At first glance, selling flowers online does not seem easy. And less if those behind the project have no previous experience in e-commerce. But that was not a problem for Mercedes Cabral and her partners, owners of the store. That is why we wanted to talk to them, to find out how the venture came about, what are the peculiarities of selling flowers online and what results they have obtained since they have their Tiendanube.
How did the idea to sell flowers in an online store come about?
We started from scratch, the idea arose from the desire to sell something online but at that time we did not know what. So I thought: why not flowers? I started to look at what was out there at the time and I imagined that something much nicer could be done. I have two sisters who worked in that area, with settings and knew about flowers, I proposed the idea to them and they loved it. We partnered and started working to create Flores Online.
What were the main challenges you faced at the beginning?
The main challenge was the great ignorance we had about online sales, we did a lot of research, we looked at many pages studying their mistakes and successes. When we started we knew that we wanted to differentiate ourselves in the bouquets and in their presentation, through innovative packaging. We did a lot of work on this with the help of a graphic design studio. The other great help was finding Tiendanube, which was essential for us, given the lack of knowledge we had about many issues, such as how to charge, how to manage our page, etc.
How was the first sale?
How can we not remember our first sale! It was for him, he bought us a girl from Spain for her mother. It was a great emotion, we wondered: how did they find us?! And the funniest thing is that we knew that mother, who had no idea about our work and to whom we didn’t tell her that Flores Online was us. We opened for Mother’s Day and it was quite a surprise when sales and more sales began to come in, we even ran out of stock of flowers and had to run out to replace them.
What are you doing to promote the store on the internet?
With two campaigns from Monday to Friday, the Google advisory part works very well, since setting up the campaigns was not easy for us at first. We also work quite a bit on the . We have Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest; we are missing Instagram, which we will start shortly.
What payment gateway do you use? Do you recommend it?
Currently, DineroMail, bank transfer and PayPal for purchases from abroad. The great defect that MercadoPago and DineroMail have for us is that the communication channels with them are complicated and time-consuming, the only means is via mail and in our business, where sometimes they buy from us in the morning to deliver in the afternoon, if we have If I have any questions about a payment, I do not have an immediate response, which complicates our work.
How is the growth of the online store coming?
We have an average growth of 35% in sales compared to the same month last year. We also had very good results compared to last year on Mother’s Day, Secretary’s Day and because we learned how to better prepare for these dates.
Could you give some advice to someone who is thinking of starting an online business?
I would say cheer up! Can be achieved without having any experience, like us. The secret is to do a lot of research and search online for all the help you need.
We thank Mercedes for sharing with us their impressions and advice for , even without experience or technical knowledge.
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