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The beauty of simplicity

28 May 2021
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When Sue Barrell paired together a love for flowers and her creative mind, an online business bloomed - Barrelli A Box of Beauty.

Where does the Barrelli Roses story start?

I suppose you could call me an “ideas person” – I have had quite a few through the years, but I was really feeling the urge to allow my creative side to flourish. I’ve always enjoyed an appreciation of natural beauty, thoughtful gift giving and gorgeous presenatation, so Barrelli combines all of what I love and satisfies what I could see as an unmet demand for beautifully and uniquelly presented luxury roses.

What was the gap in the market you identified?

It always frustrated me when I purchased flowers online and you never really got what was in the picture. So I have made our process very simple yet sophisticated in that what you order is what you actually receive. We wanted a premium service and shopping experience for our customers.

From where do you source your roses?

I have a wonderful importer in Auckland, who sources all our roses from Colombia. The roses are spectacular and significantly bigger in size. Because family is important to me, I named each rose colour after our three daughters, and our Barrelli Red rose, ‘Patricia’, after my late mother.

Was it tricky to find the type of bespoke boxes you
desired?

That is an understatement! I think I rung around half of New Zealand. It’s so hard to get a round shape – everything is a rectangle or square. Clarity Press thought outside of the square for me. I have ended up with an even better concept than my original, because I can now change the design and cater to individual business needs and corporate branding requests.

What have been some of the most memorable
orders?

I had a pop-up store at The Colombo over Valentine’s week (I will be there again for Mother’s Day week). An older gentleman came up, wanting to get one dozen red roses delivered. About 10 minutes later, I had this elegant older lady come up and ask about my roses. She, too, wanted a delivery and she said I had to be quick, “He’s sitting over there, I can’t let him seen me.” I looked over and there was the same gentleman who had just placed an order. In our Barrelli card, she wrote, “To one of the kindest men I know”.

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