We all love flowers! Don't we? And until a few years back Guwahati had only the Fancy Bazaar flower market to go to for fresh flowers. And not just Guwahati, people from other districts would also travel to get fresh flowers from this very market, especially during weddings.

However, the booming of decorative flower stores across the city and other reasons have been threatening this iconic market.

Business in this market, which once had a monopoly on fresh flower sales, is gradually declining as stores selling extensive varieties to cater to the elaborate need of the customers have come up across the city. And there are big brands like Ferns and Patels that provide online options which these local sellers are unable to with their limited resources.

"The new stores sell more variety of flowers. They have the means to import more and store them for a longer time and many big stores are available online. We on the other hand cannot afford to bring too many flowers for the customers to choose from, because we have no cold storage to increase the shelf-life of the flowers. Our products need to be sold in a day or two, else we have to dump these as waste,' said a seller to Business Northeast.

"People are also hesitant to visit the shops physically although we offer at a lesser price, but prefer to order online. Ours is a meager business and we don't do marketing like the big shops," he added.

Another seller in the Fancy Bazaar flower market expressing his concerns about their decline said that the market is now mainly dependent on the wedding season, and sales during the other months are substantially low. The flower sellers also complained that the imported flowers which come from Bangalore are expensive and during the off-season, the fresh flowers which arrive get wasted.

Business Northeast visited a few luxury flower decor stores to compare their prices with the Fancy Bazaar market. While the local sellers offer a well-made bouquet from Rs. 300 to Rs. 500, a similar one made at a big store might cost at least Rs. 1500; almost three to five times the price of the local vendor.

Sujit, a shop owner at the Fancy Bazaar said, “Now being the off-season sometimes we don't even get a single customer in a day. So most of our flowers gets spoiled."

The shop keepers pointed that the government should facilitate them with cold storage and also with electricity. It needs mention that although there had been talks to develop the flower market by the Guwahati Municipal Corporation, nothing had been done in years.

"The condition of the flower shops are not very pleasant. We have no proper shop, but makeshift ones, which are more like kiosks rather than shops. There is no electricity provided to us, as we could have arranged for cold storage. Although our plights are invisible to GMC, each shop in this market pays the Corporation Rs. 20 per day for running our business here. Where does this money go?" said a flower decorator at the market.

"We have been incurring major losses. Some of us don't earn enough to fill our stomachs and are unable to feed our family as well," added another.

Meanwhile, the luxurious flower brands in Guwahati are doing pretty well. On average, a store earns about Rs. 4000-5000 each day, even in the off-season. During festivals and the wedding season, this rises over ten times.

A proprietor of one such store said, "We get orders for birthdays, gifts, and venue decorations round the year. We also have contracts with private and even government offices and institutions for venue decoration during events. Business as a whole is good."

Given the stark difference in business, it is evident that the demand for fresh flowers is only increasing in Guwahati. However, the lack of facilities, insufficient resources, and good marketing from the bigger stores have taken away the interest of the customers from the old local market to the fancy stores. With proper government intervention, this decade-old iconic flower market of Guwahati can be given a fresh lease of life.

A concerned citizen stated "At the very least contracts for decorating in government functions and offices could be given to these local vendors to keep them floating."

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