November 16, 2010
Use An Automated Florist Website To Make Online Dales
Internet came to Toronto as a public media and started gaining public acceptance, circa 1997. Lots of writing and wild predictions accompanied Net’s arrival in newspaper, magazines and books. It is interesting to look back more than dozen years later and compare what we see about Internet today with the predictions, at the beginning. Internet and shopping on the Net was primarily associated with new efficiencies of doing business leading to better pricing for products and services for the benefit of customers. Internet gurus predicted massive and almost compulsory adoption of Internet as a main merchandising media, in all sectors of the economy. Those businesses not willing to adapt the Internet fast enough were in business jeopardy.
Gift and florists retailers in Toronto were deemed to be pioneers of the change. Lots of enthusiastic Toronto florists jumped on the bandwagon of the change and looked for ways to establish a quick presence on the Net. Majority of florists did not know, what they were doing. What was the right thing to do? Many florists were scared to a hasty action by listening to the predictions and web designers canvassing Toronto florists for the sake of getting their business, while using scare tactics. Many design companies were pointing to the facts, how flower delivery business has been already shaped by large organizations, using central processing, a national 1-800 number and large advertising budget. These florists’ national organizations provided convenience to the consumers and advantages of sending flowers to the loved ones, anywhere in the world. If you do not join the Internet, you are taking a chance as Toronto florist being left behind, just to handle smaller and smaller sizes of the florists’ pie.
Stakeholders in new orders were cultivating image of impending mass exodus of shoppers to the Net. The traditional retail sector with flowers would shrink and only small pie will remain for in-person, and on the street shopping. The arguments that web design companies were presenting were convincing and many florists signed up in order to avoid missing the boat to the future.
Shopping on the Net means a shopping from a photo accompanied by a product description. Online shopping was explained to be done in a fully robotic way, with no live person from the merchant side involved. This kind of shopping means great convenience for the consumers since there is no need to go out, but shop from the home or office 24/7 and pay online with your credit card in a secure manner.
That was the blue print for florists in Toronto, but how does it match with real live execution and experience that local florists gained over the years? Definitely there was a dramatic shift to the Internet shopping in Toronto and GTA for flowers and gifts, when more people gained their confidence in safety of online shopping. Some traditional floral retailers in Toronto have moved out of their retail stores to the more economical locations in industrial parks and concentrated their business entirely on the web. Majority of florists in Toronto kept their retail location and just added a website to complement their traditional way in retail business. First were brochure type websites soon to replaced with new websites providing full automated shopping basket and credit cards processing. Secure transmitting of credit card information to the merchant for a manual bank approval is more preferable to the florists for number of reasons.
The final flowers and gifts prices have to be readjusted many times due to several reasons. Substitutions since every florist in Toronto reserves the right to substitute by a similar product. Redeliveries due to insufficient information provided by the online purchasers are usually also charged extra.
Florists in Toronto have recognized that doing floral business online provides some rude awakening from earlier expectations they held on the web. The first expectations were fostered by the web designers and proved to be a great fallacy. Once you pay the design for your website, you just have an inexpensive hosting to pay monthly, but you can enjoy a free ride on the web. Many florists ordered their new websites thinking that they have a right to free traffic on the web. This misconception was quickly put to the rest as more Toronto floral retailers have realized in a hard way that gaining valuable traffic on the web is a proposition as much expensive, as having prime retail location on a busy street. One set of new costs has replaced old and traditional costs being associated with prime real estate in Toronto.
Traffic is very valuable and having a website does not guarantee any placement on search engines quarry results. Your floral website has to be optimized to appear in the top three search results and any lower ranking means much lower results on a business side.
Ad Words or pay-per-click are additional promotional programs and it can be an expensive alternative. Participation in the program should be left to the expert who will charge a monthly management fee.Unless you have a plenty of time, it is better to leave pay-per-click to the expert. You have to compete with other florists for the top position on sponsored search results, driving the price for your keywords up. Since seven of ten searchers prefers to click to the natural search results, rather than a sponsored searches, it is better to pay to have your web site fully optimized. Your monthly costs of harnessing the traffic to your web site might be equivalent to the monthly price to pay for a prime location around Yonge and Bloor.
The next fallacy of doing business on the Internet, had been an expectation of automating all retail functions and having a lower payroll. Although Internet shoppers order online, they still require personal service and assurances that their order is safe and nothing will go wrong. There is nothing better for a shopper than to be able call your local Toronto online florist and discuss details of order, you have just placed online.
If a Toronto florist does not provide a phone number along with his business address, listed on the web site, Internet shoppers will move on to the next available website. Net shoppers are looking for a local Toronto florist with a real store in Toronto and selling in Canadian dollars. Shoppers request talking to a well informed employee, regarding the details of their order placed online. Net purchaser would like to avoid placing an order with a flower-broker, w website soliciting orders online, only to sell to a real florist to fill the order. Regardless how well you explain on your website your products, business and delivery policies, Net shoppers will call and ask the same questions about it. People are looking for comfort that their orders for the loved ones are well taken care of. Customers’ service in the age of Net shopping is still alive and necessary part of doing business online. It is necessary to keep the phone lines open 7 days a week minimum of 12 hours a day. Customer service personnel should have a great product knowledge and ability to handle all situations including the problems.
Above are just few observations based on real experience of doing business as a florist in Toronto. Starting with a well established store in a traditional way and changing in scope to generate a bigger part of business coming from online.
Are you a Toronto florist looking for online promotion? Check out the Toronto flowers online directory, that has a separate section for Baby’s Showers Gifts delivery.
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