Retail flower sales are wonderful and unpredictable. Contract work is neither, and that is precisely its value. A hotel reception, an office atrium and a restaurant that need fresh flowers every Monday produce revenue a florist can plan a year around.
Winning them is a different sale from anything retail.
Decision 1: what the buyer actually wants
Corporate buyers want displays that always look right, arrive without being chased and cost a predictable amount. Creativity matters less than reliability. A florist who says this plainly speaks the buyer's language immediately.
Decision 2: how to price it
Per display, by size, multiplied by frequency, with travel and labour built in. The figure the client needs is monthly, because that is how their budget works. Publishing example packages by display size makes you comparable and credible.
Decision 3: who maintains the displays
Whether you top up water, remove dying stems mid-week, replace failed displays and take the old flowers away. Maintenance is what distinguishes a contract from a standing order, and it is worth charging for.
Decision 4: vases and containers
Whether vases are provided, hired or owned by the client, and who replaces breakages. This detail is minor until it causes a dispute in month four.
Decision 5: seasonality and specification
Whether the client wants the same look each week or seasonal variety, whether brand colours must be matched and what happens when a stem is unavailable. Agreeing a specification protects both sides.
Decision 6: what to capture
Site address or addresses, number and size of displays, frequency, access arrangements and delivery times, who approves the budget and whether invoicing is monthly.
Facilities manager: We need flowers for our reception each week. Assistant: The contract page shows package options by display size with the weekly and monthly cost, including maintenance and vases. Could you tell me how many displays you need, where they would sit, and whether there is a delivery window that suits your building? The team can then prepare a proposal and arrange a site visit.
Answering from your own pages
SpideyChat for retail businesses answers contract questions from your published packages at any hour, including the enquiries that arrive from facilities managers during the working day when the shop is busiest. It captures site details for a proposal rather than leaving a message in an inbox alongside consumer orders.
Hotels and restaurants differ
Hospitality clients often need multiple displays, event flowers and short-notice replacements, which is higher value and higher effort. Capturing whether event work is included identifies the most profitable accounts.
Reliability wins renewals
A contract is lost by a missed Monday, not by a price increase. Building the delivery into a fixed round, with a backup plan, is what keeps accounts for years.
Similar commercial buyers
Facilities managers buy every recurring service the same way, as described in commercial window cleaning contracts for shops and offices, and the broader case for handling business enquiries properly is in the AI employee for trades and offices.
Retail work alongside
Same-day delivery and sympathy work continue, as covered in same-day delivery questions florists answer constantly and sympathy and funeral flower orders handled gently. The AI reply generator helps draft proposals quickly.
How SpideyChat handles it
It answers contract questions from your published packages and captures site details separately from retail orders. You can see handover on the demo, and plans are on the pricing page.