Several times a year we publish new features to our software to continue to ensure Flower Store In a box is the best ecommerce solution for florists. These features are directly related to the feedback that we get from our customers.
The real value of using FSIAB for your important ecommerce is being able to control your website so that it meets your business needs. This is particularly important at peak periods such as Valentine’s & Mother’s Day.
In additon this year we also explored Valentine's Day Sales Performance and benchmarked this against marketing channels used. This year's survey was more open ended in allowing customers to tell us what new and updated features they wanted and what their challenges were.
As always I am extraordinarlity appreciative of the time taken by our customers in providing us with feedback.
Did you stop accepting orders for Valentines Day?
A clear majority of florists stopped accepting orders for the 14th of February.
Many of the florists indicated that they stopped accepting orders in the days before Valentines Day with either selling out of the avaialble stock or simply not having the capacity for drivers to deliver the orders.
A common theme amongst the respondants was the desire to be able to fulfil their custmers expectations and not accept more orders than they could accomodate.
Did you sell out of your 2022 Valentine's Day Range?
Whilst a majority of florists did stop accepting orders for Valentine's Day, a smaller group sold out of their products.
One of the main reasons for the difference between those that closed off orders and those who didnt sell out was the logistical challenges of available delivery drivers.
Did you use the Category Restriction to limit to only Valentines?
You know the results of this were somewhat surprising, as we expected more florists would
However even though only a small number of florists used this feature it is one of the most often asked about feature.
As we have also indicated we will be changing the way this feature works. At the moment the rule simply looks for a product in the category restricted to, if other products are found the cart is still allowed.
In a future release we will add a "strict" option that will stop the order if any other product is in the shopping cart.
Did you add a surcharge for delivery on Valentines Day?
There are two schools of thought on adding a delivery surcharge for a specific event like Valentine's Day. On the one hand delivery drivers are more expensive on these special event days, but ont he other hand adding extra costs into the order will reduce the overall sales conversion rate.
There is certainly validity in having surcharges for public holidays, Sundays etc, but unless there is a compelling reason to do so a surcharge for Valentine's Day is not popular.
Did you use Inventory management for Valentine's Day Products?
Managing stock levels for florists is a relatively new thing and this is I eblieve represented by the low number of florists using inventory management.
Customers who do use stock managemenet generally use it for sundries and for products that they have finite numbers of.
What marketing did you do for Valentines Day (choose more than one)
Not surprisingly the majority of florists chose to market on social media with Facebook and Instagram being the most popular.
Diving a little further into the marketing channels roughly 20% of florists used paid advertising to promote themselves at Valentine's whether Google, Instagram etc.
When do did a quick comparison of the customers who sold out of their Valentine's Day range and those who didn't, the florists who sold out had a multi channel marleting strategy where they used:
- Facebook (both paid and unpaid)
- Google Adwords
- SEO
- Google Shopping
- Email Marketing
Even a small mix had a positive impact on the performance of the sites.
Future Feature Requests
There are definitely some common feature requests that we will be adopting:
- Stricter Category Restrictions
- More control for days of delivery for each suburb
- Make In Store Pickup available if not accepting deliveries
- Free Delivery Option
- Improved Addons
- Out of Stock product made invisble on the website
We are busy with the next version of the software and expect that all of these features will be available in the next version.
Your Challenges
By and far the buiggest challenge that floirists face is TIME! I understand that being a small business owner myself that prioritsing where I focus my time means some elements don not always get the attention they deserve.
The biggest challenge in regards to your website that we will look at improving for you is:
- Video help files
- Tutorials
- Marketing Advice
Whilst we can't run your website for you or offer marketing services we can help build tools to make it easier for you to market the webiste yourself, or work with a SEO or marketing firm to maximise your invetsment!
Once again I really want to thank everyone who took the time to provode us with such valuable feedback!
