Key Facts:
Melbourne's cards carry sympathy language most often of the three: about 11.8% across 2021 to 2025, ahead of Brisbane (about 11.0%) and Sydney (about 9.2%).
The signal is higher than five years ago: about 8.9% of Melbourne cards in 2021 and about 14.0% in 2025.
Spend is a dead heat: about $155 to $156 an order across Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland in the year to June 2026.
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Melbourne leads the big three on sympathy flowers, and it's higher than five years ago
Melbourne is the city most likely to reach for flowers when the news is hard. A new Fig & Bloom study finds Melbourne's card messages lead its two big rivals, Sydney and Brisbane, on sympathy, with just under one in five an act of condolence in the year to June 2026, even though the three cities spend almost exactly the same, about $155 to $156 an order.
"What stays with you is the direction of it," says Kellie Brown, co-founder of Fig & Bloom. "On a deliberately strict test, Melbourne's sympathy messages sit at about 14.0% of cards in 2025, up from about 8.9% five years earlier. More and more of Melbourne's flowers are doing the quiet, difficult work, and that isn't sadness, it's care."
Across five comparable years, from 2021 to 2025, explicit condolence, loss or bereavement wording appears in about 11.8% of Melbourne cards, ahead of Brisbane at about 11.0% and Sydney at about 9.2%. The test deliberately ignores gentler phrases such as "thinking of you", so it undercounts rather than over.
The rivalry is friendly, and the cities are more alike than different: near-identical spend, and cards that run to almost the same length. Sydney leans to celebration, Brisbane is the quickest to act, and Melbourne shows up on the hard days.
The findings draw on Fig & Bloom orders in the 12 months to June 2026 and a separate five-year review of the brand's order records from 2021 to 2025, with occasion inferred from de-identified card language. These are Fig & Bloom customers, a premium, gift-led group, not a population census, so the figures are directional.
Full story: https://figandbloom.com/blogs/news/the-geography-of-gifting
About us:
Fig & Bloom is the original premium flower delivery service known for contemporary, considered arrangements, delivering across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Each arrangement is photographed before it leaves the studio, including the gold-foiled message card, so customers see exactly what arrived. https://figandbloom.com
