Tulip Bulb Subs
Due to some challenging weather and climate abnormalities in The Netherlands in the spring and summer, tulip bulbs are in short supply and demand is higher than ever.
If your supplier reaches out and suggests some substitutes for varieties on your order, here are our suggestions.
From my Farmer’s Standpoint:
From my position as a farmer, if I can afford to keep the subs or have pre-paid for bulbs, I’m taking every last one I can get! Even if they weren’t exactly all the varieties I was hoping for. The value of the bulbs has increased since I ordered and/or paid for them. I’ve already gained on my investment.
Due to scarcity in the marketplace, the flowers are going to fetch more than in past seasons. AND if I don’t want to grow the flowers, I can sell the bulbs for more than I paid for them.
For resale, I have a few options, I can now get an even higher retail price for a bulb sale to retail customers OR — if I just want to move them, I can get a higher wholesale price (than what I paid). The price of bulbs is going up. Of course, If you want to be generous and move the bulbs on to another grower, you can offer them at your cost and pass them on.
From my bulb distributor’s standpoint:
I’m in the unique position now where I have 2 perspectives. I am both a grower and a bulb company now. My my standpoint as a bulb distributor, I feel a few different things. On one hand - it’s easier for me when customers accept the available substitutions. Working through the massive order that is coming to us with many changes and shortages and substitutions is a puzzle I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Having to then refund (ouch - my farm survives year round on this work) pre-paid orders or change invoices for fall-billing orders takes even more time.
When a customer refuses subs - I also see an opportunity for my business. It means that fewer customers will be disappointed in the end. Almost all of our varieties are short. Only a few varieties are completely un-available— and for those we’ve found some great lookalikes. So the sub refusal actually means that other customers will get more of their original choices. That’s hard to explain — but the situation is this— there are so many changes to our mass order from The Netherlands this year. We are working to “spread the disappointment” as thin as possible, so that no one customer is impacted more than others.
A sub refusal means more choices and fewer subs for other customers and it also means that I may have an opportunity to list some extra bulbs at a higher market rate than I was offering them for last spring. This is some security for my business because the substitutes are expensive to me (a cost we’re not passing on to customers) AND the shortages (empty crates on each container) mean that every bulb will cost me more than planned because the shipping rates per bulb are more. What does it cost to ship 5 shipping containers of bulbs across the Atlantic and get them to our farm in northern NY? Trust me, you don’t want to know.