Marco Olmi, co-owner of Stonekelly, a high-end florist on the western fringe of Hell's Kitchen, is up at the crack of dawn at least three times a week to visit wholesalers in the flower district so he can buy the best blooms arriving from Holland. Six years ago, he closed his store on the Upper West Side when he saw that there was “no way to survive as a [typical] retail shop,” he said. “Everyone was selling cheaper flowers.”
Since then, Stonekelly has evolved into an event-design business. Most of Mr. Olmi's clients are corporations or event planners, with only a few private homes in uptown Manhattan among them. He gets almost no walk-in business.
Mr. Olmi isn't alone among traditional florists in having to adapt his business model to survive. While late spring's weddings, confirmations and graduations have brought a welcome sales boost for some, many small shops are still struggling to recover fully from the recession. They now face increasing competition from Internet retailers, who don't have to shoulder New York's high real estate costs.
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