This is a twelve week course that will cover everything you need to know about setting up an online floristry business, from the best way to structure your website, best marketing techniques and managing your orders to understanding the costs involved. This course is for both experienced and inexperienced florists and you can accelerate the course at anytime or call one of our consultants on 1300 730 560 to have a chat about getting your own website up and running sooner.
To setup a successful online floristry business you firstly need to have a well-thought-out plan, a technology partner and a realistic budget for both the setup of the website and the ongoing running and marketing campaigns. On the next level you will need the following to set up a successful florist website:
It sounds simple but for the unwary each of these seemingly simple items can be extremely difficult to get right.
It is estimated that the retail flower market in Australia is worth in excess of $1 billion dollars per year with online sales accounting for between 20 - 30%. Over the last decade there has been a significant decline in physical retail flower sales and a definite increase in online flower sales: each month it is estimated there are more than 1 million searches alone on Google for floral sales in Australia.
However there has also been a shift as consumers buy cut flowers from petrol stations, convenience stores and supermarkets, which has had a significant impact on the traditional florist store.
Every successful online florist has a good solid plan to work from, it doesn't have to be a formal business plan but it must contain a realistic budget for the website setup, products, advertising and other ongoing costs. You can create a simple plan online to print out which you can use to calculate the costs and revenues of starting and running a successful website.
In week two we will explore how to calculate the Return on your Investment, how to work out Cost of Sales, the Cost of new customer acquisition versus Selling to existing customers and much more.
As Australia's only specialist provider of websites for florists we have many different solutions and payment options to suit all budgets and tastes. You can read more about our solutions on our website http://www.flowerstoreinabox.com.au
If you target the central coast of NSW then you may want to include the region, suburb or other location of your florist or your delivery area.
Say for example if your name is The Small Flower Shop in Gosford.
You may want to purchase the domain names:
Call us on 1300 730 560 or contact us to check the domain name is available.
Product images are the most important aspect of your new website, and product images are also the biggest hurdle for most customers to address.
If you are a member of one of the relay networks you may use their images subject to their terms and conditions. Petals Network, 1300 Flowers or Interflora all have product images you can use.
On the other hand if you want to use your own products you will need to have them photographed and potentially have the backgrounds removed.
You can also buy stock images or subscribe to some of the newer libraries of floristry images. In week three we will go through the various pros and cons of each approach for images.
It's not quite as easy as just having a site and accepting money, there are numerous laws and regulations you need to address. And there are various methods of accepting money on your website. The best approach is to use a Payment Gateway AND the world's largest web payment system PayPal. We will explore more about online payments and accepting credit cards online in week four.
A website is only as good as the marketing campaign to bring customers to the website. Traffic is the key here and there are many tried and tested ways of driving traffic to the website. However to really achieve the result you want with selling online you need to have a good solid plan, measure the results of each campaign and tweak the campaign as required.
Our years of experience have allowed us an insight into what works the best for florists and we call it the four-pronged approach:
Google Adwords
Search Engine Optimization
Facebook Advertising
Market to your existing customer base
These four tactics are GUARANTEED to make you money, but you need to understand exactly what you are doing or you could end up spending much more than you need to. In weeks seven to ten we explore the basics and go more into the details of online marketing.
Phone: Toll Free 1300 730 560, Fax: 1300 881 370,
Location:Suite 305/54 Foveaux Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010