Pursuits
How to Send Flowers in 2017
With one-third of florists out of business and Silicon Valley throwing tens of millions at the market, who’s winning the flower wars? You.
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If you want to know how the flower business works these days, have a baby. Or, if you’re lazy, visit a friend who has a baby. For a week or two, the bouquets are as frequent and fragrant as the diapers.
My son was born just before Mother’s Day, so I wasn’t surprised by the tide of blooms in our hospital room and, later, our apartment. What did startle me was the sprawling provenance of the posies. They were from all over the world, sent by every imaginable supply chain, a riot of business models in an ecosystem both vibrant and lethal.