RETAILING FLORIST CROPS THROUGH MASS MERCHANDISING OUTLETS: ROCHESTER, NEW YORK AND HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT

1. determine the approximate share of the total flower market held by mass merchandisers, retail florists, and other retailers of florist crops.
2. To identify the types and sources of floral material sold by mass merchandisers; and
3. To define selected operating practices followed by mass merchandisers in their flower retailing operations.

Two Northeast cities equal to each other in population and in reported retail florist sales, and similar in both respects to medium-size cities chosen for study in other regions of the U.S., were selected for study. They were Rochester, New York and Hartford, Connecticut. In comparison to others of similar size in the Northeast, these two markets were (a) distant from cities in which flower marketing research had been conducted recently, and (b) apparently were subject to less influence by florist industry practices and interests in neighboring cities.

Two mailings to a listed total of 1,384 merchant names, as potential retailers of flowers, yielded a response rate of only 32.4 percent. Telephone follow-up served to (a) identify businesses no longer in operation and (b) confirm that most of the non-respondents did not sell flowers. Thus, the negative verification served to finally reduce the non-response rate to about eight percent based on numbers of

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