Members Culture Group Roses visit Fulfilment Center Arcen

Friday afternoon, June 2, the Cultural Group for Roses and Rose Rootstocks under Anthos secretariat was a guest at the Fulfilment Center Arcen. There members and relations got an insight into e-commerce for garden, terrace and balcony plants. The summer meeting was combined with the participants meeting of Roses4Gardens, the promotion program for outdoor roses. 

"Our goal is to get as much noise as possible in the form of positive news about roses," Anne Verdoes of iBulb explained the rose promotion. "We send press releases about roses worldwide to thousands of contacts, creating a large reach." 

Steady growth Roses4Gardens

iBulb, which runs the promotional program, determines the topics for the press releases in consultation with the participants. Anne: "These are messages for both the consumer and the institutional market. We respond to current events, such as the role of roses in increasing biodiversity and 'tile out, rose in'. But we also address practical issues, such as when and how best to prune roses. There have been some great publications again in recent months." The underlying information is on the Roses4Gardens website, which is available in four language versions. Anne said the number of visitors is growing steadily. In addition, Roses4Gardens is active on Pinterest and Facebook. On the latter there are three likes and wins this year. In support, professional photographers create new images for the image bank each year based on themes. "The number of requests for images is growing. In addition to media, more and more retailers are finding their way to Roses4Gardens' information material. If large retailers are active with your material, that is of course super," Anne says.

Fastest growing branch

Frank Deriet took over from Anne with a presentation on e-commerce and forward vertical integration. "In the corona period, we have grown tremendously. Right now we are the largest shipper of pallets to consumers in Europe," Frank told us. He is director of Roobeek Group which includes the Fulfilment Center Arcen. At the company, online stores for garden, patio and balcony products can completely outsource their packaging and logistics activities: from customer orders, package storage and shipping to all the steps in between. The company also takes care of customer service for webshops that want it. Frank: "Business to Consumer is the fastest growing branch of the company. We are constantly working on making the process more efficient and every plant is inspected. Our rate of complaints is therefore very low." On the social front, some 50 people with mental or physical disabilities or with a distance to the labor market are employed. A day care center for the elderly can also be found on the more than 10-acre site. After an extensive tour of the warehouse with 30 loading docks, the packing lines and the offices, attendees concluded the summer meeting with drinks.

The Cultural Group on Roses and Rose Substems is an independent Association. The secretariat is housed at Royal Anthos. Those interested in the Culture Group or rose promotion can send an email to vangent@anthos.org for more information.