Depending on which type of florist you are, each website provider will be different. Here we explore the options.
We cover the following florists..
– Newly established florists (0-6 months)
– Established home or studio florist (1+ year)
– Shop florist
– Wedding florist
Best florist websites for newly established home or studio florists
If you are a home florist and are just starting out, you may want to go with a low-cost or free option such as Wix, Yola, Weebly or similar. Costing around £0 – £5/per month.
The important thing is to get a web presence as soon as you can. Why? Because, until you have a website using a purchased domain (such as www.myflorist.co.uk), other websites can’t link to you (this is called ‘backlinks’), and if you can’t accumulate backlinks, you won’t start making sales on search engines like Google because they rely on backlinks partly as a way to decide how high a website shows up on the search results. The higher up = the more visitors you’ll receive.
Best florist websites for existing/established home or studio florists
If you’ve had a website for a few months or a year, you are likely needing something a bit more robust, particularly when it comes to efficiency with time-saving features. There are a few specialist platforms, such as Florist Touch, which provide a service dedicated to floristry. Costing £35/per month.
Why use a specific florist platform?
Here are a few reasons to use a specialised florist platform:
- The customer support team will know floristry, and support is typically one of the most important benefits florists seek.
- The whole platform will be tailored toward floristry, this means, lots of features for florists, and no unnecessary features that clutter up the screen. Specialist floral features include:
– Product types (bouquets, flower subscriptions, upsell items, wedding, workshops, posted items, collected items, gift cards, funeral/sympathy..).
– Specialised local delivery settings, such as complete control over your local delivery area, independent delivery/collection days, quick set calendar to block or enable days (such as Mothers Day).
– Specific items having longer preparation time and thus a longer delivery date, ideal for large bouquets or funeral/sympathy items.
– New order screen, allowing you to take both a florist order and take payment off the phone.
– Delivery driver app, ideal for if you, or a delivery driver needs to quickly and easily marked the delivered orders as complete, and maybe even take a picture of it for the recipient to receive, too. - Florist community. By using a platform for your industry, you get the benefit of the platforms community group, such as the Florist Touch Facebook group where florists post questions and answers, give tips, and generally discuss everything floristry.
Best florist websites for established shop florists
You are a new or well established florist with a street presence. In this case, you will greatly benefit from a florist platform, as described above. With orders coming in daily, you need less time on the computer and more time working on flowers. By using a florist platform, you get to benefit from time saving features, such as Till mode – that allows you to close the circle and have everything in one place. Here’s how this works:
Till mode – for in-person customers
Till mode is exactly that, when a customer comes into the shop to purchase, you can tally up their order on your iPad. Another example – a customer is ready to purchase their bouquet they ordered for collection, online. Instead of having to write anything down, you tap your iPad to restore the order, select the customers preferred payment method (such as debit/credit card), then using a payment terminal (such as Stripe, SumUp, Zettle, Square) the customer pays with their phone, then Voila – the order on your florist platform is now paid for and is in the ‘Current’ orders tab ready to be made. Costing £25-£60/per month.
Websites for Wedding Florists
If you’re wedding florist, then we recommend using a provider like Squarespace. The reason being that, as you don’t need so many advanced features, and instead care more about professional presentation with large photos, then a more general platform and website designer will fit well. You’ll be able to customise your website to your heart’s content.
That said, it’s worth going to a reputable local web designer that uses a provider like Squarespace to give you the optimal experience. Expect to pay between £300-£600 one off for the website creation, then £30/per month for hosting, domain and updates. You can save money by building it yourself, but you will need to spend a lot of time learning about SEO optimisation to really get good results and to optimise it for Google to increase your visitor count.