INDIANAPOLIS — Mother's Day will be in full bloom this weekend, and so will the tariffs. WRTV’s Amber Grigley spoke with one florist about how they are handling business during Mother’s Day weekend and in the future.
"The sunflowers are coming from South America and not locally because they are not growing here yet," Erin Bruno with McNamara Florists said.
Bruno said most of their flowers are imported from South America and Canada.
"There was already an existing tariff on Ecuadorian products, so 6.8% and then we added a 10%. So, everything from Ecuador is coming in at 16.8% tariff, and most of those will be our roses. Our high-quality roses come from Ecuador," Bruno said.
Bruno said it impacts their entire operation from flowers to vases. She said when the tariff talk started, they thought ahead.
"We imported a lot of glassware before the tariff happened on China. So, you know we have a good stock of product that is at our regular prices," Bruno said.
But as inventory runs low, Bruno said it is harder to take the increased prices from tariffs.
"Make sure that our lifetime customers and our new customers are very happy and satisfied this Mother's Day and then we're going to have to put our head down going forward and figure out what we need to do," Bruno said.
Bruno said they have been in contact with other florists across the nation. Some of them have already hiked prices 7 to 10%.
"It's kind of a moving target, so we're just trying to keep our pulse on it and figure out what we're going to do, you know, we're going to our senators in our state and other states to try to promote, you know, what this is hurting in the agricultural business in general, not just the floral culture business, but it's kind of hurting everyone," Bruno said.
