood, and give them a real try. For more that works year round, see our list of flower shop marketing ideas.
01Sell prepaid subscriptions in December that start in January
A three-month flower subscription is an easy holiday gift, and the money arrives before the quiet weeks do. Keep it simple: one size, designer's choice, a fixed delivery day. The recipient gets flowers in the dullest part of winter, and you get a known number to buy for.
02Sign up offices for a weekly reception arrangement
Offices come back in January with a new budget and an empty front desk. Walk a small arrangement and a one-page menu into five nearby offices, salons, hotels or restaurants, and offer one or two sizes at a fixed weekly price. One reliable account is steady work in a month with little else on the books.
03Run small ticketed workshops
A winter evening class pays for itself and brings people into the shop who may never have ordered. Try a Galentine's night, a dried wreath class or a spring bulb bowl. Keep the group small enough that everyone gets help, take payment when they book, and hand each student your Valentine's menu on the way out.
04Offer a simple client-thank-you program to local businesses
Realtors, dentists, financial advisors and similar businesses often send client gifts. The quiet months are a good time to ask them what they do now. Offer one set design at a set price, delivered wherever they send you a list. A handful of these a month adds up, and you only need one person to say yes.
05Answer wedding inquiries faster than anyone else
Plenty of couples start planning after getting engaged over the holidays, so inquiries can pick up while the cooler is empty. Reply the same day, hold consultations in these calmer weeks when you can give them your full attention, and take deposits now on dates you would otherwise lose.
06Put a good-value bunch by the door
Ask your wholesaler what is the best buy that week and turn it into one wrapped bunch at one easy price. A low-effort grab-and-go bucket uses up what you would otherwise over-buy and gives the regulars a reason to stop in without an occasion.
How do you price a winter workshop?
Add up the per-seat costs, then divide your labor across the seats you expect to fill. Here is a made-up example with round numbers, to show the method only. Flowers and hard goods come to $30 a seat, and sundries like snacks and printed instructions come to $5. Planning, prep, teaching and clean-up take 5 hours at $25, so $125 of labor.
At 10 seats, that is $35 + $12.50 = $47.50 a seat. A ticket at $85 leaves $37.50 a seat, or $375 for the night. At 6 seats the same class still brings in $510 against $335 of cost, so you can run it without worrying about a few empty chairs. Use your own costs and your local market to set the real ticket.
How do you run Valentine’s pre-orders from a quiet January?
This is the highest-value thing you can do in January. These steps turn the busiest day of the winter into a plan, and the money starts arriving while the shop is still quiet.
01Check which day the 14th falls on
A weekday Valentine's Day sends a lot of orders to offices. A weekend one sends them to homes and pushes more people to order for the day before. Decide your delivery days and driver count from that first, because they set how many orders you can actually take.
02Ask your wholesaler for holiday prices and booking dates
Do this before you design anything. Holiday pricing and prebook deadlines vary by supplier, so ask yours directly, and ask early, since the booking date may land before your menu goes live.
03Cut the menu to three to six designs
A short menu speeds up the bench and the buying, and it keeps customers from stalling on choices. Include one piece at an easy entry price, one classic red rose design, and one large piece for people who want to go big.
04Price each design from its recipe
Use your holiday stem prices, not your January ones, then add hard goods, labor and your margin. A design that made money last February may not at this year's stem cost.
If you need the full method, here is how to price flower arrangements from a recipe.
05Set a cut-off and a limit for each delivery day
Pick an order cut-off and a maximum number of orders per day, based on what your team and drivers can truly finish. Selling out on purpose is better than delivering late on the one day nobody forgives it.
06Open pre-orders by mid-January and take payment up front
Tell past Valentine's customers first, by email or text if they agreed to hear from you, then post it publicly. Paid orders bring in cash during the quiet weeks and turn your buying into arithmetic instead of a guess.
07Buy against the orders, plus a small margin for walk-ins
Each week, compare pre-orders with your wholesale order and adjust while you still can. Keep a modest extra quantity for walk-ins and last-minute buyers, set from your own numbers last year, and write down what you sold so next year starts from facts.
What should you fix while the shop is quiet?
These jobs never get done in May. Give each one a day on the calendar, and treat it like an order that has to go out.
Reprice from your December numbers
Your holiday orders are fresh in your memory and your invoices are on the desk. Pick your five best sellers and recheck what each one now costs to make.
Clean up your catalog
Remove anything you no longer make or would not want to make again, rewrite vague names, and check that every listing shows a real price and size.
The slow weeks are also the time to rephotograph anything that no longer looks like what you make, with our guide to photographing arrangements without a studio. If you would rather not set up a backdrop, BloomShot turns the phone photos you already have into clean product photos with the same exact flowers.
Test your own order path on a phone
Place a real order from start to finish. Check holiday hours, delivery zones, cut-off times and the confirmation message.
For the full list of what to check, see what a florist website needs.
Service the cooler before February
Clean the coils and seals, scrub the buckets, and book any repair you have been putting off. The worst time to find a cooler problem is the week before Valentine's Day.
Count your hard goods
Count vases, ribbon, boxes, card stock and foam. Use up the odd stock in your door bunches and workshops, and stop reordering what has sat on the shelf for a year.
Write down what went wrong in December
Spend one hour with your team while they still remember the details: late deliveries, sell-outs, wasted stems, the phone calls you could not answer. Those notes become your Valentine's plan.
How do you cover the cash gap?
Work out the gap before it arrives. Take your fixed costs for the month (rent, insurance, software, base payroll) and subtract what a quiet month usually leaves after flower costs. As a made-up example, $9,000 of fixed costs and $6,000 left after flowers means a $3,000 gap. Do that for each slow month, then move that money aside during December.
Then cut what you control. Shrink your standing wholesale order so you are not throwing stems away, trim your hours on the days your own sales show are dead, and put off big purchases until after Valentine’s Day. Be honest with your staff early about winter hours, so nobody finds out from next week’s schedule.
Be careful with blanket discounts. They teach customers to wait, and they cut into the margin you are trying to protect. If you have surplus stems, the door bunch moves them at a price you chose.
A January and February checklist
- First week of January: review December, pull last year’s weekly sales.
- By the second week: visit five local businesses with a menu and a sample.
- By mid-January: Valentine’s menu priced, limits set, pre-orders open.
- Late January: run a workshop, service the cooler, count hard goods.
- Each week to the 14th: compare pre-orders with your wholesale order.
- Week after the 15th: write down what sold, what ran out and what you threw away.
- Late February: clean up the catalog and start planning for spring.
Get your catalog ready while it’s quiet.
Turn a phone photo of your arrangement into a clean product photo. 5 free photos, no credit card.
Transform my first photoQuick answers
What can a flower shop do during the slow season?+
Focus on income that repeats and on fixing the business. Sign up standing office orders, run ticketed workshops, open Valentine's pre-orders by mid-January, and use the remaining time to reprice, clean up your catalog and service your cooler.
When is the slow season for florists?+
For many shops it is the weeks after New Year's and again after Valentine's Day, until spring holidays and weddings pick up. It varies with your location and your mix of work, so check your own sales by week from last year.
When should I open Valentine's Day pre-orders?+
Open them by mid-January, about four weeks ahead. Ask your wholesaler about holiday prices and booking dates before that, so your menu is priced on real numbers and your stems are reserved in time.
Should a florist discount in January?+
Usually not across the board. A discount teaches customers to wait and takes money from the months when margin matters most. Use up surplus with a simple door bunch, or add value instead, such as a free card upgrade on early pre-orders.
How do I make a flower workshop profitable?+
Charge a ticket that covers flowers, hard goods and sundries per seat, plus your labor for planning, prep, teaching and clean-up divided across the seats. Then add a profit. Work out the minimum number of seats you need before you announce the class, and take payment when people book.
How much cash should a flower shop save for the slow months?+
Save the gap between your fixed monthly costs and what a quiet month usually leaves after flower costs. Add up that gap for each slow month using last year's figures, then set money aside during December so you are not relying on credit in January.
Written by the BloomShot team. Built by a working florist.