Building an online flower subscription business in India.
Role
-
To bring in a human-centred, design driven perspective to the table that would help in taking strategic calls
-
Strategizing and executing research, data analysis, turning insights into action
-
Defining brand positioning, personality, strategy, designing the brand identity, packaging, brand and marketing collaterals
-
Service and experience design
Duration
Jan 2018 to July 2019
Background
Client DewDrops, with its expertise in agri-tech was then a cultivator of sustainably grown Roses and Hydranges. While its wholesale export business was doing well, they wanted to enter the retail flower market in India. They looked upon ScaleFactor to conceive a business idea, strategize and execute the idea to result into a profitable retail flower business.
Approach
Worked in a cross- disciplinary team to build a business that is desirable, feasible and viable. While achieving a balace of the three is a continuous process, we worked on certain basic principles to achieve optimum results. By grounding strategic decisions in research and adopting a customer centred approach, we addressed desirability. Building on the present knowledge base, network and infrastructure of Dewdrops we worked on feasibility. Ensuring product market fitment, rapid prototyping of products, service and the brand, using service design tools and principles to deliver quality experience at the back of a streamlined business back end, and adopting sustainable practices helped tackle viability.
We started with an in-depth qualitative research that entailed market assessment for flowers and plants in India, understanding consumer mental models, identifying gaps and potential needs and wants.
Research design
Identifying a business opportunity in the retail flower industry
Consumers
11
In-depth interviews
27
Focus group discussions
60
Online surveys
-
Consumer’s present interaction with flowers
-
Emotional associations
-
Notions about cut flowers and correlation with nature, gardening, growing and caring of plants
-
Jobs , pains and gains of the consumer journey
Flower retailers and wholesellers
16
In-depth interviews
-
Customer understanding and footfall
-
Their take on flowers, the flower market , the future of his flower business
-
Flower arrangements and aesthetics, Unique selling proposition, service provided, and brand image projected
Sensemaking of the data collected resulted in emerging patterns of demand, ways of consumption, and patterns in thought and action.
Sensemaking
Some key insights that were framed into ‘how might we’ (HMW) statements to assist ideation of products and services
People enjoy exposure to botanical life in their personal, work, & public spaces on a regular basis.
However some see flowers and plants as high maintenance
HMW we provide a seamless floral service experience to people on a regualar basis?
Finding credible information they could leverage, prolonging life expectancy & dealing with end of lifecycle flowers & plants is c
hallenging for some
HMW educate customers about expected life, specific care for prolonging life expectancy and service the and of lifecycle
flowers & plants?
People seek originality & good aesthetics through unique products, services & self exploration
HMW Introduce bespoke, artisanal bouquets in the market and service self exploration?
Although some have taken to online purchase of plants and flowers they seek a visceral experience & want to touch & feel before & during a purchase
HMW build trust and provide an omni channel experience?
​
People form personal & social relationships with & over their plants and flowers
HMW bring plant and flower lovers together and encourage social involvement and build local communities?
Ideation exercises based on research insights, and consumer needs and wants culminated into a
business idea - ‘The Flora’
The Big Idea
The Flora- An online flower company that home delivers artisanal flower arrangement on a weekly subscription model basis alongside providing on demand gifting options.
Signature and Bespoke Arrangements
Artisanal pre curated arrangements or made to order; wrapped in decorative
paper or burlap
Customer’s selection of single variety of flowers bunched together wrapped in decorative paper
​
Cut/ Bunched Flowers
Do-it-yourself Kits (DIY)
Assortment of flowers and fillers, instruction manual, floral care card, arrangement
tool kit and other accessories
Small potted plants
A small pot of flowering plant or succulents packaged in box along with care cards and optional add ons.
The Business idea was then prototyped and tested to help refine products, define service, experience, brand and validate target audience in a quick and iterative manner
Prototyping and testing
Arrangements were distributed for free to identified people and in depth conversations were made in a controlled environment after they experiencedhaving the arrangement in their space for a day.
Assortment of white flowers wrapped in raw jute burlap and hand-tied
Research Sample
Emerging target personas from sensemaking of the collected data
a
THE MAKERS
High engagment-
High interest
Loving enthisiast, Value seekers
-
Need a visceral experience
-
They seek value in thought and action
-
They are not brand conscious but are quality conscious.
-
Need to trust their vendor and establish connect not just contact.
b
THE SEEKERS
Low engagement-
High interest
Status conscious, time starved, curious explorers
-
Really like flowers but they get someone else to pick it up and maintain it for them
-
Need absolute flexibility and convenience in the service
-
Are adaptive to technology and want buying and engagement to be done online in the quickest manner.
c
THE FLIRTERS
No engagement-
Low interest
Effort averse, Value seekers
-
Buy flowers only for gifting purposes
-
Don’t see value in flowers either because of its perishable nature or because they are into potted plants
-
Want convenience in the service, easy reach and social validation to establish trust in a brand.
A typical The Flora customer would be someone who is well
travelled, affluent and lovesh aving flowers around them.
Brand positioning and personality
Benchmarking exercise of The Flora against its global and national competitors to determine its brand style and consumer inclusivity
So we took to building a brand that talks affordable luxury, artisanal and classy. While our customers are indulgent they are also either time starved or effort averse. They needed a brand they can trust.
Brand positioning and personality
Benchmarking exercise of The Flora against its global and national competitors to determine its brand style and consumer inclusivity
The brand language that we chose, based on which I designed the logo, packaging and other brand collaterals was a handrawn style that is personal, human, intricate and elegant. To keep it simple we chose a black and white theme and let the product- the beautiful flowers be in focus and add color to the product and brand.
Brand identity and collaterals
Brand logo
Hand drawn flower illustrations to be used across brand collaterals like packaging, tags, website, etc
The packaging further accentuates the rawness of the hand drawn style and is sustainable, elegant and durable. The packaging materials I chose were burlap and brown kraft paper that has intricate flower illustrations running across. Each of the bouquets go with a flower food satchets, a care card that is an ivory matt finish paper and also doubles as a brand tag
Packaging design
The Flora’s service and experience is carefully crafted by us. The front end and back end of the business both are designed to complement one another and deliver a seamless, indulgent yet efficient experience
Service and Experience design
The service design blueprint exercise helped define the service experience to be customer centred and align the back end
processes to the experience the brand wishes to deliver.
The time starved and effort averse yet indulgent nature of our customers demanded that we provide a seam less customer experience that is efficient and visceral. The blueprint addresses pre purchase, during purchase and post purchase pain points, introduce pain relievers and gain creators and has help put together a customer journey that loop back into re-purchasing. We also designed an
omni-channel experience to provide a visceral experience, to build transperancy and to gain the trust of the customers.
Freshness guaranteed
Weekly subscription
Same day and midnight delivery
Environmentally conscious
Integrating our value proposition into the customer journey, meant for us, using whatsapp and phone calls as a channel to communicate with our effort averse customers, adopting a farm to table approach to deliver fresh and long lasting flowers and putting togther handcrafted exquisite flower arrangements to satiate the artisanal taste of our customers. We also built a service model that is ‘subscription based’ which caters to regular home deliveries as well as ‘on-demand’ one time deliveries. Desingning care cards, flower cards and provide flower food with every delivery ensured customer education and longetivity of the flowers.
The supply chain uses cold storage facilities to keep flowers fresh during transit. Additionally, the staff is equipped to handle same day and midnight deliveries, track subscriptions and individual customer preferences and handle 24x7 customer support.
Standard operation processes and guidelines to deliver a consistent experience has been put together for every activity.
Experience map for 'The Flora'
After designing the brand, business model, products, service and experience, The Flora launched in
October, 2018.
Business launch
In accordance with our defined experience strategy, we adopted both physical and digital touchpoints
Online store launch - www.theflora.in
Offline store launch at a flea market
The Flora has only been growing ever since in an iterative and incremental manner. Every phase of the business is informed by design research that is conducted in periodic short bursts with research objectives that are relevant to the business goal of that phase.
Customer research
Persona building: Qualitative data about our current customers that can feed into our target personas to understand our customers better and target and acquire potential customers of a similar nature.
Brand awareness: Analysing if people recall our brand and understand The Flora as we are trying to project it to evaluate
its effecriveness
Product awareness: Knowing if people have information about all our products and services, their learning curve and channel of information to help us communicate our products better.
Goals:
Target reach:
Current customers
1. On demand orders (Once):
One time buyers and did only one transaction with us
3. Subscription (On-going) :
Subscription buyers and did only one transaction with us
2. On demand orders (Multiple) :
One time buyers and did more than one transaction with us
4. Subscription (Deactivated) :
Subscription buyers and did more than one transaction
Potential customers
5. Interested:
People who have shared their email id with us in our newsletter or during offline events
6. Dropouts:
People who have visited our website and/or abandoned their shopping cart.
Key insights that were used to refine products and service and move towards achieving a product-market fit
Sensemaking:
The Flora needs to make on demand products and services more desirable and to be able to beat the present competitors.
HMW enhance our gifting experience?
Some of our customers seek the flexibility that a roadside vendor can offer in our products and services.
HMW we introduce flexibilty in product configuration and frequency of subscription?
Flower education and product awareness will help in building customer interest, and better the connect with the product.
HMW we redesign the DIY flower arrangement experience and introduce ‘know your flower’ education?
Customers love our packaging and brand language. They also like our customer service that is quick, personalized and friendly.
HMW leverage our customer service and brand to acquire and retain customers?
Thank you for viewing!
Presently, The Flora has more than 4000 happy customers in the city of Bangalore, India and has now expanded to two more cities. ScaleFactor continues to build The Flora to be desirable, feasible and viable and is actively involved in strategy and execution. View The Flora’s webpage www.theflora.in or instagram handle
@theflora_in for updates!