Compare and contrast pricing of flowers and Valentine's flowers with fully interactive segmentation
Identify how key competitors present products within the PLP
Understand how retailers approach email marketing, when and how do they engage their audience
Compare and contrast the customer experience throughout the sales funnel and at key touchpoints
Who's included
Gins 'n' Roses compares seven well known UK based digital florists
Read the report
A review of the data and key insights
Executive Summary
The seven digital florists within the benchmark have clearly taken great care to ensure a competitive pricing position, with the notable exception of Interflora who are, on average, £30 more expensive.
With a significant proportion of products falling into the £20-£40 price range and PLP pages organised to ensure that lower-cost, more affordable, products are placed in prime position (rank 1-10) it is clear that price is a key "health-factor" for these retailers.
At the same time, these retailers are highly aligned in terms of customer experience with a significant focus on the gifting experience and use of imagery throughout the e-commerce buying journey.
On the other hand, in their attempts to ensure competitiveness and meet user experience best practices, retailers have failed to address several opportunities for growing sales volume through the online channel; there is a widespread lack of urgency messaging and absent information regarding product care and expected lifespan.
Furthermore, whilst there is a peak in email marketing activity in the days immediately preceding Valentines (with the 9th February being a key day for outreach) the data does not suggest that email marketing is being aligned to a customer experience that effectively builds customer interest and purchase intent.
Overall, the benchmark highlights a widespread opportunity for online florists to grow sales volumes through clearer urgency messaging, product information and a marketing experience that ensures aligned of messaging between emails and the digital sales funnel.
Price
Across retailers average price is consistently in the £40 to £50 range but for one exception - Interflora, where we see a significantly higher average price of £80. This is potentially indicative of Interflora seeking a more premium position in the market but whether that is reflected in the customer experience is a different question…
Whilst average product price is c. £50 for most retailers this is masking a significant left shift in the spread of product pricing, across most retailers in the benchmark (aside from Interflora) there is a significant proportion of products that fall in the £20-£40 price bracket whilst a small number of very high value items pull the average value towards the £50 mark.
The question is less about the price of individual products and more about how retailers frame their overall pricing position.
Position
When we investigate the relationship between product price and position in the PLP we see retailers prioritising products that fall below the average value of c. £50.
Products in prime position i.e. PLP rank 1-10 are on typically £5-£10 cheaper than the average item value, this is clearly a tactical decision made by retailers to ensure the most competitively priced products are placed at the top of the page but when everyone adopts the same approach, everyone looks the same.
Customer experience
As is often the case there is a wide range in customer experience effectiveness but the gifting experience is clearly of significant strategic focus across the market with many retailers providing users dedicated gifting experiences, in many cases outside of the core cart - checkout journey.
Whilst this does provide a clear and easy to use experience for gifting, this also disrupts the core E-Commerce customer experience (PDP > Cart > Checkout), whether this generates increased sales volume and order value, or actually puts customers off from buying single bouquets (i.e. if they are not interested in the gifting experience) requires further investigation by retailers.
Outside of gifting, we do however see several consistent gaps in customer experience; urgency messaging has been poorly implemented through sales funnels as a means of encouraging purchase and there is a widespread lack of product information regarding bouquet care and lifespan with several retailers also lacking important information regarding delivery.
eFlorist
Haute Florist
Interflora
Serenata Flowers
Prestige Flowers
Bloom and Wild
Arena Flowers
Email marketing
Email marketing activity across retailers is highly consistent with a peak in email volume in the few days prior to Valentine's - with the 9th February being a key day for email outreach.
This does not point to any particular failure, however the apparent lack of effective urgency messaging and product care information within the core buying journey suggests that whilst retailers are attempting to leverage urgency at the top of the funnel they have not aligned the core digital sales experience to this objective.
This represents a significant opportunity for retailers to capture the competitive advantage.
