Florists are matchmakers at heart, and running a floral delivery business is all about perfect pairings: Matching business goals with the best delivery partners, orders with their optimized routes and, of course, customers with their favorite products.
Come Valentine’s Day, love is on the line, and the stakes are even higher. Your floral customers trust that you’ll deliver their orders on time and beautifully intact, no matter where the object of their affection resides. And with the online floral market exceeding $16 billion in 2023, they’ll likely be ordering flowers online — and expecting your website offerings to be accurate.
More than one in five Americans bought flowers last Valentine’s Day; plus, Easter, Mother’s Day and spring flower shopping are just around the corner. Crowdsourced delivery is the perfect match to keep your floral business blossoming through every seasonal spike, from proper handling of delicate plants to routing orders for efficient delivery and easy inventory tracking.
Caring for delicate deliveries
Flowers and plants can be fragile — not to mention the vases in which you’ve carefully arranged them. In some cases, your deliveries will require special efforts to keep orders fresh from store to door. In other situations, transport vehicles need to accommodate protective packaging, including large boxes for elaborate arrangements. Crowdsourced delivery helps you account for all these contingencies, supplementing your existing fleet with a network of drivers who can handle cold-packed goods, large arrangements or a single bouquet.
Batched, routed and reaching any destination
Service footprints for floral or nursery businesses can be large, encompassing urban areas, suburban neighborhoods and rural addresses. Using the Roadie platform for delivery allows you to reach customers quickly, no matter where they are. Batched and routed delivery with Roadie lets you deliver on streamlined routes so you can serve more customers with fewer pick-ups, while honoring the expected delivery windows. Even far-flung addresses are within reach of the 200,000 independent drivers in the Roadie network. The Roadie platform helps you meet same-day delivery expectations for even those last-minute Valentine’s Day orders.
Extended cut-off times for cut flowers
Speaking of last-minute orders, most online floral orders websites have an order cut-off of 2 p.m. local time in order to offer same-day delivery. With crowdsourced drivers available virtually around the clock, you can extend your cut-off time and differentiate your flower shop or nursery from less-agile competition. During peak season spikes like Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, extended cut-off times could have your customers sending you a “thank you” bouquet!
Live plants, live tracking
No matter how early (or late) your customers place their orders, they’ll want to know your website offerings are up-to-date and that their orders are trackable from store to door. According to recent data, more than two-thirds of shoppers want to be able to track online orders at all times, and their floral orders are no different. When customers choose an arrangement from your site, they want to know the moment it arrives on their special someone’s doorstep. Crowdsourced delivery platforms like Roadie offer real-time order tracking to provide peace of mind and elevate the ordering experience.
Real-time inventory updates
And it isn’t just existing orders that require frequent updates. Your inventory does, too. Flower gift-givers and recipients are bound to share notes, so if you’re running low on a certain style of vase, gift box or in-demand blossom, your website needs to reflect that. With Shopify integration through Roadie, you get the benefit of ultrafast delivery plus seamless order management to control which products are available for delivery and when.
Roadie is ready to be your floral delivery Valentine
Floral businesses and nurseries have unique needs. The partners you choose should take care of those needs and bring out the best in your business. While you’re making a match between your customers and their perfect floral arrangement, Roadie, with Shopify integration, is ready to be your perfect last-mile delivery partner.
Reach out today to learn how you can start implementing crowdsourced delivery in time for Valentine’s Day.