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Top Shops: A Floral Destinaltion
Calgary’s Twigs & Company |
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Written by Amanda Ryder
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Twigs & Company, located along Calgary’s largest pedestrian mall, is a destination for fresh flower arrangements as well as ladies’ apparel, jewelry and home décor items. It’s a mix that the shop’s staff have worked hard to perfect and one that their clientele loves.
At the helm of the shop is owner, Colin Logiss, who has been in the floral industry for 32 years and has experience running previous floral shops located in Calgary’s northwest. One of the biggest influences on Twigs & Company is the store’s location. In 2006, Logiss and his staff moved his shop two blocks down to Calgary’s 8th Avenue, also known as the historic Stephen Avenue Walk in the heart of the city. The street is open only to pedestrians and attracts a high volume of tourists and members of the nearby corporate community. The move brought double the retail space – Twigs & Company grew from a 2,200-square-foot operation to a store that now occupies 4,400 square feet over two floors in addition to a full basement. As a result, the shop’s product mix has seen considerable changes over the last few years.
In order to fill the extra space the shop had acquired, Logiss says they began adding non-floral merchandise to the mix. “We simply had more floor space than we needed for the floral department. It’s been a learning curve for merchandising as we’ve experimented for four years in terms of what it is that makes sense from a consumer’s point of view that would mix the flower and the décor market,” he says. They also had to consider the fact that many of their clients would be looking for items that they can easily carry out of the shop, as the business is inaccessible to customer vehicles.
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Merchandising is a key part of the retail experience at Calgary’s Twigs & Company. The shop’s giftware selection is woven into the floral displays to create a stunning retail space.
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The décor and look of the shop is a reflection of its surroundings. The building itself is designated as historic by Parks Canada, and Twigs & Company has opted for a classical interior. Three big arches span the ceiling and the walls are framed with traditional crown moulding. Hanging chandeliers, a stone floor and granite countertops complete the look.
Logiss has six employees on staff, three of which are designers, and the owner says they’re prepared to do any style for a customer, whether it be traditional, contemporary or high style. They do rely on certain floral varieties to create their signature look. “We don’t do a lot of carnations unless they are novelty colours and we don’t do a lot of mums unless they are, for instance, green spiders or pinocchio, or some interesting spray mums. We sell a lot of gerberas, anthurium, bird of paradise, protea – the non-supermarket type of flowers,” says Logiss.
In favourable weather – and even when the skies or temperatures don’t go their way – Logiss will set up displays and merchandise outside to attract passersby. “You start selling before they are even in the door,” he says. Displays both inside and outside form a very big part of the shop and this is an area that Logiss oversees personally. “The visual presentation is certainly department store quality and we just do it constantly.” He estimates that three weekends out of every month, the shop replenishes product and reworks merchandise stories to give customers a new experience every time they come.
Keeping with that logic, Logiss says they don’t let product hang around and prefer instead to try new items. “We attempt in the non-floral area to repeat things once at most. So the direction on that is, to the customers, if you see it, I suggest you buy it now. There’s a chance we may get it again and but if we do, you might miss it again. The idea is we just don’t keep repeating merchandise so that when you come in, it’s fresh, and that puts a sense of urgency on to them to buy it when they see it.”
The shop’s target market is predominantly women over 35 and the products it carries reflect this. Twigs & Company is faced with an interesting situation in that the florist is in a market where people predominantly work, but don’t live. As a result, corporate accounts make up a big chunk of its clientele. Logiss says this market has grown for them through word of mouth and firsthand contact. “We have in the past gone out and done presentations to various corporations, mostly revolving around how can we help you recognize your staff, your clients and so on. That’s been very effective in terms of getting business – it’s a personal touch.”
Twigs & Company is very much a seasonal store that transitions through the calendar holidays with its displays and products. Christmas is the store’s biggest holiday.
“Everybody in the downtown core is invested in Christmas, whether it’s companies that are doing employee recognition, client events or decorating. There’s also personal Christmas, through gifts and home décor. Logiss says they will go out to the homes of people who work downtown. We will go out to people’s homes that work downtown,” says Logiss. “In a sense, Christmas makes or breaks our year. It far surpasses Mother’s Day or any of those holidays . . . For instance, a corporation doesn’t care about Mother’s Day but a corporation does care about Christmas. It’s a universal sales period for all of our clients, corporate or personal.” Each year, the shop hosts a holiday kickoff with a VIP event and a public open house where staff showcase their designs and treat customers to wine and champagne.
In terms of marketing, Logiss says the shop’s best investment has been its website. Here, shoppers can peruse its styles, learn more about the shop and place orders online. “We spend a lot of time on that and we do a weekly mailer to about 5,000 people on our list that features an arrangement of the week. We don’t discount it, we just say this is what we think is good this week.” He says the “feature of the week” has been particularly effective during the holidays and cites Mother’s Day as a recent example, when their feature design sold out very quickly. Overall, Logiss says the Internet gives them an exposure that would be difficult to get otherwise and helps educate shoppers on the type of quality and design they’ll receive from Twigs & Company. “If you’re not buying on the Internet, you’re researching on the Internet before you buy. I think that’s absolutely key.
Given that the flower business is a visual business, people want to see what they’re getting.”
When asked what his customers love most about the shop, Logiss cites Twigs & Company’s mix of merchandise, its seasonality and the visual presentation. “If you come in for flowers, you can walk by and see ‘oh, there’s a necklace, or a bracelet or a wrap or a garden product that I could either use for myself or buy for somebody else.’ If you don’t buy it that day, the idea is ‘let’s go back to Twigs because they’ve got a whole bunch of really interesting stuff there’” Finding the right combination has taken a little trial and error, but the effort has certainly paid off. As a result, Twigs & Company has developed a great product selection that fits perfectly with its target market.
To see more pictures from Twigs & Company, visit our photo gallery.
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