Fair Trading in Montreal

There is a strong effort these days by social activists around the world to bring in products that are traded in a more equitable manner. Part of the drive includes small businesses like The Flower Pot that take small steps towards promoting fair trade products. My employer, The Flower Pot, is slowly getting more involved in this process. However, there are several reasons this is slow. First, there is no truly centralized way to control the labeling of fair trade products, so it is difficult to ascertain what kind of sustainability efforts go behind our floral products. Second, products that have been targeted by the fair trade movement are often heavily traded food products, especially beverages like coffee and tea. So in my opinion the concept of fair trade flowers is quite young. The Flower Pot discovered that it is difficult to find fair trade whosalers of floral products. As was mentioned in a past blog, The Flower Pot offers a selection of flowers certified by Florverde. The Florverde label is applied to the growers focusing on social and environmental issues. To expand efforts for fair trade, The Flower Pot is on the lookout for more wholesalers of fair trade products in Montreal.

In my opinion, The Flower Pot is already part of a more local effort towards a fair trading system. Fortunately, many of our non-floral products are locally made Quebec products. They are brought to you directly from small to mid-size producers and farmers. For instance, we get orchids from local growers, carry products from Montreal’s Atwater Market where farmers sell directly, and even carry handcrafted art made in Quebec acquired directly from the artist.

I would like your opinion on the need for fair trade. Do you think it makes sense for small businesses like The Flower Pot to drive towards fair trade products? How much do you care about the origins of something you buy?

Also, if you’re someone involved in fair trade practices in Montreal, please get in touch! I’d like to know ways The Flower Pot can become more involved with fair trade.

To leave you, here are a few definitions of fair trade yielded by Google. Also, visit équiterre, promoters of fair trade in Montreal.

Unique Gift Ideas from a Florist

We all know that very few retail businesses stick to their basic product lines throughout their lifetime. As things fall into and out of fashion, and new technology becomes embedded in our culture, the meaning attached to traditional gifts such as flowers changes. Often more literal gestures are preferred by shoppers over symbolic ones, and with the obsession over uniqueness, everyone wants to give a gift that isn’t just a formula from a giant like Wal-Mart.

Flowers, which have always been a popular way to convey a personal message, can only go so far. In order to keep up with the changing traditions of gift-giving and to add a whole new dimension to sending flowers to someone special, we have created the Floragramme section in our website. One of the most important ideas behind the Floragramme is giving our customers a unique way to send their message to a loved one. We began by offering unusual and unique gifts such as a delivery of Montreal magazines and tabloids in a pizza box, or art from Quebec accompanied by a flower of the day, and our Floragramme greeting. The Floragramme greeting was in this instance the main messenger, with plenty of space for our customers to write a long and personal message.

More recently we have embarked on a far more personal and fun way to send a message to someone. We realized, one of the most impressive ways to send a message is through personalization. It helps that on this age, with ubiquitous digital cameras, everyone wants their image on something. Out sprang our custom t-shirts and custom mugs & cups section, where we offer to print digital images from our customers onto a t-shirt or a mug. A customer continues to get a flower of the day or another product accompanying it and he or she can still include a Floragramme greeting. However, the better part of the message is conveyed through the personal images and text customers send to us for printing. Through the continually evolving technology of dye sublimation we can now get a colorful custom mug printed and delivered to someone in Montreal. And couple of processes involving heat transfer allows us to imprint t-shirts with personal images and messages. We’ve even had a marriage proposal made through a custom t-shirt! Now, instead of a simple card, a customer has a visual image to greet their loved one.

One might ask why we are doing this when something similar is offered through behemoths like Wal-Mart. Our answer is simple, we’ll stop doing this and more if Wal-Mart begins delivering flowers. The personal service that is possible through The Flower Pot is not possible in Wal-Mart. Our approach is far more friendly than the “do-it-yourself” approach of such giants.

I encourage you, our blog reader, to visit our Floragramme section to take a look at our products and tell us what you think of them. Can you think of other ways to reach out to our clients? What other ways can someone convey their messages? Do you think we’re a little crazy? What do you, as a potential customer, think of a florist that offers more than just good old flowers?

Floragramme here I come!