Since the end of last week, Ecuador, Colombia and Kenya have seen significantly less flowers on the open market. In Ecuador, rainy weather triggered a marked decrease in flower production. In addition, a number of farms have already traditionally started shipping Valentine's pre-orders by sea to their customers in the United States and Chile. Also, almost every farm has obligations to fulfill standard customer orders. Accordingly, there is almost no production left for the free market. Cheap promotional offers have become much less, and it is mostly the so-called regular and not popular varieties.

Prices, especially for rose and carnation, began to rise sharply compared to previous weeks, when the flower market was overflowing with cheap products. Now every day we can see an increase in price by a few cents. The price of rose, garden rose, spray rose, carnation and mini carnation in all shades of red, pink and white colors have increased significantly. The price is expected to peak in a week or two when farms begin to actively ship Valentine's Day holiday deliveries for air freight to different destinations around the world. How strong the price runup will be during the period of active Valentine's Day shipments depends on the availability of products on the market and demand.

Farms are still accepting pre-orders for the holiday. Therefore, we advise you not to delay too long and to place your holiday orders as soon as possible, so that we can book the flowers in advance from verified farms and, what is not less important, to book airline places for their subsequent transportation. Since Valentine's Day is celebrated in many countries around the world, traditionally high demand for flower products is expected, and consequently high prices, especially for popular holiday positions.

In the current market situation, we recommend placing all orders in advance, that will significantly increase the chances of their full and quality fulfillment. For example, at the moment Colombian growers of roses and carnations have no products left to sell on the free market.

There are no problems with the purchase of other types of flowers at the moment, and prices are still at almost regular levels.

For customers who are going to buy their orders on our web platform of on-line offers from farms we recommend the following:

• Start purchase at 7:00 am Ecuadorian time that will significantly increase the chances of purchasing shortage positions, which are usually sold out within an hour after the start of purchase
• Take into account our comment-advice (placed in the upper left corner of our trading platform and highlighted in red), which will help you navigate current purchasing trends
• Request red varieties ONLY along with regular color positions at a 1:1 ratio within the same farm
• We strongly recommend that you request regular color positions from the farm first before requesting red varieties. Otherwise, farms do not automatically confirm red varieties, but prefer to sell them to customers who have immediately requested both color and red items
• Some farms only confirm demanded color varieties of roses and garden roses (all shades of red, pink, white) with a load of color regular varieties. In this case, you should pay attention to our comment when canceling the box. If you still need these shortage positions from a particular farm, re-request them according to the farm's requirements by agreeing to a package deal with regular varieties from the farm
• Price negotiation for all demanded holiday colors and shortage positions significantly reduces the chance of their confirmation by the farm. Farms do not bargain well now and you run the risk of wasting time and being left with shortage positions. Farms prefer to sell the flowers to those customers who immediately confirm their willingness to accept their price and also help with the sale of regular rose varieties