Maybe you missed a loved one’s birthday or have been too busy to notice Valentine’s or Mother’s Day sneaking up on you, and now you need a thoughtful gift fast. Or maybe a friend just got a promotion, got engaged, or found out a baby was on the way, and you want to celebrate their special day with a beautiful bouquet.
Whatever the occasion, there are countless reasons to use and appreciate same-day flower (and gift) delivery. But have you ever wondered what goes into making all those speedy orders work — and how they get where they’re going without a hitch? You’re not alone.
That’s why we asked Ted Nelson, senior vice president products and services for BloomNet (part of the 1-800-Flowers.com family), to walk us through the process and detail exactly how these important and timely orders come together.
A history of innovation
Same-day delivery has been at the core of the 1-800-Flowers.com story since company founder Jim McCann opened his first local retail flower shop in Manhattan in 1976, Nelson explains. Back then, he notes, bike messengers or local delivery people delivered orders daily across the city by hand. As that business grew, the company’s ongoing mission to deliver the highest-quality flowers in the shortest amount of time — and to make gifting as convenient as possible — grew along with it.
“We’ve always been at the forefront of not only same-day delivery but the retail experience as a whole,” Nelson says.
Those advances include opening the first-ever e-commerce store on AOL in the ’90s and, later, becoming the first in the industry to offer same-day flower delivery via voice-enabled smart devices.
Another major step came in 2005 with the launch of the BloomNet network of florists. BloomNet is what Nelson calls a “collaborative community” of professionals where members can share ideas with fellow florists, find creative inspiration, grow their business, and further enhance and refine their ability to get orders into the hands of customers with greater speed and precision.
“We’ve always been ahead of the curve in terms of catapulting the industry forward and adopting huge advances in technology for our customers,” Nelson says. “And we take great pride in that.”
Step by step inside your order
All same-day delivery orders start the same way — with a zip code. That, Nelson explains, is how the system he helps manage and run knows what is available to deliver within any certain area on any given day.
When a customer goes to the same-day delivery page on 1-800-Flowers.com and inputs a zip code, they’re shown a list of products that are available to ship to that location. (They can also search in more targeted categories, including flowers, sympathy, gift baskets, birthday, get well, plants, and balloons.) According to Nelson, 1-800-Flowers.com and its related brands can deliver more than 500 different floral arrangements, plants, snacks, and gifts across almost all of the United States and Canada on the day they’re ordered.
“Once the customer makes their selection, that’s when our technology really takes over,” Nelson continues. “From that point, we match the customer and their order with the highest-rated local florist or flower shop in their area. Then, when they check out, we send their order to be processed.”
As Nelson explains it, the system (called BloomLink) works a little like the algorithms that suggest content on social media, essentially serving as a “pipeline” between 1-800-Flowers.com and its fulfillment partners.
“Depending on what you order, we could connect to a florist, a warehouse, or anything in between,” he explains. “Let’s say you order a dozen roses and a card or one of our signature arrangements, such as Fields of Europe. BloomLink will pass your order to a trusted florist in our network that already has the specs for everything we sell. They just go into their existing stock of fresh flowers and put everything together to meet those requirements.”
In addition to facilitating the speediest orders possible, that BloomLink network of retailers is also a huge part of what Nelson believes makes 1-800-Flowers.com so different, and more reliable, than other floral providers.
“We go to great pains to monitor and score our fulfillment partners, using our own metrics as well as customer reviews and feedback,” he says. “Everybody in our network gets a score on their quality and how well they do for us — and I know for a fact we're the only ones that do this. That is how we ensure that we’re always working with the top florists in any area — and you’re always getting the highest-quality, best product possible, in the shortest amount of time.”
From shop to doorstep
Whether you order food, flowers, or furniture for delivery, one of the biggest obstacles any same-day retailer has to overcome is what’s known in the industry as the “last mile.” Getting your product from a shop and into your customers’ hands can be costly and challenging, due to factors like traffic and weather.
It’s also where customers tend to experience the most frustration, Nelson says.
“For us, improving ‘last-mile’ delivery has always been a vitally important part of the same-day delivery process,” he explains.
Solving challenges with “last-mile” delivery means focusing on cutting-edge technology and ongoing partnerships with a variety of local delivery service providers. It means helping florist partners to better track and organize their outgoing orders, and also working to continuously expand delivery tracking with the latest driver routing and monitoring tools.
“It’s something we’re continuously working to refine and enhance each and every day,” Nelson says. “And since our computers are connected to the whole process, tracking and monitoring each and every order, it means we can send customers order updates all along the way, right up until the end, when you get that final proof of delivery message.”
But what if you order cookies, chocolate-covered strawberries, or a fruit bouquet? Instead of a florist handing your completed order off to a delivery driver, BloomLink passes your order to a local food kitchen or any other shop within the network that can process your delivery to the same specifications, Nelson explains.
“We have thousands of different, talented fulfillment partners all around the country,” he says. “One of the things that also makes our business special and unique is that, in most cases, we aren’t just pulling items from the shelves and delivering them. With very few exceptions, all our same-day delivery items are handcrafted by a local artisan.”
The road ahead
With so many products already available for same-day delivery, what’s left for Nelson and his team to conquer? Plenty, he says with a laugh.
Besides adding more unique floral arrangements and plant varieties to the company’s same-day delivery offerings, Nelson sees same-day delivery expanding into other areas as well, including different food and gift items from brands like Harry & David and Cheryl’s Cookies. Even new balloon-based gifts and same-day birthday options for kids are in the works, he adds.
“Whether you order from our regular site or opt for same-day delivery, our goal in the end is to ultimately deliver smiles,” he says. “We've already got a great same-day network now — and it’s just getting better.”
AUTHOR
Brian Good is a writer, editor, and project manager with more than 20 years experience in publishing. He's written for some of the country’s biggest magazine brands including Men’s Journal, Men’s Fitness, Shape, Men's Health, Muscle & Fitness, US Weekly, AARP: The Magazine, and websites including Mashed, Health Digest, DiversityInc and others. Good specializes on topics including lifestyle, travel, pop culture, health, food and nutrition, spirits, products, politics, and activism.
