Online Flower Auction suspends operations
Added on 01 March 2023
OFA’s offficial statement reads, “Over the past few months, Online Flower Auction (OFA) has successfully auctioned roses based on the ‘today for tomorrow’ concept. The logistics of delivering the flowers directly from the nursery went well, just like the operation of the digital auction clock. All in all, this provided many benefits for buyers and growers including lower costs in the chain and timely delivery of the roses to the buyer’s box.
Unfortunately, OFA’s decision to auction ‘today for tomorrow’ seems premature, not yet the entire floriculture sector is ready for it, which ultimately lacked purchasing power. This is why the difficult decision is made to stop auctioning temporarily as of the 1st of March 2023.”
OFA conducted ‘extensive research to improve purchasing power. The study found that buyers have a preference for ‘today for tomorrow’ and auctioning at the current auction times. Buyers also indicated they were positive about the logistic process of delivering the flowers directly from the nursery. However, the survey did make it very clear that hybrid auctioning (grower auctioning at different auctions) is not desirable and certainly does not contribute to the willingness to buy at OFA.
Photo: Following in the footsteps of Dutch-based rose growers Bernhard Roses, Holla Roses, and Van den Berg RoseS, Kenyan rose grower Nini by Herburg Roses began selling its entire ‘auction range’ through Online Flower Auction (OFA) on 9 December 2022. Courtesy of AIPH
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