Last Sunday, March 22, Mother's Day was celebrated in the UK. For florists, the run-up to this holiday was more nerve-racking than usual, due to the COVID-19 frenzy. "Many florists had already pre-ordered and as many consumers nowadays go to the supermarkets - also as restaurants and so on are closed and social distancing is advised - florists expected drastically lower demand", says Lesley Rutter of Florismart, a digital marketplace (with their base in Aalsmeer, the Netherlands) that provides UK florists access to flowers from all over the world. In order to support their florists, they set up a campaign, the week before this holiday, stimulating consumers to support their florists and buy their Mother's Day bouquets at their local florist. And it seemed it worked out well. "Some of our florists were even up in sales, compared to last year."
Team Florismart
More than selling flowers
Besides being an online marketplace and just selling flowers, Florismart aims to be more and as a result contributes to a stronger floristry industry. "At Florismart, we have a pro membership for florists for which they pay to be in. In our Facebook group, we support them and give them advice on several topics. We also have around 20 local Facebook communities where we encourage florists to help and support each other."
Consumer campaign
For Mother's Day this year the florists were very anxious. "We knew consumers would buy flowers for Mother's Day, but we had to make sure that they bought them at their local florist, and not at the supermarket, people are flocking nowadays." So, in order to stimulate the consumers and draw them to florists, they set up a campaign. In this campaign, they explained to the consumer the circumstances the florists are in, the importance of buying flowers there and the delivery options: online ordering, doorstep delivery and contactless payments.
Reaching out to consumers is not something new for them, with a consumer Facebook of 24,000 followers.“We regularly target consumers through different media channels. For this campaign, our main focus was on social media: organic posts but also advertisements. And all our florists reposted it.”
Positive result
Rutter was pleased with the result. "The campaign seems to have worked out. The florists I spoke with were very satisfied, particularly during this crazy time. Some even mentioned they were up in sales, not everyone but the overall feeling was that it turned out to be a good Mother’s Day."
Coming weeks
In the coming weeks, Florismart will do their utmost best to continue promoting the florists and the flower industry "And we hope that our customers old and new will stand by and support Florismart in our efforts to get through this situation", Rutter adds "The event and wedding florists will have a very hard time as all large events and weddings are being cancelled or postponed till a later date, but the retail florists will remain open, as long as the government allows them to with online and over the phone purchases. Then, we will continue promoting the joy of flowers. And particularly during these times of social distancing, quarantine, self isolation, flowers can bring a lot of emotion. "Last week, I personally delivered a bunch of flowers and the woman - who was in self isolation - was in tears."
Florismart receives orders from UK florists and consolidates them in Aalsmeer, the Netherlands, and then ships them to the UK. Last week, they shipped out flowers every day, but for the coming weeks, they adjusted their schedule. "We will, as long as all governments allow us to, ship the flowers, but due to the decreased demand for flowers, we adjusted the shipping schedule to 3 days a week (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday)."
Besides the UK, Florismart also supplies to German florists, but as the country closed its borders, they cannot supply the florists in this country at the moment. "We therefore closed down our German webshop for now and are reviewing this on a daily basis."
For more information
Florismart
Email: marketing@florismart.com
Floristmart.com