Apr 1, 2005

AFE Seeks Input on Consumer ResearchSource: American Floral Endowment

The American Floral Endowment (AFE) is in the process of mailing a questionnaire to all current donors asking: “What market and/or consumer information would help you grow your business?” The objective of this questionnaire is to define the next consumer and/or market research that Endowment funds will support.

In November, AFE held a Summit Meeting in Chicago with a representative group of industry leaders. The objective of this meeting was to enumerate and prioritize major industry research needs, with this information to then be used in setting Endowment research priorities. For meeting participants, representing all industry segments, the most urgent need was “Marketing & Consumer Information.” This questionnaire is the next step in the Endowment’s process of clearly defining the kind of consumer research that would be of most value to the industry.

For more than 12 years, the Endowment has supported and coordinated industry support for FloraStats, a comprehensive consumer trend tracking study. While there is a lot of information available from this study, generating specific information and analyses from FloraStats is highly technical and requires extensive and expensive training. Thus, the research has only been available to the broad industry in very general reports. The Endowment believes it is now time to redefine the industry’s consumer and market research needs and to generate information that is useful and easily accessible to the industry.

Please respond as soon as possible by mailing, faxing or E-mailing your questions to the American Floral Endowment at P.O. Box 945, Edwardsville, IL 62025; fax (618) 692-4045; or E-mail to afe@endowment.org.