Floral delivery company The Bouqs Co. is testing a new concept for selling its arrangements out of Whole Foods in three California locations. Beyond reaching more customers, the partnership helps Bouqs address a key challenge for its business: same-day delivery.
Just ahead of Mother's Day, Bouqs opened up its first shop-in-shop in a Whole Foods in Tustin, a city in Orange County. Since then, one opened in La Jolla, a beach community north of San Diego, and another in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. Each branded display area will sell bouquets and arrangements in vases, plus the opportunity to place custom orders.
When The Bouqs Co. was founded over a decade ago, having a slick direct-to-consumer website as a primary sales channel was enough of a differentiator in the floral industry. Over the years, other online DTC floral delivery companies have cropped up like BloomsyBox and Urbanstems. Bouqs has kept a competitive edge with a floral subscription service, which can be responsible for up to half of its revenue when not in peak floral holidays like Valentine's Day or Mother's Day.
But as customers' expectations for same-day delivery increase, floral companies are trying to figure out how to get their perishable products as close to customers as possible. Partnering with Whole Foods allows Bouqs to essentially have mini-distribution centers in key markets, with the benefit of third-party delivery services already coming through. "With Whole Foods specifically, it felt like there was a lot of brand alignment," CEO Kim Tobman said to Modern Retail.
Read more at modernretail.co