COLLEGE STATION, Texas — When it comes to preparing for Valentine’s Day as a florist, well, the best advice some will tell you is suit up and sleep well because you’re in for a busy few weeks.
“It's some long hours, but we want to make our customers happy,” said Tammy Kaus, the owner of University Flowers in College Station.
Kaus’ shop looks like it caught a love bug, with red hearts strung from the ceilings and a neon pink heart-shaped sign leaving behind some of its light on a small workstation.
“Right now I'd say we're probably right on par with a normal Valentine's,” Kaus said. “It always increases getting closer to Valentine's because everybody realizes, oh my gosh, it's Valentine's.”
It’s the day of love and a time of the year businesses like Kaus’ see a decent spike in sales.
“It started out that we got earlier orders than normal,” she said, explaining this year’s need.
While early orders sparked hope in the local business owner, it wasn’t all rosy for University Flowers over the past two years.
Last holiday, Kaus, like many of us, stayed home. Iced in. Cold and feeling hopeless.
“We were actually closed for five days before we could come back,” she said. “We had a lot of frozen flowers.”
Instead of cupid visiting her this year, Mother Nature decided to show us her wrath again, with a less dramatic winter storm, lasting just two days, but shutting local airports down.
“I was supposed to get a shipment of flowers on Thursday,” she said. “They didn't show up until [Tuesday.]”
It doesn't stop there.
Much like many other industries, the supply chain strikes again and is making it difficult for Kaus to get certain items in.
“We’re struggling to get plant baskets, baskets in general, plants,” she said. “Some of our greenery has gone up in price, so we've incurred higher pricing and lower availability.”
After a few long days leading up to Valentine’s Day, sorting flowers, filling out shipment orders and everything in between, she has one last piece of advice for you last minute lovers.
“Get your orders in,” she said, laughing. “Earlier the better.”
