Having spent six years as a sales trainer with FloralStrategies, Samuel Bowles knows plenty of tactics to guide customers who order by phone to pricier, more profitable arrangements. But when it comes to Valentine’s Day, a high-volume holiday requiring temporary workers, he doesn’t like giving amateurs too many opportunities. Instead, Bowles, general manager for Allen’s Flowers & Plants in San Diego, encourages shoppers to order online.

“We’ve spent the last five years training our customers in subtle — and sometimes explicit—ways to place their orders online for multiple reasons,” he said. “It’s tough to find temps who can answer the phone properly. Online orders reduce our labor costs, because we need fewer people to answer phones. And it makes sure we can control what we sell.”

The Allen’s Valentine menu features 11 arrangements priced from $65 to $140, ranging from traditional options (long stem red roses) to more exotic offerings with premium flowers (proteas, orchids, dahlias, etc.), as well as a small collection of gourmet “crates” that pair plants and flowers with champagne, chocolate and other goodies.

To direct customers toward the website, Bowles includes the shop’s URL (allensflowers.com) in every social media post. “The single best driver during a holiday, though, is our phone greeting,” he said. It goes like this: Thank you for calling Allen’s Flowers & Plants! Remember, you can view our full collection and place your order quickly and securely at Allens Flowers dot com.

Want more ideas on how to make more money through online sales? In advance of Mother’s Day 2020, Vonda LaFever, AIFD, PFCI, and Kami Martin, of Flower Clique, led a webinar for the Society of American Florists on how to prep your website for maximum holiday profit — a topic that applies equally well for Valentine’s Day. Among their tips:

• Do like Allen’s Flowers and pare down your menu. “You are not the Cheesecake Factory,” Martin said. “You cannot — and should not — offer everything under the sun.” With resources (both product and labor) in short supply, you have to be especially selective in what you sell this year. “You want recipes that use the same flowers,” LaFever said, adding that you might start with pre-made consumer bouquets and then come up with arrangements that match those.
• Hone your homepage. “Without fail, the homepage is responsible for the vast majority of sales,” Martin said. Make sure it features the designs you most want to sell (i.e. don’t populate it with $30 arrangements) and that photos appear “above the fold” (near the top of the page, so customers don’t have to scroll).
• Make sure everything’s up to date. When you run out of a particular option, don’t simply remove it. “Mark it as ‘sold out,’ because that phrase shows you have high demand and creates a sense of urgency,” Martin said. That said, be sure to move items still available to the top of your homepage, LaFever advised. “You don’t want to discourage people from the get-go with a row of ‘sold out’ messages.” In addition, the women recommend doing a price check on your site. “Have your prices gone up? If so, you need to charge a little more than usual,” LaFever said. “It’s so important that you make a profit.”

For greater details and more tips, watch the full webinar here.

Katie Vincent is the senior contributing writer and editor for the Society of American Florists.