Luo Yonghao live-sells flowers and rolls over, frequently complained on Mother's Day
May flower market recovers from controversy
Our reporter Zhao Yuhan
On May 20, because of the homophonic "I love you", many citizens chose to buy bouquets of flowers to express their hearts. In May, after ushering in two special dates, Mother's Day and May 20th, the flower market that has been hit by the epidemic has finally recovered. The reporter visited some flower shops and learned that the sales of fresh flowers on Mother's Day and "May 20" have returned to 50 to 70% of the sales in the same period of the previous year.
However, with the sudden "revenge" consumption by the citizens, the flower market seems to be somewhat unprepared. On May 20th, Luo Yonghao, a newcomer in the live broadcast industry, received many complaints from netizens, who complained that the "spend some time" rose on the live pre-sale on May 15th appeared to be squandering, rotting and other quality problems. As early as Mother's Day in early May, many citizens encountered delivery delays and unauthorized refunds when purchasing flowers online. After the market picks up and appears "retaliatory" consumption, whether it can keep up with the rhythm in time becomes a test question before the flower merchants.
Two "Festivals" promote the flower market to pick up
After four consecutive months of low season, Ms. Su's flowers and green plants in Haidian District finally recovered. "Mother's Day has a sales peak this year, selling flowers for more than 40,000 yuan in two days." Ms. Su readily said that although it can't be compared with the sales of more than 100,000 yuan on Mother's Day in previous years, it is still the most this year. Good grades.
However, due to the bleak performance of the previous months, Ms. Su was relatively conservative on Mother's Day, which caused all the flowers in the store to be sold out in the afternoon. On the eve of "May 20th", she increased the stock of flowers in the florist, and the sales in two days returned to 60-70% of previous years.
Shen Yaodong, manager of the Dongfeng International Flower Market Operation Department in Chaoyang District, told reporters that after a few months of the epidemic, the flower market ushered in a wave of "revenge" consumption, and the carnation shipments reached about 400 boxes in two days. 1.04 million pieces, which is 5 to 10 times the daily shipments, even higher than previous Mother's Day sales. The "May 20" just passed, although the shipment of flowers is not as good as Mother's Day, but it is also higher than the shipment of ordinary weekends.
"Consumers' demand for flower purchases is recovering, but it feels more prudent to purchase flowers, and some flower stores are still in an unopened state." Shen Yaodong said that the flower market has to recover step by step.
Quality control service rolls over
Some controversial voices appeared in the warming flower market.
"How can I send such a lush flower! It's really a large rollover site!" This is a sweet "5 · 20", but some customers' moods are not sweet.
It turned out that from May 19th to 20th, some consumers found that the "flowering time" rose purchased in Luo Yonghao's live broadcast room found that the rose had petals lingering and rotting. Some netizens contacted the customer service "Take some time", but were said to be "normal, with a maximum payment of 10 yuan." So, the dissatisfied netizens went directly to Lao Luo to discuss the argument.
The reporter noticed that since 10:00 a.m. on May 20, some netizens have forwarded the photo of the rose bouquet they received to Luo Yonghao. From the picture, many rose petals are snarled, dried up and blackened. There are also netizens who specially uploaded the promotional photos of roses and the actual photos received to show the gap between the "buyer show" and the "seller show". "The quality control of the products is also poor!" "I believe that the old Luo only bought it, and the result was '5 · 20' overturned on the same day!" Facing the netizens, Luo Yonghao responded to the netizens one by one, expressing their apologies, while committing to serious investigation Responsibility, give everyone an explanation.
On the evening of May 20, Luo Yonghao issued an apology and compensation measures for the "spend some time" event through Weibo, and proposed a double compensation plan, that is, an additional cash compensation after the original price was refunded.
In fact, the complaints about the florist not only occurred on "5 · 20". As early as during Mother's Day, many consumers complained to flower shops on online shopping platforms such as Hungry Me and Meituan. On Mother's Day, Ms. Xie, a citizen, ordered a bouquet of flowers from "Hua Qianshu (Shanghai Industrial Road)" through hunger. The flowers failed to be delivered, but the order showed that it had been signed. After repeated complaints, the florist stated that he could only refund. This made Ms. Xie feel "very injured": "On such a special day, because of the mistakes of the platform and the flower shop, she failed to send her mother a heart."
The B-end market of flowers has not yet recovered
Regarding the quality of the flowers, Zhu Yueyi, CEO of "Take Time", also issued an apology letter on the evening of May 20. Speaking of the reasons for the stagnation of flowers, Zhu Yueyi said that due to the large number of bookings and the lack of original packaging boxes, the kraft paper box was used instead. However, the kraft paper box has a hygroscopic effect and continuously absorbs flowers to release moisture, causing dehydration of flowers.
"The market is picking up suddenly, and the flower shop is indeed not ready." A fresh cut flower practitioner analyzed that during the epidemic, a large number of flower shops reduced their stocking and manpower, so when faced with sudden "revenge" consumption, they were a bit confused.
For florists or merchants who are mainly geared towards C-end consumers, how to keep up with the rhythm of warming up the market has become the focus of the moment. However, for the wholesale market mainly for the B-end, the real recovery of the flower market has not yet arrived. Shen Yaodong told reporters that since the wedding, exhibition and other industries have not yet been restored, the shipments in the wholesale market are still much lower than the same period in previous years. Due to the current oversupply in the market, the current price of fresh flowers is only half or two thirds of the previous year.
"For us, the true recovery of the flower market also requires the recovery of customer demand for hotels, weddings, schools, etc." Shen Yaodong estimates that if the epidemic prevention and control continue to improve, and the gathering activities will gradually be released, the flower market may be in the second half of the year Gradually recover.