Valentine’s day is just around the corner and for florists, it is one of the busiest days. That’s because it’s the second-biggest commercial holiday following Black Friday. In 2018, following Black Friday’s $60 billion sales, Valentine’s Day generated $19 billion. One year later and the number only increased. According to the National Retail Federation, in 2020, $27.4 billion was expected to be spent on Valentine’s Day in the United States. Whereas, in the UK, it was estimated to be worth just over £1bn in 2020. This sums up how important Valentine’s day is for several businesses. And one of the most important businesses that this day caters explicitly to is the Florists. 

The very first thing when a person thinks about a gift for this special occasion is flowers. Globally, almost 60% of all flowers and plants sold are actually purchased as a gift for someone else. And that’s why Valentine’s day is especially crucial for flower stores. According to the Society of American Florists, in 2019, 28% of Americans bought flowers as a gift for Valentine’s day. Whereas in 2020, 37% of people bought flowers as a gift. 

Although easily perishable, flowers are one of the highly desirable commodities because of their fragrance, exquisite beauty, and decorativeness. Just last year in 2020, US shoppers were expected to spend $2.3 billion on flowers for Valentine’s Day. This trend will most definitely continue this year as well and that’s why we thought of helping your WooCommerce flower store ace Valentine’s Day preparations.

How to prep your WooCommerce flower store for Valentine’s day?

A. Back end prep for your WooCommerce flower store

1. Inventory check

The very first step in getting started for your Valentine’s day prep is an inventory check. Here, you need to not only keep a track of your existing inventory but also the inventory that you will stock up for Valentine’s Day. This includes not just your flowers but other important supplies such as floral wire, tape, tissue paper, vases, boxes, etc. That’s because you’re not just selling flowers but you’re selling an experience. And to do so, your product needs to be in perfectly good shape- from the condition of your flowers to the ribbon used around the wrapper.  

As for just flowers, you need to look at your previous year’s sales and which flowers, in particular, were the best sellers for Valentine’s Day. For example, according to an analysis of the economics of Valentine’s Day, in 2019, approximately 224 million roses were grown and sold.

Look up general statistics like this as well as stats that are particular to your store. Combining both, you can easily strategize the right amount of inventory that needs to be stocked for Valentine’s day. You should start this prep at least two to three weeks prior since there are customers who would book their orders in advance. We would recommend checking out the Smart Manager plugin for this purpose! 

2. Provide Add-ons

For Valentine’s Day 2020, American shoppers were to spend $2.4 billion on candy, $2 billion on gift cards, and $1.3 billion on greeting cards. That’s right, as mentioned earlier, your flower store needs to provide a romantic experience instead of just selling flowers. And that’s why additional supplies such as chocolates, cards, soft toys, balloons, candies, gift packages, etc. need to be incorporated into your store. These additional supplies will not only help your sales but also ensure the possibility of customers finding everything related to Valentine’s day in one place. 

Source the right supplier for these ‘add-ons’ product because cross-selling will help you in the longer run. And especially during special occasions like Valentine’s Day, these add-ons are bound to be sold at a quicker pace.

Add-ons in La botiga de la flor

3. Remove out of stock products

Imagine when a customer browses your flower collection and finds the perfect one for their partner. However, after clicking on it they find out that it’s out of stock. Such a bad experience directly affects your sales. It was found that 91% of customers don’t engage with a business anymore once they’ve had a bad experience with it. 

Keeping your online store updated at all times is the best way to ensure that you don’t lose a sale. Especially when you know that some of your customers might be in a hurry to purchase a gift during Valentine’s week.

B. Front-end prep for your WooCommerce flower store

1. Update product pictures

One of the major deciding factors for buying a product is its image. And updating your product pictures can go a long way. Since Valentine’s day calls for romance, you can customize your product pictures to fit its theme. It is especially needed for gift packages that would incorporate both the flowers and add-ons from your store. 

2. Create hype for Valentine’s day

In order for customers to shop for Valentine’s day, your online store needs to look as romantic and Valentine’s day oriented as possible. And to do this, you need to begin at least a few days, if not a week before Valentine’s day. According to Criteo, in 2018, just two days before Valentine’s Day, in the US, 9x more flowers than usual were sold online. Across Europe, 7x more flowers were sold on that same day. That’s right, your focus should not be on just the 14th of February, rather the week preceding it.

Once you start hyping up the day, you are most likely to find sales earlier. Some of the things that you can do to create the hype are – 

• mentioning when this day is arriving (perhaps a countdown? You can check out the Finale plugin for this) 
• what are some of the new things that customers can look forward to in your store (for example- a special Valentine’s day collection)  

Valentine’s collection at Stavros Floral Design

• revamping the website’s homepage to a theme that fits this special day
• incorporating banners that mention the details of your Valentine’s day/week deals 

Valentine’s day banner this year at 50Gram

Valentine’s Day banner this year at Linda’s Flowers

3. Feature lower selling as well as best selling products

In 2019, red roses occupied 69% of sales on Valentine’s Day in the US. Other flowers such as tulips, carnations, or lilies created 41%, mixed flowers made 45%, and lastly, plants made 29% of sales. Looking at this, we can easily notice a hierarchy when it comes to the customer’s flower preferences. They prefer roses, especially the red ones because those are the epitome of ‘love’ for them. Even though roses become the go-to purchase during Valentine’s day, your flower store needs to keep the other flowers in mind since they also create a lot of sales during this time. 

50Gram marketing their different products for Valentine’s day 

The best way to go about featuring your products is by providing a mix of your best selling as well as lower selling flowers. Just because they’re lower selling does not make them a bad product. Highlighting them separately during a day where you create most of your sales can help you sell them. You can incorporate both the best selling and lower selling flowers together into your gift packages!

4. Provide Promotions

Promotions play a very important part during Valentine’s day for flower stores. It’s because of these promotions that the customers get enticed to purchase from their stores. Incentives such as special offers and discounts are always used as a strategy by florists.

As part of Valentine’s day sales, in 2018, it was found that around 46% of florists said they would provide incentives for early ordering. Here, it can be noted that some florists try to provide incentives before Valentine’s day instead of on Valentine’s day. And on Valentine’s day, you will rather find an increase in the prices. That’s because the day itself is pretty hectic and last moment orders require extra work from the florists’ side. 

This is just one scenario of how you can decide to provide incentives to your customers. You can also provide your special offers and discounts based on a market overview as well as what has been selling and what hasn’t in your store. 

5. Pre-arrange delivery orders

We previously mentioned how Valentine’s day is a pretty hectic workday for florists. A way to reduce some of this stress is by pre-arranging your delivery orders. You can start getting orders from around mid-January onwards, which is the ideal time to start the countdown towards Valentine’s day. It’s also wise to mention the last order date for your customers to get their flowers on time for Valentine’s day. You can even offer to provide your deliveries on a specific date and time chosen by the customer themself. 

Let’s say, for example, a customer wishes to gift flowers for every day of the week leading to Valentine’s day. They can simply choose the different bouquets or gift packages from your store that need to be delivered on a particular day and time. Now, to make this possible, you will require plugins that handle your store’s local deliveries on specific dates and times.

Here’s where our Order Delivery Pro for WooCommerce plugin comes to your rescue. With it, you will also be able to decrease the amount of time spent on contacting customers to find out when they would like their orders to be shipped, set the plugin options based on shipping codes so that your orders are always punctual, and do much more! Another great option for you is our Product Delivery Date Pro for WooCommerce plugin if you wish to provide the delivery date and time on your product page.  Here’s how different WooCommerce flower stores are using this plugin-

a) Online Flower stores using Order Delivery Pro for WooCommerce plugin 

With Order Delivery Pro for WooCommerce plugin, your flower store will be able to show a delivery date calendar on the checkout page. Through it, the customers can choose their delivery date. What’s more is that with this plugin, you will be able to show time slots or time ranges between which you will make your deliveries. The customers will be able to select their preferred time from the checkout page.

Testimony for Order Delivery Date Pro

Here are a few examples of how online WooCommerce flower stores are using this plugin- 

1) The Tiny Bloom 

Based in Las Vegas, U.S.A, this store is all about flowers, handmade goods, and gifts. After choosing their ‘Plant love’ product from their Valentine’s day collection, here’s how the checkout page appears

It can be seen here that the customers can only choose between the dates 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th during the month of February 2021!

2) Stavros Floral Design 

This Greek flower store excels in selling bouquets, flower arrangements, flowers in glass cases, and so much more. With the help of the Order Delivery Date Pro plugin, they’ve been able to help customers decide their order delivery dates and time. Here’s how their checkout page appears –

Desired Delivery Date calendar on the Checkout Page

Desired Delivery time dropdown on the Checkout Page

3) La botiga de la flor

This Spanish flower shop provides free shipping across Spain. Enchant yourself with gorgeous bouquets of varied flowers here. As you can see in the image below, they have used the Order Delivery Date Pro plugin to showcase the days on which they deliver their flowers. Since they do not deliver on the weekends, they have disabled those time slots for every month. 

4) 50Gram

This Malaysian store sells flowers, jewelry, cakes, gifts, perfumes, and bundles. Their gift packages incorporate various things such as flower bouquets and jewelry. For Valentine’s day, they’ve added gifts such as ‘Brudee Toothbrush Valentine Couple Value Bundle’ on their site.

Their checkout page has the Delivery date added in. A note that states the specifics of the delivery date, such as the one mentioned in the below image ‘On-demand delivery will deliver on the chosen date, while courier service will post out on the next working day’ is also mentioned for clarity.  

b) Online Flower stores using Product Delivery Date Pro for WooCommerce plugin

With Product Delivery Date Pro for WooCommerce plugin, you will be able to provide the decided delivery date and time on the product page itself! Here are some examples of online WooCommerce flower stores using this plugin 

1) Fleurish Floral Designs 

When clicked on any of this Canadian flower store’s exquisite bouquets for purchase, on the product page you’ll directly be able to see the Delivery date option. Customers can easily decide the delivery date here.  

2) FlorBarata

From actual rose bouquets to gummy rose, FlorBarata has it all. This Spanish store is filled with unique products such as flower bears and even the enchanted rose from Beauty and the Beast. On the product page, you can easily see their delivery dates. On Sundays, you will find that they don’t deliver and that’s why those dates have been disabled from the calendar. 

What’s even more interesting about this product page is that just below the delivery date, they’ve showcased their ‘add-ons’. As previously mentioned, add-ons help create additional income and by incorporating them on the product page, FlorBarata has found the perfect strategy for Valentine’s day!  

To further enhance the product page you can check out our Product Input Fields for WooCommerce plugin. With it, you will provide the customers with the power to customize their product – whether they want to add Valentine’s greeting, ask for it to be gift wrapped, increase the number of products or change the color, all of it will be made possible with this plugin!

3) My Precious Petals

This Malaysian store is known for offering more than 200 choices of flowers to their customers. Their products range from Hand bouquets to flower boxes and even flowers for special occasions. Here’s how the product page of one of their Hand Bouquet looks like- 

The Society of American Florists, in 2018, even found out that 45% of florists would offer incentives such as discounts, free items, add-ons, upgrades, and priority services for early delivery. You can incorporate these incentives along with early delivery so that you can get more orders! 

6. Watch your sales

Lastly, the only thing remaining for this prep list is keeping a track of your finances as well as sales. Don’t lose sight of these two important things because they will help you figure out your bottom line. Review your daily sales, reports of accounts payable, and receivable to understand your progress of Valentine’s sales. 

According to Statista, worldwide 69% of shopping carts are abandoned. And during Valentine’s day, this scenario does not look so great. Your best bet is to recover that lost revenue by using a cart recovery plugin like Abandoned Cart Pro for WooCommerce. 

With this plugin, you will be able to set automated reminder emails, texts, and Facebook messages to customers who abandon their shopping carts. You can even choose who to send these reminders to! Not just this, but the newly added feature of being able to add multiple Add to Cart PopUp templates on your site can help you sell your flowers in a better way by capturing your customer’s email address. This feature will capture the email address of your customer earlier in the shopping process instead of waiting until the Checkout page so that you can retarget them with abandoned cart emails if they abandon their cart.  Here’s a look at how you can create a special Valentine’s day Add to Cart popup template –

a. Online Flower stores using the Abandoned Cart Pro for WooCommerce plugin

1) River Oaks Plant House 

This Houston-based shop offers premium flowers such as roses, rare orchids, and much more. In order to curb their abandoned cart rates, this store has opted for the Abandoned Cart Pro plugin. With it, they have created an Add to Cart pop for capturing the email addresses of their visitors. Here’s how it looks 

Along with this, if the customer has forgotten about their cart, they are reminded by a timely email that shows what all is in their cart. Here’s a look at the email-

2) Linda’s Flowers

Linda’s Flowers has followed the same route as River Oaks Plant House by using the Abandoned Cart Pro plugin. Here’s a look at two of this Missouri based shop’s abandoned cart emails that have been timed at different intervals.

First email after Cart Abandonment 

Second email after Cart Abandonment with 5% discount 

With this plugin, you can customize your email content however you want! 

Wrapping up

We’re sure that with the above-mentioned preparations Valentine’s day is bound to become a breezy affair. Follow them and succeed in creating the most romantic Valentine’s day this year for your customers.