When Patrick Hall purchased Élan Flowers in 2015, he just wanted to make beautiful flower arrangements. Instead, he spent a significant amount of time fighting with the business’s website. It didn’t work the way Hall or the customers wanted it to, leaving him fielding phone calls from disgruntled customers who couldn’t complete their online orders.

“It eats into your credibility,” says Hall, who owns the New York City shop with his wife, Christine.

Over five years, the Halls slogged through website workarounds, fought with data transfer issues, and struggled with an e-commerce company that didn’t understand the needs of a local flower shop. In 2020, the Halls began working with a website provider specifically for retail florists. The only customer feedback Hall says he gets now is about how beautiful the website is, which means he gets to spend more time on flowers.

“It helped us increase our productivity, which increases profit,” says Hall.

Your online storefront is an essential space — especially as the winter holidays approach. In fact, in a survey conducted by the Society of American Florists after the 2021 winter holidays, 36 percent of respondents reported an increase in the number of sales via their websites — outperforming walk-in, phone and wire-in orders. Florists must ensure their websites provide a customer service experience on par with what’s provided in their brick-and-mortar stores.

“Your website should attract new gifters, guide them to make stress-free online purchases, and nurture them through the entire gifting process,” says Daniela Marquez, vice president of growth for Lovingly, a website and POS provider for florists. “ The key is treating online customers who you can’t see like you do the ones you can.”

Save Customers Time

“In the online world, seconds matter,” says Marquez. “If your website doesn’t load lightning fast, consumers will order flowers and gifts from one that does.”

Unnecessarily high-resolution images, excessive plugins, and pop-up windows can slow site load speeds. Marquez also points to poor navigation, which can prevent customers from finding what they want. Even if they do, customers may still abandon their carts.

“If products don’t display right away and the checkout process takes too much time, you could be losing more customers — and orders — than you realize,” says Marquez.

She encourages requiring only the minimum information to complete the sale, noting that “every additional field reduces sales conversion.”

Accept All Payments

One frustrating online customer experience is finding the perfect gift only to discover the website doesn’t accept a preferred payment method. Sundaram Natarajan, president of gotFlowers?, a company that helps florists with various business operations, including website management, says florists should accept all methods of online payment, including international credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Venmo.

Essentially, he says, if a customer wants to use it, a florist should support it. If they don’t, the customer will find someone who does.

Keep It Simple

Natarajan discourages florists from showcasing a lot of arrangements on their website’s home page. Overloading customers with images, even beautiful ones, can be overwhelming.

“Seventy percent of online buyers are male and we like things to be simple,” says Natarajan. “Don’t give me too many choices. We recommend just having three products on the home page at three price points.”

By and large, he says most customers will pick one of those products.

When Shelly Hagan, owner of Flowers of Charlotte (North Carolina) and Flowers of Jacksonville (Florida), simplified things last year for Mother’s Day by temporarily displaying a small selection of arrangements, her customers responded positively.

“They told us how nice it was to not have hundreds of arrangements to choose from, plus they raved about how fresh the arrangements were,” says Hagan. “The benefit for us operationally was that we were able to better manage our inventory by selling arrangements that used recipes that we had in stock, enabling us to make and deliver more arrangements, which means we made a lot more money.”

Keep it Fresh

“What does the buyer want? The buyer wants something new,” says Natarajan. “It’s very important for florists to have new designs on their website.”

Customers can lose interest in businesses if their inventories don’t change, he says. He encourages florists to rotate home page arrangements, and add new designs to interior pages when appropriate. Florists can use the opportunity to highlight flowers that showcase the seasons, or to promote holidays and special occasions.

Cater to Mobile Users

“It’s next to impossible to shop or buy from a website that’s stuck in the Dark Ages,” says Marquez. “The goal is to meet online gifters where they are, and three out of four are shopping on mobile devices, not desktops.”

Responsive web design enables websites to adapt to the size of the screen or type of device the customer is using. This prevents customers from having to zoom in, scroll sideways, or rotate their devices. Most won’t, Marquez says. Instead, they’ll spend their money with a different florist.

“If you want your share of the $3.56 trillion of all mobile commerce sales, mobile-first design is essential,” says Marquez.

Laurie Herrera is a contributing writer for the Society of American Florists.