How booking your floral orders in advance through programs like Rio Bite Size can save you time and money?

In these hectic times, anything that can give you an advantage when ordering your flowers from suppliers is a bonus. Pre-booking programs, like our Rio Bite Size program, enable you to pre-book farm-direct orders for the best prices. Here are some of the advantages to pre-booking:

Save Money and Increase Margins

With the Rio Bite Size program, you receive advance pricing on some of the next month’s products so you can pre-sell directly to your customers. Bite Size highlights products that are in demand each season, or special prices for slower months. These pre-booking savings can be kept in house to increase margins, offset other expenses, or passed on to customers as an incentive.

Save Valuable Time

At all levels of the distribution chain, anything that can save time is a huge plus. With so many of us wearing multiple hats, both buying and selling in many cases, it requires more planning time; by ordering ahead of time in pre-book periods, you then have time to plan how to market and sell the flowers before they arrive. For example, with Rio Bite Size, in the first week of November you would receive a list of our specially-priced products for December, giving you almost three weeks to make plenty of pre-sales. To save you even more time, our marketing team will also create brand sales sheets for your customers, using your logo and company information.

Manage Inventory Better

Often customers find it hard to get popular items in the stores, which is one of the original reasons for pre-booking. By pre-booking through Rio Bite Size, you can better determine how much to buy prior to the first release, and also get a better idea of what to keep in inventory after the initial release.

Add to your Options

Even the largest suppliers can only carry so much inventory due to budget constraints. Moreover, floral trends are constantly changing and customers have their own personal tastes, which may not always align with what you have on hand. By pre-booking, you can increase the number of items you can offer to customers without having to risk inventory dollars. In alignment with this, the Rio Bite Size program includes different combinations each month based on flower trends and availability.

Help Increase Sales

You may have a distinct advantage over the competition by pre-booking, as you remove your customer’s budget early. Additionally, once your Rio Bite Size order is ready to ship, you have another reason to contact your customers for possible additions – saving even more money on freight and processing charges.

Improve your Cash Flow 

As your customer has already committed to purchasing from you when placing the order, they will usually complete the transaction shortly after the product’s release, which assists with your overall cash flow.

Keep your Team Motivated 

As pre-book orders come in, it can generate a buzz among your salespeople. This excitement is contagious and can motivate other salespeople, thereby increasing your overall sales and profits.

With so many advantages, it’s easy to see why pre-booking programs like Rio Bite Size are a great opportunity for any floral wholesaler to save time and money. As one wholesaler put it: “If you don’t try this you are missing some very consistent business that also guarantees you an extra share of the pie on delivery days.”