Make Sundays a week starter with Sunday Tingz's plethora of floral features that are different from other florists. With their subtle yet exuberant style of arranging their wildflowers, add a breath of fresh air and colour to your lazy Sunday mornings. Below, we speak to Co-founder, Faridah Zulkiflie on their unique wildflowers, hustling as a small team and more.
What are your brand's creative direction and artistic approach? Why have you decided to go down this route?
To be honest, I really like the concept of the overseas flower market. When I was in Poland, there's this place called Plac Solny and they have rows and rows of small flower shops where you could just buy flowers and they would wrap it in brown paper and you do all the work at home; trimming and arranging. That's the whole idea of my brand. Like, here is a bunch of flowers, you can do whatever you want with them. Because if I want a perfectly arranged bouquet there are so many florists out there that could do that.
Well, at least it started out like that [laughs]. Customers told me that they love my flower bunches because they are wild and... rustic? So, I'm exploring more on the wild and rustic aesthetic at the moment.
Please share what has been the brand's most admirable achievement thus far!
Wow! I think the most admirable achievement so far, we managed to make 50 bunches in 1 night with a team of 3. I have to say that was impressive for a newbie like us. Oh, and we just bought our second flower fridge last week--and we're only 2 months old!
What are some hardships that the brand has gone through and how did you overcome them?
Due to MCO, one of our key team members is stuck somewhere outside of KL. It's terrible because the team is super small and we all have our roles to play and we're dealing with flowers here so, no, the problem can't be solved with a Zoom meeting. But we digress. The show must go on. We hired a temporary staff (my nephew) at the moment to help out and it's working out great!
How are your products sourced and made?
Our flowers mainly come from Cameron Highland. And our supplier sources flowers from other countries as well like Vietnam, China, Taiwan and Poland.
Our flower bunches are made by hand with love at our studio in PJ.
How did your brand come about?
I love receiving flowers. So, one day a good friend of mine, sent me flowers on a Sunday, just because. And the next day, I was sitting at my desk preparing a campaign deck, feeling so uninspired and I just started staring at the flowers and really, it made me feel so good. And that's when the idea came about. I mean, wouldn't it make life so much easier and happier for so many of us if we could have flowers sent to us every Sunday?
So I discussed this concept with my husband and he said, go for it. And I asked for opinions from my girlfriends and they were super supportive of my idea and they told me to just run with it.
So that's how it started.
Who/what are your sources of inspiration?
I really like Barcelona based La Femme Fleur. I'm so inspired by Frida Stuvemark! Other than that, I get inspirations from Pinterest :)
What are some of the values the brand holds dear to and why?
Honesty. If we make a mistake especially with customers, say if we missed an order, we would apologise and tell them the truth that we missed their orders. And we also have a gruesome QC process. There are so many times we had to redo a bunch because we're not happy when we see it, imagine how the customers would feel!
There was this one Sunday, we had to WhatsApp our subscribers one by one to tell them they won't be receiving any flowers today because one of the flowers wilted and that we cannot send them out looking like that. They were all very understanding though.
Why did you choose that name?
Sundays are usually slow. We spend the day winding down, have some "me" time at home after a long week of hustling. And on slow Sundays, we do things that we enjoy like listening to records, read a book, catch up on some Netflix series or buy some flowers. So that's how the name came about. It's the Sunday feeling!
What are the top 3 things you wish you knew before starting out as a brand? Do share some advice for other local business owners out there!
1) Do more research on the products; I wish I knew that I needed a flower fridge from the very beginning. I wasted so many flowers in the beginning not knowing some of them needed to be in a cold place.
2) Don't bite more than you can chew; having a small team means we have to cap orders. In the beginning, we just said okay to all customers and we ended up not sleeping to fulfil orders. I could feel the tension between us. It was my mistake, I took all the orders.
3) Get a work phone. I made the mistake of linking my personal number to our IG page for orders and it was crazy. I had heart palpitation whenever my phone lights up.
What are your goals and vision for your brand in the years to come?
We would love to have a little shop in a few years but our end goal would be to have a flower warehouse.
Lastly, what makes you brand and product unique?
What makes Sunday Tingz truly unique is that we make flowers affordable. And we make people happy on a daily because it's accessible to everyone. You can get a bunch at only RM50 and according to our customers, they last for two weeks.
Also, we bring out the creativity in everyday people. We love it when they rearrange their bunch to suit their style. That's the whole idea in the first place.