Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). We will go first to Eric Beder with Brean Murray.
Eric Beder - Brean Murray
Could you talk a little bit what's happening with your florist as a group? How are they weathering this downturn and what are you guys doing to help them?
Chris McCann
Sure. I think that the retail is across the board if impacted by the downturn and florist, no exception. Just to give you a little bit of historical perspective, Eric, over the last 10 years or so, we've seen a decline in the number of retail flower shops in a range of 30% to 40%. That number of shops continues to decline, although not at the same pace as we had seen earlier. So what we're focused on as we have been for the last couple of years within BloomNet is providing a broad range of both products and services and integrating our florist more closely from the BloomNet group, more closely with the things we do promotionally on behalf of our retail brands.
So they can participate, for example, this coming year in our version of the SPOT A MOM Program for Mother's Day. That we have the right products and services at the right price points leveraging all buying power to pass on those savings to them that we introduce new services like the software services. So the things that we do that we can package and make available to retail florists they can do with their customers.
As Chris mentioned, there is a whole series of products and services that we've been packaging and making available to florists like all the changes we made to the digital directory online that they can avail themselves of to market their products and services to their local retail customers as well. So it's a focus on product services and improved price points so they can have a better advantage in the marketplace.
Eric Beder - Brean Murray
Secondly, on Martha Stewart, how is that going and is she going to be a part of the baskets thing, also?
Chris McCann
The Martha Stewart business is paced similar to what we've seen in the overall 1-800-FLOWERS and other gift businesses. It’s been challenged in the same way. Couple of things there. One is, we retooled the products and price points to make up more of a value statement as we have done with 1-800-FLOWERS. Yes, we fully expect that Martha Stewart brand will fully participate in the 1-800-BASKETS launch and frankly extending it to some of our other product categories.
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