Struggling orchid businesses

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Does anyone have thoughts about why many orchid vendors are struggling to stay in business, or have closed their businesses. Seems to be a lot of that all around the country the past year or so.

[esungirl]

The ony one in my area that went out was because he passed away. Is that a trend? I hope not.

[Bolero]

Seems to be happening in Oz as well. We seem to have a few closing and it's always the good ones.

mmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!

[nyorchids]

i know the two comercial groweres here in my area are strugling because to pay for heat it cost 5,000 a year

[justatypn]

It's hard to keep up with the growth of the economy now a days and without a good following of financial supporters the industry will slowly go away. I know we orchids lovers are just one of a few in the area's of struggling orchid business that help maintain their level of respect, unfortunately it's a loosing battle to keep the doors open.

I live just east of Apopka and is known as the Indoor Foliage Capital of the World. There are hundreds of Tropical Foliage Plant Nurseries producing everything from the ferns to the latest orchid hybrids. A few Sunday's ago I drove down one road in particular and found 3 orchid nurseries, all closed for the day, so it seemed, but periodically we hear about another one closing. I see these working greenhouses that have open house on weekends and from what I can figure it's all they do to keep their doors open. It's a given with the colder climates that you can get eaten up by electric bills, one advantage here is solar with electrical back up.

[Phantasm]

It's getting more difficult for smaller companies to compete with the huge companies that mass produce all of the plants we see in grocery stores and hardware stores cheaply. Most orchid companies aren't creating large amounts of wealth, in fact they are just expanded hobbies. Kind of like people selling drugs to afford the habit.....

We have seen a lot of high quality companies fold their tents over the last few years, including Stewarts.

[Ross]

I have mixed feelings about this whole thing. On one hand, it doesn't seem fair that "mom and pop" growers should be forced out of business by high heating costs (etc.) yet there are parts of the world where heating/cooling costs are minimal. Why shouldn't the growers in these areas take over, so to speak? Globaly, energy costs are rising, and activities that consume large amounts of energy are coming more-and-more into question. I got into this arena in a different thread where I said hobby greenhouses don't make sense in northerm Michigan where the temps are so cold in winter. There are parts of Hawaii where growers don't even have heaters in the greenhouse and with fans, control the summer heat just fine. Shouldn't they be given the nod (so to speak?) I'm not supporting or pushing any agenda here, just trying to stimulate some debate over this issue.

Barring death as a reason for closing an orchid business, I suspect economics (largely related to heating/cooling costs, ie. energy costs) are at the root of most of the closures. There's only so much cost one can pass on to consumers before one's product is too expensive. Hope this stirs up some discussion, because this thread has become very interesting to me.

[Phantasm]

I agree Ross, we should all just move to Hawaii and grow orchids over there!

[littlefrog]

Well... Heating costs are a big factor, and all costs are going up. Electric, property taxes, etc. Supplies are getting more expensive (tried to buy a good bag of bark lately?). I don't think that is enough to account for the trend though.

I think it can all be boiled down to labor costs. A small operation (I'm very, very small) can stay in business because I don't pay myself for repotting. I suppose I could afford illegal immigrants... And I can't pay myself anything from the orchid business, I have to have a 'real job' (and my wife has a real job) just to eat. As soon as you start having regular hours, somebody isn't getting paid.

Price is a major factor, although it seems that I can sell a blooming phalaenopsis for less than what you can buy one for at the mega-mart. And it is in better condition. But, that is only because my food and health insurance money come from my other job. If I charged what my time was worth, I would really have trouble selling plants.

The trick to staying in business these days seems to be specialization (boutique orchids), but you have to select a specialty that people want, and if trends change, you can be in big trouble. Having things for sale that you can't buy at the mega-mart is good. I think that pretty soon there will be only two types of orchid 'businesses', hobby businesses that are largely supported by outside incomes, and huge wholesale businesses that won't want to talk to customers directly. Walk-in orchid nurseries that have a decent selection will be limited to tourist areas and maybe very rich suburbs. A lot of business will be strictly internet sales (already is that way, and getting more so).

[Marco]

I think its the law of supply and demand. To many vendors and not enough buyers which results in a surplus of inventory that's not being turned over and fixed costs that are getting pushed forward. No inventory turnover means no revenue to to pay off costs. If prices are dropped that would still probably not make enough revenue because there are only a set number of buyers in a market who have a set amount of income to use to purchase goods and services.