Flower market, the vegetable market for young people. Amidst the fragrance of flowers, the shouts, the walking and stopping, the picking and choosing, the payment, the packaging, and taking away.
Our flower market here, a whole building, is said to be a transit station for flowers. It's neither small nor big. The first floor sells potted plants or bonsai, with various types available. Each shop is not only filled with potted plants, but also displays many beautiful pots and containers, which are very tempting. The upper floors are where flowers are sold, and almost all the varieties seen in the market can be found here.
As soon as you enter the floor, the fragrance of flowers in the air is almost overwhelming. Every time I go shopping, my mood improves. Besides experiencing the beauty of flowers, my good mood also comes from the impact of various flower knowledge—just chrysanthemums alone, there are countless varieties.
The price of flowers is unexpectedly low. For just a dozen or twenty yuan, you can buy a large bunch of beautiful bouquets. Perhaps this is the advantage of wholesale markets. With such a large bunch, if you were to buy it from a flower shop, it would cost fifty or sixty yuan. If the packaging is done with some thought, the owner can raise the price to over a hundred yuan. It's quite astonishing. Later, when I talked to my friends, I realized that the prices in this flower market are considered high. In larger wholesale markets like Shunyi, the prices can be as low as a few yuan per bunch, truly a bargain.
For me, even at such low prices, I rarely buy flowers. Firstly, I can't use so many at once; secondly, these flowers wither in just a few days, they are not sustainable, and the short-lived happiness is a bit of a letdown. At this point, I started to think that if these wholesalers also offered subscription services, it would be a good thing—support online selection of varieties, and have them delivered to your home or office regularly every week, with a monthly subscription fee of one hundred yuan. For consumers, the main benefit is saving time and energy, not having to go to the market to choose flowers every time. Instead, using this money to exchange for a week of continuous good mood, isn't that wonderful? For businesses, this is also a way to deal with flowers. Supply the big orders to flower shops, and serve individual consumers with small orders. I wonder how the costs would be.
Of course, the ideas I can think of, others can naturally think of as well. Such convenient services are readily available online, but their prices are just too high. The middlemen make a huge profit, so not many people around me would use such services. If this were done by the wholesalers themselves, it would be beneficial for both sides, just like Pinduoduo for fruits and vegetables, eliminating the middlemen and offering bottom prices.
However, there is a group of consumers who may not buy into this, and they are the ones who like to personally select. They would rather spend some time visiting countless stalls, looking, touching, and smelling, before deciding where to make a purchase—even if it's just a dozen yuan. They enjoy this process and don't believe or are not accustomed to others choosing good things for them. This is very similar to how the aunties at the vegetable market buy vegetables. This analogy is not meant to be derogatory, perhaps the aunties also consider buying vegetables as a kind of pleasure?
To be honest, every time I finish shopping at the flower market, I really feel like I've been to the vegetable market. The only difference is that the stalls are filled with flowers instead of vegetables, and the vendors' shouts are much more subdued, as if they are also guarding their own taste.