This Valentine’s Day, gift givers will spend $2.3 billion on flowers. With delivery more popular than ever in the pandemic, vibrant arrangements of red, pink, purple, and white will make their way to doorsteps across the country, and millions will be coming from a single company: 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc.
The uniquely named company — few businesses are simultaneously a phone number and a website — urges customers to “capture her heart,” and the choices to do so are endless. There are the mixed bouquets of lilies, orchids, and tulips, with sappy names like “Sweetheart Medley” and “Love Song.” You can purchase a classic arrangement of “Two Dozen Romantic Roses” for anywhere between $59.99 and $101.99. Throw in some chocolates and spring for the nicer “prism vase” and the price goes up. If that feels a little too pedestrian, don’t worry — three dozen preserved “Magnificent Roses” in a Instagram-ready black box will run you about $300.
1-800-Flowers.com has become a gifting-industry giant, selling around 20 million gifts every year. You can send someone a massive teddy bear, personalized keepsakes, and even jewelry. In fact, flowers aren’t even the real cash cow of 1-800-Flowers.com: While 40 percent of the company’s 2019 revenue came from consumer floral, 52 percent came from gourmet food and gift baskets, and 8 percent from BloomNet, an in-house network of 5,000 to 6,000 florists who help with design and local sourcing. Seventy-five percent of their flowers come through florists, but the rest originate from farms in places like Colombia, Ecuador, and California.
“What we realized was that customers were coming to us to buy flowers because they really need to send an expression and connect with someone and build a relationship with someone,” Chris McCann said in a phone interview. “We realized flowers satisfied some of those needs, but what else do people use? That’s what moved us down the road of becoming a gourmet food company.”
