The largest digital flower shop from Romania, Floria.ro, launched in 2010, chose to migrate to VTEX in order to significantly improve its customers’ online experience. The new website went live and is now offering the most elegant flower arrangements and gifts with the help of great ecommerce and marketplace capabilities.
The root of the switch
From the very beginning, Floria.ro has been a pioneer in the flower market and, over time, the industry recognized its massive ecommerce efforts. It was awarded several ecommerce awards and, in 2019, it perhaps gained the greatest recognition there is on its market: being selected as the official flower supplier of the Royal Family of Romania.
However, despite being crowned left and right, the company always dreamed of being better and offering more. Therefore, it gathered customer feedback regarding its online shopping experience and most opinions highlighted there is room for improvement and a need for an efficient and intuitive website navigation. With that goal in mind, Floria replatformed to VTEX in 2021.
Ecommerce fresh as a daisy
By migrating to VTEX, Floria.ro gained plenty of new functionalities and capabilities, not to mention the possibility to customize its storefront according to its brand essence. All these allow it to remain the best on the market, growing further according to market opportunities and customer trends.
“The experience of those who send flowers has always been as important as that of those who receive them. Innovation is part of our DNA, whether we are talking about ecommerce functionalities or the development of the digital store, or floristic design and services that turn flower gifting into a memorable gesture. With the rise of q-commerce, we feel that now we can better fulfill our just-in-time flower delivery options appreciated by our clients.”
Marina Popescu, General Manager of Floria.ro
Let us deep dive into the main highlights of this migration that allows customers to order flowers online without much fuss.
Seamless shopping experience
From the get-go, customers can see available products based on the delivery location. They can also make use of a navigation based on categories and special collections such as birthday flowers. Additionally, there is a powerful search engine with filters and sorting options, features that come in handy given the numerous flower types and colours Floria.ro provides.
Once the customer finds the right selection of flowers, they have multiple options at their disposal. They can add to the wishlist for later or they can buy it directly, in which case they can choose from standard or premium versions of the same product. Moreover, they can add a card with a personalized message free of charge and also add other gifts from a line-up of product suggestions: cakes, toys, chocolate, drinks, perfume and many others.
Elevated payment methods
With VTEX, Floria’s customers can now safely pay through a card or bank transfer and even in installments. Moreover, they can pay with two cards for the same order and also securely save their preferred one for future purchases, shortening the shopping journey by a step and having a smoother checkout.
Customer data & communications
VTEX performed a data migration in compliance with GDPR so that existing customers can keep their account details, complete with order history and contact details. This eliminated any negative disruption the customer may have felt upon the site’s migration.
On the customer communications side, Floria.ro loves to stay in touch with its shoppers. It has newsletters, live chat, social media presence and proactive order updates, as well as an integrated blog on its online store.
It also supports customers throughout their shopping journey and, in the case of telesales, shoppers will be sent their required carts via email by the customer care team, with just a click left to place the order. This is achieved through VTEX’s social selling feature which essentially creates a shareable cart.
Thanks to VTEX, there’s also another great addition to all of the above. Customers can now set up a calendar in their account, where they can add all the dates worthy of flower deliveries. Floria.ro will then send reminders four days in advance so that customers don’t forget to mark these special occasions with the perfect flower arrangements and gifts, in turn increasing customer loyalty and customer lifetime value (CLV).
And speaking about customer loyalty…
Customer loyalty
Floria.ro knows a thing or two about affiliate marketing, offering a 10% discount for each referral. It also has a loyalty program, the Floria Club, that offers different benefits depending on a customer’s spending history, which is easily traceable inside their account. Likewise, gift cards and gift packages are there for the taking.
But a brand-new element that popped up recently is subscriptions. Customers are now allowed to sign up for subscriptions with daily, weekly or monthly deliveries across a specific time period and according to different themes.
Fast delivery
The migration to VTEX allowed Floria.ro to embrace a marketplace business model and expand its already-vast network of partners. By integrating the stock of its own shops and that of partner flower shops, the customer has access to a wider array of products.
From an operational perspective, however, ecommerce management becomes simple: orders are automatically allocated to a specific fulfilment partner according to real-time stock, delivery slot and distance. Once the VTEX platform matches the customer and the seller for the best available SLA, the local florist receives email and message notifications that an order was placed, which Floria’s couriers will pick up shortly. Each seller also obtains access to a personalized dashboard with information and business insights about their orders.
“With our native marketplace capabilities, we managed to develop for Floria.ro specific functionalities of a florist marketplace. Now, Floria.ro’s partners can manage orders much easier, thus offering customers an experience at the level of their expectations.”
Cristi Movilă, Eastern Europe General Manager & EMEA SVP at VTEX
This greatly streamlines the flower delivery process, expanding the same-day flower delivery that Floria.ro is renowned for to more locations. The digital flower shop currently offers 2-hour delivery in Bucharest, the capital city of Romania, as well as in 140 other cities across the nation’s territory. What is more, customers can schedule this delivery up to 365 days in advance, making sure they won’t forget it!
Cross-border ecommerce
Floria.ro is not content to being just the biggest digital flower shop in Romania. Instead, it constantly strives towards international expansion. It does so by engaging in cross-border ecommerce and delivering in 16 countries around the world in less than 24 hours.
VTEX helps on this front by easily enabling Floria.ro with a multi-language and multi-currency online store. Whether in English or Romanian, Floria.ro can certainly deliver you the bouquet you’re looking for.
A rosy future
After successfully finishing the replatforming process, the online flower shop website will be subject to constant improvements, always upgrading the experience and its offering to users with the help of their feedback.
For that and for fulfilling its great ambitions, Floria.ro has a true technological ally in VTEX, which hosts its servers on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
“The ability to integrate new features faster becomes an extremely competitive advantage for almost every digital company. Floria.ro’s migration on our ecommerce platform reconfirmed how well our ecommerce capabilities correspond to the market requirements and how efficiently the VTEX architecture can be customized.”
Cristi Movilă, Eastern Europe General Manager & EMEA SVP at VTEX
With Floria.ro and VTEX, online flower deliveries in Romania just got a boost.
