This festive occasion is one of the busiest times for florists, and the demand for beautiful Valentine’s Day flowers will be in full bloom during this time.
According to a survey conducted by Picodi.com, the results showed that 68% of Malaysians will celebrate Valentine’s Day and 75% said that they will give something to their partner.
To understand the heightening demands of Valentine’s Day, we spoke to Titus Wong, the managing director of 50Gram, because frankly, who else knows better about the Valentine’s Day craze than the florist itself?
In this blog, Titus Wong spilt behind the scenes of 50Gram’s busiest season and how they navigated them easily with Lalamove’s on-demand delivery service.
Making Customers Happy With Every Bouquet
With a humble beginning, Titus began his career in digital marketing and building websites for customers.
Titus and his brother, Spring, were searching for flowers as a gift for their mother on Mother’s Day. They noticed florist names were quite difficult to remember, and the huge gap in the market was also caused by the limited delivery services available for florists.
It was a golden opportunity for them to tap into the floral industry and that’s when they founded 50Gram.
They built their first e-commerce platform and started selling flowers online.
“We ensured everyone puts on a beautiful smile by bringing people together and showcasing the value of gratitude in the simplest form.”
In 50Gram, Titus manages the business operation and collaboration with the brand purpose of “Gratitude Made Simple” where getting flowers and gifts are just a few clicks away.
Introducing Technology Into A Floral Platform
Over a period, the company transformed, branching out into the business of flowers and gifts broadening its product range.
Many florists were striving but weren’t scaling up their business. It was partly due to their brand presence and business operation flow.
“As a florist, on-demand deliveries will be crucial in bridging the gap between Valentine's Day demands and personalisation of goods and services,” Titus emphasised.
One of the ways to enter the floral industry as a positive disrupter in the market is to digitise the retail business with API integration.
This method helps to expand 50Gram’s business model, create healthy market competitiveness and accelerate business growth.
Overcoming Internal Fleet Obstacles
But managing on-demand deliveries with their internal fleet proved to be challenging, especially during busy seasons such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.
So how does a florist establish its brand while maintaining on-demand delivery?
In the past, 50Gram was managing its internal fleet, which posed numerous challenges.
Delivery times are not always in the sender’s control. The choice of the driver partner, location and weather conditions all play their part in the delivery timelines.
This includes managing overhead costs and manpower management to ensure a smooth delivery of the product to their customers.
Advantages of Partnering with Lalamove
What made 50Gram services unique from a regular gift delivery service, is that it had layered technology through every aspect of the business.
Hence, when Lalamove was established in Malaysia in 2018, the on-demand delivery services paired well with 50Gram’s business model.
The most important Lalamove feature utilised by 50Gram is API integration.
With API integration, 50Gram can coordinate orders and deliveries according to time slots even at a scale when massive orders are concentrated during the festive season such as Valentine’s Day.
“Lalamove platform is advantageous for florists as it enables them to do real-time tracking.”
“The delivery prices are also standardised thus, it helps business users to predict the cost,” Titus added.
We asked 50Gram if partnering with Lalamove was proven to be a fruitful effort.
“Of course!” he said.
“Because of Lalamove, we accept more orders and deliver them to customers promptly. We also can attend to more special requests and fulfil them,” he added.
From Seed To Success
By leveraging Lalamove's services, they have successfully made their business operations run more efficiently, enabling them to fulfill commitments to customers and boost sales.
As a result, they can demonstrate steady business growth throughout the years of partnering with Lalamove.
“The increase in our business growth is roughly ten times more during peak season compared to the off-peak season,” Titus added, concluding the interview.
50Gram is one of the many florists that have achieved success after partnering with Lalamove to cater to their busy seasons.
If you’re interested in replicating the success of 50Gram’s partnership with Lalamove to reduce your logistics costs and increase business efficiency, get in touch with our Sales Team today!
