Mother's Day: €6.5 million increase in turnover
Mother's Day produced €6.5 million more turnover than last year. The week before Mother's Day was exciting and colourful. But even with all “hands on deck”, the logistics service provision was not up to the task. A shortage of trolleys led to trouble and complaints. We need to do better.
In the week before Mother's Day, the total turnover was €137 million, an increase of €6.5 million. Around the world, millions of mothers were honoured with:
- 254 million cut flowers
- 20 million houseplants and
- 15 million outdoor plants.
"Business keeps booming"
It's a tense period because the demand for trolleys increases precisely in the peak period. As Marcel Claessen described it on 13 April 2017, "The trend of buying small quantities has been around for some time. But recently, it became evident that trolleys are handy for more and different parties in all types of flows. Royal FloraHolland was also surprised by this departure from the trend. The situation is made worse by the fact that business is booming. Thus, while the clock is declining, the demand for trolleys is increasing."
Processing and end times unexpectedly under pressure
The increasing use of trolleys and the small scale of purchases put the processing and end times unexpectedly under pressure. What has Royal FloraHolland done to fix this undesirable situation? At several crucial points, the process at the three export locations has been adjusted. This makes more trolleys available, but extends the processing time and makes the end time later. We have also periodically imposed Internal Overnight Hiring. It did make more trolleys available but led to more work and expense for the trade.
