By now you will have heard of or used UBER, the disruptive technology that is disinter-mediating taxis and hire cars the world over. If you haven't heard of UBER you visit their website https://www.uber.com and discover more - I'm a big fan of UBER for the simplicity of being able to order a hire car from my mobile phone at any time of the day and night. I should also say that I live in the city and I don't drive so UBER is perfect for me.
UBER is a Disruptive Technology worth $48 Billion Dollars
Now you may wonder what a disruptive taxi / hire car service has to do with florists and the answer may surprise you. Just this week UBER has had another round of funding on their 'hypothetical' value of $48 Billion USD - yes that's right $48 BILLION DOLLARS.
So what does this have to with florists?
Well let's take a step back first and look at how technology has disruptively changed the floral industry, once upon a time if you wanted to buy flowers for someone in another location you called or went into you local florist. They would take your order and the relay it to interflora who were pretty much the only relay network in the world.
Jump to now from 15 years ago
Jump 15 years and we now have multiple relay networks online, physical florists are closing in favour of online virtual only stores and you can see how disruptive technology has been to the floristry market. People buy flowers online every second of every day.
Online Floristry is one of the big success of the web
Now this is where UBER can affect florists, first off when you sign up for UBER they store your credit card so the UBER APP becomes a digital wallet which means it's impose to order a car but also simple to order other things. So far this "other things" have been things like Gelato from the world famous Gelato Messini in Surry Hills Sydney. But the founder of UBER has already indicated that UBER is not just a human transportation company they are a potentially a massive distribution network of all sorts of items, flowers could very well be one of these items in the future. UBER could potentially become a location based service for sending flowers or they could partner with florists to do the deliveries to the actual location of the person. At this moment in time I don't think that UBER is a threat to online florists, but I do think you should keep an eye on them!
