Entrepreneur : Flower Power!
Flowers Express, the first of its kind to innovate door-to-door delivery of quality flowers without service charge, is bullish that Baguio City, which is billed as the flower capital of the Philippines, would support its growing market.
Owned and operated by eLBC Direct Inc., a Philippine corporation engaged in the business of providing a market portal for Philippine products and services for sale to consumers in the US and the rest of the world, Flowers Express presently sources its blooms from local growers of Bukidnon and Tagaytay.
Its imported flowers, on the other hand, usually come from Holland. There are even uncommon flowers from the wilderness of Amazon forest which cost P18,000 per flower.
Local flowers that Flowers Express deals with are roses, spring flowers and anthuriums. Alstroemerias, carnations, Ecuadorian roses, gerberas, lilies, orchids, spring flowers and tulips are among its imported varieties.
Its most commonly ordered flowers are the red and Ecuadorian roses (a dozen costs P1,450 and P2,450, respectively). Flowers for delivery are encased in special boxes with water tubes in each stem to guarantee their freshness.
Sales at Flowers Express peak, as expected, in February for the traditional Valentine’s Day. In March and April, the flowers are usually ordered as graduation presents. Fiesta time in May augments orders for the annual Santacruzan and Flores de Mayo festivals.
Many, especially in the provinces, also order flowers to be offered to the Virgin Mary. The demands bang on until June for the wedding season where flowers are ordered for bouquets for the bride and sponsors.
Maintained trend
Flowers Express has special programs with banking giants like Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp., Banco de Oro and Eastwest Bank, wherein discounts are given to customers who order online using credit cards authorized by partner banks and for bulk orders as well.
“For big orders, of course, we give discounts and make some concessions,” eLBC’s president and executive director Rene Fuentes says.
Paying through credit cards is just one of the convenient methods for paying flowers ordered online, he says.
Customers, however, may also pay at LBC branches and affiliated banks.
eLBC’s marketing director Eric John Vitug asserts that credit-card payments on the Web are safe.
“The risk is higher when you passed it to another person because the credit card number and PIN at the back might be copied. It is more secure when you just type in privately the information,” he explains.
Flowers Express is one of the strong believers of online advertising to hike up its business, particularly in attracting foreign clients. It also has a presence at the LBC online store that is mainly aimed at Filipinos living abroad, thus, prices are quoted in dollars.
Fuentes attributes the rapid growth of Flowers Express to such innovations, together with its classy product and guaranteed delivery service. So far it has been growing at an average of 70% a year, he notes, saying he’s bullish that this trend can be maintained.
Demand
“There is a huge demand for flowers in other countries,” says Vitug, adding that loo tons of flowers gross $250 million in the United States alone.
There’s a gap to be filled that’s why they offered it here in the Philippines, he says.
Fuentes, on the other hand, is optimistic that such an American business model would work here. “We saw the demand for it and there’s no one doing it here,” reveals Fuentes.
He continued: “With our network, it’s something that we can offer with our market. It’s very reasonable and it is high in value.”
The country’s vast archipelago poses the greatest barrier for those looking to duplicate Flower Express’s success. “It’s very rare that we encounter an area we can’t deliver. Even down to barangay-sitio level, LBC is very good at that. That’s one thing our competitors still can’t follow,” Fuentes says.
Fuentes concedes though that most of the deliveries of Flowers Express are still in urban locations, given that the company’s primary market are those in the AB and upper-C socioeconomic brackets, as well as those with credit cards.
It also has a significant corporate market. “In terms of flower ordering, 50 percent of our customers are women, some order flowers to send it to women also,” Fuentes shares.
This shouldn’t be surprising anymore. In South Korea, for instance, women normally are the ones-some say obliged-to give flowers to male co-workers, especially on Valentine’s Day.
Unstoppable
Being an LBC company, Flowers Express has access to 95% of the Philippines with over 500 branches.
Business like that of Fuentes’s has been compelled essentially by the corporate and social event that the world has.
What Flowers Express has gone through only indicates that the practice of giving flowers is not a mere romantic gesture or done at birthdays, graduations, or Mother’s Day. It’s more than that people at present need not wait for red-letter days to send flowers, that is.
There are centerpieces, entryways, reception tables, bridal bouquets, wedding chuppahs and stage sets-only a few examples of how flowers are used.
These are precisely what Flowers Express had conceived in mind when its delivery service started in 2005. And, with Baguio City expressing its support to Flowers Express, such a business is embarked on an unstoppable train.
