Dounan flower market: Price barometer in China

World
Europe

00:30

Today, as much as 60 percent of the world’s flowers enter retail markets through auctions, rather than by traditional face-to-face trade.

The Aalsmeer Flower Auction in Holland is the world’s largest of its kind, sending about 20 million flowers across the world every day.

Notably, it is a Dutch auction, in which the asking price starts high, and lowers until some participant is willing to accept. The trick is to wait for the price drop, but to still bid quickly enough to beat out all other participants.

This type of auction is good for auctioning goods quickly, since a sale never requires more than one bid. So other countries, like China, have also adopted the method.

Buyers bid for flowers at a flower auction in Southwest China's Kunming city, Yunnan Province. /VCG Photo

The Dounan flower auction center, established in July 2001, is China’s biggest and it accounts for over 70 percent of the domestic market.

The auction house holds 900 trading seats and is a partner with 25,000 flower farmers and companies. On a daily basis, over 40 kinds of flowers - including African daisy, baby’s breath, carnation and hydrangea - are auctioned out.

“Auctions run fast here, they're completed in an average of three seconds,” according to Mao Haipeng, the assistant to president to the Dounan Flower Industrial Group.

In 2017, the center reached a daily average turnover of 3.14 million cut flowers, adding up to 965 million yuan (1.43 million US dollars) in annual trading.

Flowers are displayed at Dounan flower market in Southwest China's Kunming city, Yunnan Province./VCG Photo

Flowers are sorted, and each bouquet graded, so that flowers of high quality can be sold for better prices. Once auctioned, the flowers are packed, and delivered immediately.

As the market is located in the center of Asia's so-called “five-hour flight circle”, the flowers can be delivered to many Asian countries while still fresh.

Currently, the market exports flowers to over 40 countries and regions including Russia, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

(Video by Zhu Danni.)

2086km