Having celebrated Mother’s Day and survived all the hype of getting perfect flowers, it’s the best time to analyze the booming bloom niche. The thing is, flowers are not just beautiful botanical riches, they speak the language of care and love.
On Valentine’s Day, family celebrations, birthdays and other special occasions as well as just because, it’s impossible to go wrong with flowers. Whether it’s freshly cut vibrant blossoms, summer bouquets, California-grown potted cactuses or marvelously crafted colorful and fragrant arrangements, green gifts harmonize homes and brighten up your days. However, fragile blossoms make a challenging business full of risks as almost half of the goods never get sold.
Convincing Floriculture Stats
The floriculture industry is really huge and continues growing non-stop. The optimistic trends are for the online sector, actually. When it comes to land-based retailers, they have been experiencing a significant downturn lately, according to IBISWorld. In the US, a revenue drop of about 3% was reported during 2014-2019 which led to a 2.3% decline in the number of brick-and-mortar businesses.
In the same timeframe, the online market segment has been on the bright side with a 10.4% increase. The tendency for placing bouquet orders online is growing rapidly. In 2017, the industry was worth $7 billion. IBISWorld predicted the annual ballpark increase 2% strengthened by online sales. In 2018, revenue growth of $4bn and 6.0% in the number of businesses were reported. Retailers who caught the digital wave manage to keep pace with customers’ demands.
The fact that the interest in flower delivery apps in the US goes up is no surprise today. According to Unity Marketing, more than over 50% of consumers went online to shop for gifts with a 39% increase 2010-2015. New floral industry apps are regularly launched in App Store and Google Play. This article will cover the top current trends in the US mobile and web flower delivery market.
Industry Origins and Development
Originating in the 19th century, floriculture sprang up in the UK quickly spreading around the world. 1994 became the year when the industry earned $100 billion. Now, the US boasts the second largest share at 15% of the global market, according to BrandonGaille.
Despite the fact that lots of florists popped up as ‘mom-and-pop’ businesses, there is a strong tendency for going digital to meet growing demand as technology is the name of the game now. They utilize the latest tech trends to strengthen operations. Almost 80% of florist land-based shops have a website (Floral Market Research report). Some floral businesses prime websites for mobile users, while others invest in making apps.
Statista predicts that the number of smartphone users will nearly double from 1.57 billion users in 2014 up to 2.87 billion in 2020. No wonder, half of online shopping comes from mobile devices.
Customers view assortments, make orders, real-time track, and have full control of the delivery process by just clicking the items in favor to have them delivered to the door. In Aionys portfolio, there is a flower shopping and shipping platform Florti. Built for intuitive client-oriented experiences, it includes logistics management, data processing, and business communication solutions. For more info, have a look at the success story.
Floral Service Leaders and Innovators
Looking back at the origins of the floral market in the US, FTD was number one pioneer which is still a big player. Since 1910, the company has been taking the innovative path with such tomorrow-oriented mileposts
- 1962 – a telephone network was set to send floral orders.
- 1994 – the website was launched and the company was the first to cross the digital frontier.
- 2012 – consumers were offered a tool to assemble bouquets themselves.
Now, FTD.com is mobile-friendly with several shopping options (occasion, price, product), next day/today deliveries, a limited number of mobile alerts a month and reminder services for registered users.
Another petal giant is 1-800-Flowers.com came on the scene in 1982 as a family business in 1982. The company went on growing setting out customer terrific experiences its priority. In 1995, the 1800flowers.com domain name was registered. Now, it has Apple Business Chat built-in and offers Apple Pay checkouts, along with automated “bots” for Facebook Messenger and voice computing by Amazon’s Alexa.
Despite the fact that there are long-established players in the market, startups pave the way with bold ideas for millenials. Highly innovative, they don’t go after a picture out of a book and don’t take one-style-fits-all approach in the floral market.
BloomThat, a San Francisco-based startup, featured both a website and app for diversified ordering and had $7 million funding. Interestingly, they offered a limited variety of blooms daily (only those available at local farms). Prototypr found that the iOS app had the brightest mobile UI designs in 2017. Recently, the company was acquired by FTD conglomerate.
In 2010, Farmgirl Flowers was set up by Christina Stembel who entered the petal market. Her idea centered on decreasing flower waste, which is 1% for the business now, by offering a limited number of locally sourced floral arrangements. Plus, bouquets are wrapped in burlap from local coffee roasters. Initially, the startup was short of funds, but in 2017 it reported the revenue of $15 million.
Floral startups are on the rise now as the market is ripe for changes.
They manage to bloom in spite of wider flower assortments and lower prices of niche giants. Focusing on the younger generation, they make a point of sustainability, staff policies and pesticides avoidance. They build on aesthetic DIY, stress uniqueness and have flash sales. Startups tap into infrastructure opportunities by going directly to consumers with artisan florists’ arrangements.
What you need to focus on to make a clientele-oriented app
Along with options of filtering and sorting which are natural to most platforms and apps, analysis features aim at providing stats for outlining further perspectives, while dashboards make shopping intuitive. Flower delivery promotion codes are a good idea as well. Plus, a real-time location system is built in to remove guesswork from deliveries.
Integrating social networks is no new thing. Floral Market Research shows increased business revenues. Interestingly, the higher annual sales were, the higher ROI it got, i.e. annual sales of $250,000 to $500,000 brought about the half, while companies with more than $1 million, managed to face a 77% increase.
Make sure to add some specialty in addition to outlined functionality. It’s important not only to tackle customers’ challenges but also to address opportunities. While the mobile and web floral industry is still budding, today may be a good time to roll out a platform for flower deliveries.
