Stadium Flowers in Everett says high-tech is the secret to a blooming business

Cheryl Van Winkle walks through rooms full of computers, phone operators, and televisions on her way down to a large, cool basement warehouse.

She opens the door to an even colder room. Stepping inside is like walking into a refrigerator filled to the brim with sweet-smelling flowers, ready for delivery.

Usually the idea of a florist conjures images of bouquets — artfully crafted, delicate arrangements of calla lilies, roses, and birds of paradise. But what about the phones, computers, delivery trucks and online networking sites?

For Van Winkle, 21st century communication is the secret to the flower business. She and her husband, Spark, own Stadium Flowers, a specialty florist shop in Everett.

Think old-fashioned, family-run flower shop meets Amazon.

Stadium Market was founded as a supermarket in 1942 by Van Winkle’s parents and slowly transitioned to a flower shop in the 1980s. It was renamed Stadium Flowers in 1988.

When a Safeway store opened up half a block away, switching to selling flowers seemed like a good choice. And in the face of economic recession, Stadium Flowers is still receiving hundreds of orders a day.

“Flowers are always there at big moments in people’s lives,” Cheryl Van Winkle said. “People might cut other expenses, but they’re not going to cut out the flowers at births, weddings or funerals.”

Working out of two retail stores and one wholesale warehouse, the company fields hundreds of flower orders every day. The orders are then filled and delivered the same day to locations in most of Snohomish and King Counties.

All in the family

Though the business has expanded, this generation of Van Winkles is keeping things in the family. They plan on passing the company on to their son, Adam, in the next five or six years.

“I’ve been working here every Sunday since I turned 12 — and every summer, too,” Adam Van Winkle said.

His mother joked: “Well you weren’t about to stay home and watch TV all day.”

One busy afternoon late last week, Adam Van Winkle entered an order into the database. “If I don’t write things down as they happen I tend to forget them,” he said.

The walls of his office are plastered with posters of crew races, and his competitive spirit doesn’t end there.

“I live for big sales,” he said. “When I get a really big shipment sold, that is a great feeling.”

He oversees their partner business, Cascade Wholesale, and is in charge of selling flowers in bulk to companies.

“I’m taking over the business in little steps,” Adam Van Winkle said. “Right now I’m just trying to make the wholesale business as successful as possible.”

When he takes over the retail and buying responsibilities, he’ll be the third generation to run the business.

When the store opened in the 1940s, Cheryl Van Winkle’s mother sold white flowers each year for Easter. Things have changed since then. Almost 70 years later, you could order that white flower in more than 100 varieties — and get it delivered on the same day.

The Internet has revolutionized how the company does business. The Van Winkle family and their staff use technology for advertising, selling and buying.

“Brides these days are very techie,” Cheryl Van Winkle said. “They will almost always prefer e-mail to just calling in.”

That translates to using online networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, letting customers know what’s in stock — and a few other choice tidbits.

A recent Twitter update reads: “Fact of the Week: Sunflowers are not named because they look like the sun. It is [because] their heads always tilt to face the sun.”

The younger Van Winkle, like his mother, tries to offer things other florists don’t.

“You have to have a personality, and you have to be able to take a gamble. You have to do something new.”

“Most people who become florists do so because they’re very involved in the creative aspects,” said Cheryl Van Winkle. “I have people who do the creative stuff for me. I’m a business woman.”

Julia Drachman is a student journalist at the Lakeside School in Seattle.