Something Special or Just get Flowers
Unlike your wife’s birthday, Mother’s Day you will not miss. Why, the marketing world will not allow you to, it’s one of the global marketing events of the year and its getting bigger each year. So what is the business of Mother’s Day, how can your business take a slice of the action and is there room for improvement on the one day in the year that we turn the our focus to the one person who did so much to get us where we are today? (Ohhh… The power of guilt even an introduction about Mother’s Day has to have it)
While in Malaysia the Mother’s Day market is not as big as the USD21 Billion market but it is as equally powerful, a few days before the big day all red roses were sold out in a leading distributor in the Petaling Street area of Kuala Lumpur and forget trying to get a hand bouquet, the only ones available were made of teddy-bears. Several restaurants in many of the capital’s high-end shopping malls are on a reservation only basis and with set menus that are a good amount over a regular meal. Which make people wonder about all the hype around the recent introduction of the GST, no such concerns for a 6% tax during this time.
This is on the domestic consumption level, the question remains how are Malaysian flower producers and other related exporters gearing up for this spike in demand? According to recent research, the total area under cut flowers is estimated to be over 1,218 hectares, out of which 580 hectares are under orchids and 638 hectares are under temperate cut flowers including roses. In terms of number of flower stalks, temperate flowers contribute 71.46% towards the total cut flower production while the remaining 28.54% is from orchids.
The major production areas for temperate cut flowers are in the Cameron Highlands, in Pahang state where the Cameron Highlands Floriculturist Association and the Commercial Orchid Growers’ Association of Malaysia is the heavy hitter. Currently they do not collectively market their produce however there is growing realization of the benefits of such marketing arrangement. In other cases several temperate flower producers have grouped together to form a trading company to deal directly with importers in foreign countries.
Moving forward there is a huge scope for improvement in terms of brand positioning, investment promotion and supply chain management, the spoils will be there for companies who can get it right.
