And Latin shippers and their intermediaries in Miami have strong bonds steeped in tradition and spanning generations. UPS sees e-commerce as a tool to open up more direct sales between growers in Colombia and Ecuador and consumers in the United States. The strategy would mean packaging flowers for consumers at the source and delivering them up to four days earlier, a reasonable proposition on the surface. But flower-shipping experts say the simple approach ignores the industry's inherent complications. Another hurdle is that flower pricing is determined in Miami.
Many growers rely on Miami contacts for critical market information.
And to make bouquets, flowers from several distant sources must be combined. And in Miami you can find all the varieties. Luchau says e-commerce has spurred an increase in express shipments of flowers directly to U.S. consumers out of Miami. But the USDA, along with U.S. Customs and the U.S. Justice Department's Drug Enforcement Administration, isn't set up to handle flowers that have been deconsolidated abroad. And that raises questions about the darker side of agricultural exports out of South America.