Useful Tips for Floral Ecommerce Businesses from Murali Nethi, Founder of SnapBlooms

So SnapBlooms is a marketplace for flower shops. A flower shop can join our platform to sell their creative designs. The way we position ourselves is by marketing it for you. We bring you customers through the platform and your local SEO, and you keep most of the order. The customer chooses the flourish and places the order with you, so you get the customer and the order. We like to put it as not only bringing you orders, but also customers. You get the customer name, email, and phone number—they become your customer right away. Typically, once someone buys from you, they buy again if you are in the same local area and their loved ones are nearby. They’ll call you and buy from you. We have that capability built in. Our software includes features like reminders, getting reviews, emailing on email blasts, and loyalty programs to encourage repeat business.

Awesome, awesome. So you were there, and then how big was your family growing up?

It’s funny. So are you? Are you in the middle? Are you older, younger, or just kind of in the middle?

The youngest. Oh, so you were the last one to come, so you had all kinds of freedom compared to the first one born. Usually by the seventh, the family’s like, “Okay, he’s not going to hurt himself. He’s fine.” The first few survive; he should be good. That’s awesome. So you were the younger one always trying to hang out with the older ones. I get that. That’s awesome. So everybody was looking out for you.

Yeah, they laid the foundation for you. So that was a good thing. I was the older one, so my brother came in behind me, so I laid a little foundation too. He’s still gotten in a little bit of trouble, but I told him, “Hey, don’t do this. Don’t do that. This is what mom and dad don’t like,” so we’re able to work some things out there. So that’s awesome. So you, obviously, the place where you’re at in India was a huge tech hub. Any other interesting facts growing up? Anything fun, interesting that you can tell us about?

That’s incredible. Do you have any idea how much it’s worth?

Oh my gosh, that’s incredible. And so the Queen of England, I can only imagine she probably can’t even pick that up. That sounds too heavy. That’s an incredible diamond.

That’s awesome. That’s an interesting fact. And so are you. You’re currently not in India, right? You moved here about 25 years ago. You live in, is it Maryland? I think you’re in Maryland, aren’t you?

Wow, that’s awesome. It’s funny, my dad—literally, he’s in Chicago as we speak. He just bought an RV on the East Coast and was driving across—I talked to him this morning. He said Chicago is amazing. He just went to a White Sox game, went on a food tour, and is on an adventure right now. I’m a little jealous. I got that traveling bug from my dad. And anytime I call him to find out what he’s doing, he’s always on an adventure. He’s a huge fan of Chicago. He said nothing but that it’s a beautiful city and the weather right now is really nice.

Take advantage of it. Yeah, absolutely. So let’s talk about so where did you Where did you go to college, at?

So that’s awesome. You jumped right into it because, obviously, when you said it was an IT hub, you were attending one of the best universities in your city. Then you jumped into this. I think it makes total sense—the reason why you have a POS system and why you’re working with software is a natural fit for you. That is awesome. I want to talk about your expertise because you’ve been doing this for a while, and you’ve got some good things going on. We kind of teased about this earlier on the podcast, and now we’ll let everybody know. I want to talk to you just about the e-commerce platform and the best technology for that. So, how long have you been in the e-commerce space?

Wow, that’s incredible. So, yeah, a little bit of time, a little lot of things have changed in 15 years, huh?

Good old days. Yeah, if I could—obviously, as a podcast, nobody can see how much you and I are smiling when you were saying that—but it was a lot easier back then. I’ll tell you, those were the good old days. We always say that’s when you’re getting older, when you say, “Oh, the good old days we could spam people and get backlinks and stuff.” That’s when we were aging ourselves a little bit, my friend. But that’s okay. That’s alright. We’ve been around for a while. So how did you come up with the idea to start Hana Florist POS? Give us that little background story.

So, I mean, that’s all encompassing. It sounds like what you did was you looked at the obvious problem in the industry and thought, “Wow, there’s an opportunity to disrupt some stuff.” You came in and said, “Hey, we understand the industry—we’ve been doing this for two years—and let’s create some software.” So your wife said, “All right, honey, go create some software.” That sounds like a plan. Let’s make it happen, right? Let’s figure out our profitability, increase things, and help florists. I have a few clients that are florists as well, and margins are thin. I mean, you don’t have to create any extra, depending on what you’re creating. But the problem is, once you add on marketing and try to do that kind of stuff, most of them are like a restaurant where the chef is phenomenal at food but not great at marketing. It’s the same thing with flowers. It’s like, “Hey, I could make the best-looking arrangement,” and you go, “Oh my God, that’s amazing, but what’s SEO? I don’t want to deal with any of that. I just want to arrange flowers, right? I just want people to come in.” And I think, because of COVID and everything that’s happened recently, there’s been a huge need to put stuff online. And you guys—when did you, Hana Florist, start doing the POS and stuff? When, what? How many years ago was that?

Yeah, it’s called change, and unfortunately, it’s going to happen with or without you. So you adapt and figure out how to integrate technology into your mix. Otherwise, the guy who opened up one year ago is going to look bigger than you online, even though you’ve been around for 30 years. That’s what it comes down to.

Yeah, that’s what it is. It’s a lead generation thing. So if you bring in the leads, guess what? Now you’re doing wholesale stuff, which doesn’t have great margins. But if I can bring in leads and bring them to you, and you do the designs or the arrangements, then it’s a win-win. But you don’t want to be doing wholesale, because while it’s not bad, it doesn’t bring in as much money.

Yeah, so you’re always there. They don’t always need you, but you always need them. That’s the problem. So let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about if I’m a florist and I want to create my own e-commerce platform. What are the steps you need to take to launch an e-commerce platform? What would you recommend?

I would think, so, yeah, because…

And I think that’s the key. That’s the hard part: who do you trust, right? But you guys have been doing this for eight years, right? And you guys are in the industry. This isn’t software that you built out of the blue and said, “Hey, let’s see what industry this is going to be best for you guys.” I have a florist shop and built this because you said, “Hey, listen, here goes the need, and this is what we’re looking for.” So you actually were making it happen. And I think that’s the biggest problem with most florists or even anybody I talk to when it comes to, “Hey, who should I go with?” They look at the site and say, “Well, that site looks okay. I guess it should be fine.” But there are so many other variables beyond just looking good—user experience and SEO are a lot more important than what you think the website looks like. If you like websites from 10 years ago and you’re like, “Well, it’s a template. It’s fine,” maybe it’s not fine, right? That’s the problem. But how do they know that? They’re like, “I’m great,” right? That’s the biggest problem. It’s like, “Well, I don’t know what to go for. I have no idea, and I don’t really want to know. I kind of need to know, but I just want somebody to take care of me, right? I don’t want that to be a headache, right?” That’s what we’re looking at. I think you talked about that being that bandwidth.

Yeah, that’s awesome. I mean, that’s such a huge piece of it. And once again, I talked about florists—or really, anybody, most of the time, people just put up a website to have a presence. They don’t understand the talks about the UI and UX and the experience that people have, and the conversion rate. Last time I checked, 2% is bad and 15% is great. I mean, if we just talk about numbers, most businesses don’t think that. I know marketers that get it, but don’t really get it right. And you guys have really specialized yourself and said, “Listen, because obviously the difference between 7% and 8% and 9% and 10% and 20% is huge,” and you guys are able to do it because you’re in the business every day and have been doing this for eight years. I think that’s awesome.

Thanks, listeners. Now you know what it takes to run, manage, and grow a floral e-commerce business. On the next episode, we’ll talk about making the most of whatever you’ve got. SnapBlooms CEO Murali Nethi will join us again to share how he launched the marketplace during the pandemic. Don’t forget to tune into the Marketing Growth Podcast.