Net commenced to gain wide foothold in Toronto and Canada in about 1997. Its arrival caused lots of media writers to make wide predictions about its future and transformation of shopping styles that the Net was about to make. As most academics are concerned, they wrote about efficiencies leading to better pricing for consumers. Predictions analyzed several retail sectors and look for the ones that should be affected faster than others. The writers predicted doom and gloom to those retailers not willing to adapt fast to the new shopping orders being established by consumers and businesses, by shopping on the Net.
At the beginning I was a member of gifts and florists retail category in Toronto, today I can reflect back on this sector. I compare the predictions with our situation today. Florists in delivery business were expected to be one of first sectors to do business on the Net and serve clients in a better way. Florists in Toronto were mostly pragmatist business people, not a technology fans and never great risk takers, willing to jump into the unknown. Most of florists did not know what to do, how to do it, but we were quick targets of so many web design companies looking for business and many using scare tactics to get florists to sign up for web designs. Web design companies were pointing to the International organizations being engaged in sending flowers world-wide and using them as the business model for any small florist in Toronto, willing to be fast and create a website. People were expected to do all shopping on the Net, with very little business remaining for the traditional retailers, left behind. Some scary thoughts and predictions were being cultivated, including by the futuristic trends, assessing book by Faith Popcorn, very popular at the time.
Stakeholders in new orders were cultivating image of impending mass exodus of shoppers to the Net. The traditional retail sector with flowers would shrink and only small pie will remain for in-person, and on the street shopping. The arguments that web design companies were presenting were convincing and many florists signed up in order to avoid missing the boat to the future.
Shopping on the Net means a shopping from a photo accompanied by a product description. Online shopping was explained to be done in a fully robotic way, with no live person from the merchant side involved. This kind of shopping means great convenience for the consumers since there is no need to go out, but shop from the home or office 24/7 and pay online with your credit card in a secure manner.
That was the blue print for florists in Toronto, but how does it match with real live execution and experience that local florists gained over the years? Definitely there was a dramatic shift to the Internet shopping in Toronto and GTA for flowers and gifts, when more people gained their confidence in safety of online shopping. Some traditional floral retailers in Toronto have moved out of their retail stores to the more economical locations in industrial parks and concentrated their business entirely on the web. Majority of florists in Toronto kept their retail location and just added a website to complement their traditional way in retail business. First were brochure type websites soon to replaced with new websites providing full automated shopping basket and credit cards processing. Secure transmitting of credit card information to the merchant for a manual bank approval is more preferable to the florists for number of reasons.
Billed flowers and gift prices might be changed due to number of reasons. An ordered product might not be available on a given day due to the market conditions. After all, we are dealing with perishable items and substitutions necessary sometimes. Shoppers placing orders for other people often provide incorrect information, requiring second or substitute delivery.
Florists in Toronto have recognized that doing floral business online provides some rude awakening from earlier expectations they held on the web. The first expectations were fostered by the web designers and proved to be a great fallacy. Once you pay the design for your website, you just have an inexpensive hosting to pay monthly, but you can enjoy a free ride on the web. Many florists ordered their new websites thinking that they have a right to free traffic on the web. This misconception was quickly put to the rest as more Toronto floral retailers have realized in a hard way that gaining valuable traffic on the web is a proposition as much expensive, as having prime retail location on a busy street. One set of new costs has replaced old and traditional costs being associated with prime real estate in Toronto.
For web traffic, florists have to pay one way or the other. It is a quite expensive proposition to have your website optimized to appear on the first search page of Google, under several relevant keywords. In order to benefit from an online searches and traffic, you have to be included in the first three natural search results. The impact of being placed under top three is felt by the far fewer numbers of orders being received.
Purchasing pay-per-click Ad Word program is a popular, but expensive alternative today. To do it right, you should be an expert. If you do not have time and expertise to engage in the program, you should outsource its management for a fee. When you buy into the pay-per-click program, you will compete and bid against the other Toronto florists interested in positioning under the same keywords, driving the price up. There are advantages of having your website fully optimized since 7 out of 10 searchers prefer organic search results, rather than sponsored results. When you add up your monthly Internet marketing cost, compare them against a rental cost in a prime retail area of Toronto, like Downtown Toronto.
To have a fully functioning automated website does not necessary mean that you do not need any customers’ service to service purchasers online. In the age Web shopping, live customers’ service is still expected. Web shoppers will order online with an automated shopping basket, but still expect a personal service on demand.
Not having a phone number or business address listed on your web site means cutting down the chances of receiving orders. Internet shoppers in Toronto are looking for a local Toronto florist with web prices in Canadian dollars. They would like to talk to a knowledgeable person regarding their orders. Internet shoppers prefer avoiding brokers who are just generating orders online to be sold to other retail florists. More people in the business chain, the higher chances of something going wrong with their order. People are sending emotions with their flowers and gifts to their loved ones and look for assurances. A successful online florist in Toronto has to keep customer service line open minimum of 12 hours per day and the lines to be manned by personnel skilled in customer service and product knowledge.
Above are just few observations based on real experience of doing business as a florist in Toronto. Starting with a well established store in a traditional way and changing in scope to generate a bigger part of business coming from online.
Are you a Toronto flowers delivery shop looking for online promotion? Check out the Toronto florist online directory, that has a separate section for Christmas Flowers and Gifts Delivery.