Flower Arbitrage

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, a day when many guys around the world will find themselves hustling around last minute to buy chocolate no one will eat, flowers that will wilt and perfume that will nauseate, I wanted to share an idea. This idea occurred to me today when a friend told me a bouquet of red roses today in the flower shop ran them $15 USD. If relationships have financial statements, and I believe they do, flowers definitely fall under operating expenses on the income statement and show up as an asset under goodwill on the guy’s balance sheet.

This got me thinking. With so many asset classes around the world over-valued and traditional arbitrage opportunities becoming progressively harder to identify, I see a real profit opportunity around “flower arbitrage.” The idea is simple: a bouquet of nicely arranged flowers costs $15 in China. I am sure there are guys in New York and other cities around the world dropping $100-200 on a lesser bouquet. We simply work out a way to buy flowers in China and sell them in the US, focusing on holidays, such as Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, where prices in the US are especially jacked up. All we have to do is go to Fred Smith at FedEx and convince him there is a market for refrigerated 24hr. FedEx delivery airplanes from China to the US. I think Mr. Smith will buy in. After all, he is a visionary who revolutionized the mail delivery service despite his Yale professor giving him a C on the “FedEx” concept and countless VC firms turning down his request for financing. I think this idea is a go! Chinese chocolates anyone?