With February 14th around the corner, love is in the air and Valentine’s Day flower delivery orders are starting to roll in as quick as an arrow from cupid’s bow. While Mother’s Day still takes the cake as the biggest annual holiday for giving flowers, Valentine’s comes in at a close second. According to the National Retail Federation, Americans spent $21.8B on Valentine’s Day gifts for loved ones last year.
Is your business ready to handle the incoming surge of flower delivery orders this year? To make the process easier, we’ve compiled a checklist of things to keep in mind as you get ready for Valentine’s Day 2023. Keep reading to learn more about how best to prepare for this year’s day of love.
Valentine’s Day Flower Delivery Checklist
Follow this checklist to make sure your flower business is ready for the Valentine’s Day boom in in-person and delivery orders.
✔️ Cover the classics
Before starting anything else, it’s important to make sure you’re offering an appealing selection of Valentine’s-themed products. Start with the classic Valentine’s Day gift: a bouquet of red roses, which symbolize romantic love. According to Rio Roses, red roses make up 69% of all roses purchased. This is a popular perennial choice.
Since Valentine’s Day is also a day to celebrate all kinds of love—not just romantic love—make sure to have other varieties and colors of roses available for customers looking to give flowers to other loved ones. For example, a blend of light pink and white roses represents happiness and joy, and yellow roses symbolize friendship.
✔️ Offer unique alternative arrangements
Since not everyone wants to be traditional, make sure to offer unique alternative arrangements that will appeal to a wide range of customers. In fact, last year pandemic supply chain issues caused a shortage of roses in Canada, so it’s a good idea to have other options on hand—even gifts that don’t feature flowers at all!
Your creativity is the limit here: explore arrangements with other flowers like colorful tulips, tropical blooms, peonies, cacti and succulents, and more. Pair them with non-floral items like teddy bears, chocolate, and other decorative elements to build festive gifts that stand out. Need more ideas? Visual platforms like Pinterest and Instagram are great places to browse for inspiration.
✔️ Up your operations
Getting enough hands on deck for this holiday is key. You’ll want to get help prepping arrangements beforehand, as well as have additional help to manage local floral delivery orders as they come in. Look back at past Valentine’s Day sales to forecast much extra help you’ll need—and when. You may want to bring extra help on board for the season, or ask your existing employees to work more hours during this time.
Additionally, now is a good time to ensure your operations processes are running smoothly. Make sure you have an effective way to track and manage incoming orders with your point of sale systems and integration tools. Having all of this set up in advance will help relieve any stress when the flood of orders starts coming in.
✔️ Boost your capabilities with a Valentine’s Day flower delivery partner
If your team doesn’t have the capacity to take on delivery orders, you can still add delivery to your offerings with a Valentine’s Day flower delivery partner like DoorDash. Some businesses, like The Flower Shop in Atlanta, GA, even partner with DoorDash alongside their existing delivery fleet, as a way to reach both new and more customers. Owner Bilal Sabusa explains, “Every day, we do about 100 deliveries with our own drivers, 12-15 with DoorDash, and 12-15 with other partners.”
The Flower Shop was able to grow their profit margins 10% when partnering with DoorDash for flower delivery. “We try to be where the customer wants us to be, in a very competitive market—and partnering with DoorDash to expand our delivery capabilities helps us do that,” says Bilal.
Interested in working with a flower delivery partner—for Valentine’s Day and beyond? Here’s a brief overview of how it works:
As a DoorDash merchant, your business is featured on the DoorDash App, where you get your own page to feature your store’s unique floral arrangements. You’ll get exposure for your brand, and easily control your offerings and pricing.
Manage incoming orders through your tablet or a point of sale integration.
Package orders for same-day delivery with Dashers, or offer customer pickup.
✔️ Market your offerings
Once you have your products lined up and your staffing plan in place, don’t forget to market your offerings. Tap into the power of social media, email marketing, direct mail campaigns, and eye-catching storefront displays to make sure customers know about your Valentine’s Day specials.
As a DoorDash partner, you can also run ads and marketing promotions like “First Delivery Free” or “$5 Off” to boost visibility, attract new customers, and drive sales. On average, businesses that use promotions see up to a 20% increase in DoorDash sales.
Don’t forget to keep up your evergreen marketing campaigns as well. Consider these all-year-round flower shop marketing tactics to boost visibility with customers, and keep up engagement with your community.
Driving Valentine’s Day Flower Sales
Now that you have the nuts and bolts of Valentine’s Day delivery planning ready, you can get into the heart and soul of the day. Though the rush of orders can be stressful at times, don’t forget to smile, have fun, and remember what the holiday is all about: the people that we love—and that includes your customers.
Looking for more ways to reach customers? Sign up for flower delivery with DoorDash to connect with customers in your area looking for quick, easy flower delivery.
