It may still be 100 days until Santa slides athletically down your chimney, but Christmas is in the air at Porters Foliage – or at least, Managing Director Bryan Porter tells us, the first of the Christmas stock is on the shop floor and online.

Bryan Porter

“Some products are a couple of weeks earlier than normal, which allows us to start getting a bit more organised, put things out give people an idea of what is around for when they need it,” said Bryan this morning, standing among the festive product range. “For instance, we've got all the fruit slices, the little pumpkins, the chilies, different types of moss, and all different sorts of sized cones, natural cones, painted cones, bleached cones.

“Our first order went out this week for a photo shoot for Christmas garlands for an advertising campaign, believe it or not.”

So, from a sales point of view, Christmas has truly started, but what are customers looking for this year?  “As far as different products, we've got some large sugar pine cones and giant sugar cones that are scented or glittered. We've got all sorts of different cones and proteas on wires, ready to use in arrangements. Things like cinnamon, lotuses, different types of mushrooms, they are in stock already.

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“But, some of the more unusual things are yet to arrive. What we've started with is, shall we say, the basics, the things that people are going to start using to pre-prep and get ready. A lot of the different types of pines and conifers will start coming through a bit later and they are for the bigger installations - shop fronts, hotel fronts, all of those types of things. And then we'll have we'll start with the twigs and the painted twigs, which is where you may start to see the trends for specific colours.”

At this stage, there doesn't seem to be a real trend towards a specific colour, he added. “Going back 10-15 years, you might have got a bit of a tend towards a pink, purple or a red, or a gold or a silver. In the last few years though, there hasn't been a strong trend; people have tended towards safer colours, the naturals and golden tones. It’s always possible that a certain colour does get more popular if things develop a little closer to Christmas.”

Sustainable choices

“There has been a move away from glitter for a lot of customers, because many locations don’t see it as sustainable. There's also been a shift towards water-based paints. All the paints we now use are water-based.”

The sustainability focus is not just for Christmas of course, it’s year round. “It’s based around customer demand and our feel for the way things are heading,” said Bryan. “A lot of the big venues are changing what they allow and don't allow whether it’s because they don't want the mess of things like glitter, or equally, they don't want to be seen to be using things that aren't sustainable.”

Christmas sales fall into three distinct periods, he added. “You have the customers that are extremely organised and buying now to pre-arrange things – doing garlands or pre-wiring fruits and cones so they've got stuff ready to grab and add to the fresh garlands when they're doing them later.  Some are buying a bit now to start jobs they're doing now. And then you'll have the others that will be buying a little bit now, a little bit in the middle period, and then buying as they need to fulfil orders towards the end,” Bryan explained.

“The middle period is the busiest for us as there’s a bit of everything going on. Of course, some customers are constantly responding to demand, so they can't commit until they've had their work committed too. Then it'll be a last minute ‘I need that, and I need it now’, which we cater for too.”

Vital time

Christmas is the most important period of the year for Porters and it has extended to become a three-month affair. “For us, Christmas used to be the last two to four weeks before the holidays,” Bryan explained. “Now, it’s the two to three months beforehand and our busiest time is towards the end of October through to the end of November, maybe the first week of December. By the time we get to the second week of December, Christmas is pretty much done, all of a sudden, it just stops.

“Most venues are set up for Christmas by then and you've got another trend that a lot of people aren't at home at Christmas so want to decorate their houses early before they leave the country for the festive period. They still want to have their traditional Christmas and have the decorations, but they want to get their value. So, they're doing it earlier.”

The job for Bryan and his team doesn’t change. “We've just got to be well stocked and make sure we've got enough to cover everything our customers want and need,” he said. And while not going quite as far as wishing it could be Christmas every day, he concluded: “We know it will be exceptionally busy, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.”