About Serelia
We dare to say that the roots of Serelia go back half a century. It all started when today’s owner’s grandfather decided to manufacture and trade all kinds of candles. Along with the candles the customers demanded decorations and other floral accessories for weddings, flower arrangements etc. This is when Mr Demetris Papadopoulos (current owner) started to import various florist & wedding supplies under the name Serelia, in the early 80’s.
After five years Serelia was already present in all flower shops all over Cyprus and was ready to take its next step. During that period, garden centres started to pop up and Serelia expanded its range to decorative pots, wrapping materials, dried flowers and hobby substrates. Serelia’s offices were located at their current location. A part of the building was used as a retail shop, mostly for dried flowers, ribbons, wedding supplier and other items related to flower arrangements. Another section of the building was used for candle making.
At the same time, Serelia was targeting professional customers. By professional we mean Vegetable and pot plant growers. The product range included professional substrates, pots, seeds etc.
During the 90’s, Serelia invested more in the retail part of the business with the introduction of a Small Christmas collection, trees & ornaments and it started to become known as a Season Decoration shop. In brief, the 1990’s was a decade in which Serelia evolved and was established both in retail and wholesale markets.
The next era started in the 2000’s with the acquisition of a new warehouse near the shop in Ayios Dometios. This was perfect in timing as the company had to suffer a fire in 2003 which destroyed completely the shop, the offices and the candle making unit. Nevertheless, this did not stop the company’s development. In less than a year the shop was restated, the offices renewed and the candle making unit was moved to the new warehouse.
This was Serelia’s landmark, the retail boomed, displays were modern and new collections were added. In the wholesale sector, Serelia was by now one of the biggest companies in Cyprus. In 2009, Demetris and Lia’s (the owners) daughter Yianna joined the team and started working on various aspects of the company, advertising, online presence and new product additions. Yianna has now taken over a new part of the business which imports and distributes young plants to greenhouses and plant growers.
Furthermore, in 2013, Frosso, the youngest daughter of the family joined the business as well. Frosso is an interior designer and is focusing on promoting the shop, keeping it up with the latest trends and working with bigger customers such as hotels, interior designers, project managers etc.
What started as a two people’s company is now an 11 persons’s team which is still evolving and transforming.