I have come across this great new florist related website called bloomsta. It has a forum, current floral news, classifieds, photo galleries, and lots more. I suggest everyone check it out. www.bloomsta.com

See you all there!!!

Hi Helen,

Yes this is something we have thought about in the past? I guess it would be possible to do it two ways..

1. Just a pic of the arrangement sent to the recipient taken at the time the flowers were made up....

or

2. A pic that is taken at the time the recipient receives the flowers. This way would be more personal and maybe we could also offer the recipient to add in a personal message on the SMS. With today's phones that's not to hard and if the customer didn't have a phone that could receive images we could always put it on the web for them to view.

There are however problems with number 2. a) would delivery drivers be able to take the photo's, b) what would happen if the recipient wasn't home? would you take a photo of the flowers on the porch / or with next door?

With this in mind number 1 is probably the best option but do you think most florists would be able to do this?

Also regarding your website: To give your site a helping hand you can always try and list it in any / all of your local free on-line directories. Just do a search on Google or any search engine for "<Town> Directories" and you will probably come up with 1/2 a dozen free ones that you can list in.

Cheers
Warwick@Petals

Hi Sam,

Yes I know I have a web site thru the Petals Floristry directory & it is very good I often have my computer sitting on that page as a marketing tool should any one come through my door as it looks quite nice but as yet I haven't had one order in all the time its been running. I did help a customers over the phone to log on. But because all the sites are similar & its not actually the florists personal arrangements customers dont get an actual look at the work done by that florist to look at.

A good idea would be if after the customer has ordered we some how could send them a picture of their order so that they see what therv'e bought, possibally by sending an SMS photo thru to their mobile phone. I may do this I thought to my customers although it will cost me 75c I believe. Yhis may be a good idea for all florists. What do you think? The customer of course would have to have a picture recieveing setup on their mobile.

Kind Regards Helen

Hi Helen,

I am not sure if you know that you have a free website from petals that is already live and running on the web for you right now? You can promote this website to your customers without having to pay to have a site made up etc.

This means that your customers can order their local flowers through you online but also means that they can organise their "distance" orders through you but they dont necessarily have to come to your door to do this. If you promote the site properly you have an advantage over your competition in some ways because although they have the street traffic you have the "online traffic" which means that your customers can order from home/work 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

If you would like to check out your website go to the petals florist directory and search for your town.

HI PETALS, & HELLO ANNA,

IVE OFTEN THOUGHT OF DOING ADWORDS THRU GOOGLE MY SELF BUT AFTER READING YOUR COMMENTS ANNA I DONT THINK I WILL. I'M ONLY A SMALL COUNTRY HOME BASED FLORIST. THERES ANOTHER FLORIST HERE AS WELL WHICH MAKES OUR COMPERTITION EQUAL AS FAR AS THE TOWM ALTHOUGH THE OTHER FLORIST HAS A SHOP FRONT WERE A WHERE I HAVEN'T SO UNDOUBTEDLY SHE MAKE MORE OF THE GOOD STUFF THAN I. BUT I LIKE THE IDEA OF BEING AT HOME AS I HAVE TEENAGERS & FEEL THEY NEED A PARENTS DIRECTION WHICH MEANS STAYING IN FULL EYE VIEW OF THEIR ACTIVITIES IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. BUT I LOVE TO MAKE MORE MONEY TOO AS I ONLY JUST COVER MY COST & WOULD DEARLY LOVE TO MAKE A WAGE.iV'E BEEN IN BUSINESS AROUND TWO YEARS & YES IT DEAFINATELY HAS GROWN THRU WORD OF MOUTH, WEEKLY ADVERTISING IN THE LOCAL PAPER & YELLOW PAGES HAVE GIVEN ME ORDERS FROM THE OUT SIDE I'D OF OTHER WISE NEVER HAVE HAD. YELLOW PAGES ARE DEAFINATLEY WORTH IT.

iVE REISTERED WITH A DOMAIN NAME & AM NOW THINKING OF MY OWN WEB SITE. I'VE BEEN TOLD LIKE ANYTHING IT TAKES TIME FOR YOU TO GET KNOWN BUT ONCE YOU DIRECT PEOPLE TO THAT SITE THRU DROPPING A BUSINESS MAGNET OF YOUR SELF & SHOP PEOPLE WILL AUTOMATICALLY PUT YOU ON THE FRIDGE FOR FUTURE REFERENCE & MAYBE IN TIME IT WILL PAY OFF. tHATS WHAT IV'E BEEN EXPERIMENTING WITH THE PAST FEW MONTHS. ALL THE LOCALS HAVE CERTAINLY BEEN TAKING THEM FROM THE PUBS/MITRE/10/CHEMIST ETC.

LET ME KNOW IF IF YOU COME UP WITH ANY MORE IDEA'S AS I'D BE INTERESTED

kIND REGARDS HELEN

I used google pay per click and found it really good for a little while....but then for some reason my budget per day was disappearng very rapidly with no sales. I can only assume that some competitor was clicking my adverts and draining my daily budget so that my ad disappeared and theirs was left. This is a known behavour called click fraud and I really dont know how to avoid it. I asked google if they could track the IP addresses of the people clicking my link but they said this was not possible and while 'they had secret methods of trying to prevent this happening' they could not guarentee it. And I guess it isnt really in their interest as they get paid per click! I think you should give it a go but be very wary...use your site stats if you can to see how many visits you are getting and how long they are staying on your site to be sure it isn't just a nasty person clicking away all your money. Once I have full access to my web code, I might be able to see where the clicks are coming from and if I find out who is cheating the system - watch out! :)

Should I pay for listings for my shop (eg. Google Adwords) on Search Engines?

Over the past 14 years at Petals we have experienced the impact of a number of new technologies. Undoubtedly, the internet has revolutionised the way that people shop... and therefore, the way that businesses advertise.

Paid online advertising listings (for example, Google Adwords), appear on webpages and usually relate to the type of search that you're doing. In instances where people are searching for a 'flower delivery service', a whole range of Adwords will appear that may be titled 'Flowers Australia' or 'Send Flowers Online'. These words are the paid advertising. You may have seen them at some stage when you were looking at a website or search engine page.

There are usually two types of paid listings... those that are 'pay per click' and those that are 'pay per sale'. The first is where you have to pay a fee each time a customer clicks on your link (which doesn't mean they'll buy each time!)... and the second is where you only pay a fee each time a customer makes a sale through your link.

At Petals, we've always approached the concept from a purely economic angle.
We've always done our sums and ensured the exercise was going to be profitable for us before we've committed to anything. We certainly don't advise any business to go ahead with this advertising before they've confirmed that it's going to make a difference to their bottom line.

We've always worked out how the advertising will make a difference to our bottom line by doing a simple cost benefit analysis for each situation.
Firstly, you need to work out how much you make on an average order, then you need to know how much each click will cost you. If you divide the two, you'll find out how many clicks you can afford to pay for before you need to make an order. Anything over this, and you'll be losing money.

However, this is only our opinion, based on our own personal experiences.
We'd like to know what others think, and we'd love to hear from you! Add your comment today!