How Floral Wholesalers Win By Using Technology

Diana Gonzalez, Komet Sales

For a market that accounts to $16 billion in the US alone, the floral industry is still very resistant to use technology in the 21st century. From growers all the way to retailers, floral companies seem to avoid, deflect or undervalue tools that are real game-changers in terms of enhancing sales channels, managing floral inventory, real-time communication with key business partners and much more.

But, why is the floral industry so afraid of making that jump? Some people think that using technology means needing less staff and it has already been proven that that’s simply not the case. When using technology you see a shift as efficiency increases due to the fact that the staff is able to do more with less and focus on the core of the business - sales, of course! - instead of repetitive manual labor.

Some of the results you can expect from the use of systems specific for floral businesses that really make a difference are operating costs reduction, better sales performance and higher overall control.

Enhancing Sales Channels

Enhancing sales channels really means making the most out of all the ways in which you can get your product out there, that means phone, email, etc. Two aspects to think about when setting up your sales channels for success are:

 #1 If you really want to drive up sales, you need to look into having online presence.

The floral industry’s particularity when it comes to transactions all over the world (or at least a few states away) make it difficult to keep a constant flow of communication between all parties. You need to make it easy for your customers to buy from you - whenever, wherever - which is something that can be easily arranged with an e-commerce platform.

#2 When you decide on which sales channels to use, make the most out of them.

Even if you’re just hoping to sell over the phone, you want to make sure your salespeople have all the tools they need to be able to do the best they can. That means having easy access to the inventory they need! Have you ever thought about selling your vendors’ products without having to buy them? There is technology out there that lets you sell your vendor’s inventory without having to purchase it so you can offer all the products your customers may need in real time.

Once you get these two things down, you’ll really be taking the most advantage of technology to ensure an easy and efficient sales process that allows your customers to buy with an unprecedented flexibility.

Managing Floral Inventory

Flowers are perishable goods and they require special care, after all, they are the heart of the business. You want to make sure the sales team has full visibility of the open market and future inventory in real time but at the same time you need control over what comes in and what goes out - this can be tricky when you sell in units.

To have proper inventory rotation you need to know how old your product truly is and to do so, you need an automatic calculation of the aging for every product! Automatically being the operative word here because how can you do that manually? That’s what floral platforms are for. These easy calculations trigger automatic notifications so that your sales department is able to prioritize and sell those products with higher aging.

We could probably go on and on forever about inventory and warehouse management but the key point is that tech takes your inventory control to the next level by letting you accurately control every single stem, hard good or bouquet and this, in turn, results in less product waste and cost reduction.

Real-Time Communication

Internal connectivity means higher performance and better decision-making possibilities from all departments based on readily-available information. External communication is all about letting your customers and vendors join in on the internal processes ensuring smoother sales and procurement processes.

Communication for all parties involved (and this means both internally and externally) is, as mentioned previously, more difficult with time differences due to long distances. But why is it important to keep everyone in the know? Simply because real-time access to information is invaluable when it comes to running floral operations. It can be the difference between losing a sale due to the lack of sales channels being open 24/7 or banking on automatic setups that run all day long.

The benefits of what just one aspect of new-age technology has to offer to the floral industry are so palpable that once you truly understand them, they are difficult to oversee ever again. So take advantage of everything that is out there already!