Comprehensive Guide to Flower Delivery App Development

Being part of a $105 billion industry is not worth giving a second thought as it is booming and is currently in high flux. Floristry business is having an amazing annual return rate and it can never go down, as people can never stop celebrating the special days and occasions. Be it anniversaries, official promotion, inauguration, or even a funeral, without flowers, the entire environment bears a dull and gloomy look. Thanks to the flower delivery app development process through which entrepreneurs can now get an online presence for their app. 

This need for flowers on special occasions is now sustaining 32370 businesses with 74787 employments alone in the United States. On a global scale, it is massive. So, if you want these petals to make money for you too, adapt the digital platform to step into the industry.

As the world has whole-heartedly accepted the digitized tools for most of the industries, the Floristry business is not an exemption to the consent. The first step towards getting involved in the industry is to go for flower delivery app development. Apart from providing ease in the flower delivery process, it is going to help you in managing your business operations more efficiently.

This article is going to be your comprehensive guide in your process of on-demand flower delivery app development. First, let us know how it is useful for your flower business.

Why is the Flower Delivery App necessary for business?

The major solution provided by a flower delivery business is helping people in decorations and gifting someone out of love or adoration. This indicates that the need for flowers or floral products can arise anytime around the clock. Apart from that, flowers and floral products are of different colors, textures, and varieties and every customer is having their own preference. 

There are time, variety, and availability constraints, which can never be resolved without the intervention of a digital solution. Here is where a flawless flower delivery application can help you. Following are a few more perspectives. 

Easy Marketing & Promotions

Flower Delivery Apps can be easily connected with social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can promote your application by posting a link to the app download section on your profile too. It will be visible to your entire circle and online social community, making marketing and promotions easier. 

Customers using your app can also share the link to app download in their circles easily if they are satisfied with your products and services. There won’t be any need for offline marketing or seeking references for footfalls on your florist shop. 

Related read: How To Scale Your Delivery Business Amidst Challenges

Access Huge Customer Base

There are billions of active internet users across the world. Any country at the moment is surely having a few million users active on their social media networks or any platform which aims towards social community engagement. A small fraction of this huge crowd base is going to be enough for you to roll in a substantial amount of dollars to sustain your business and life comfortably.

Flower delivery app is now one of the most trending digital platforms which get popular within a very short span of time over social media platforms. So a modern and updated flower delivery app can surely be your gateway to a huge customer base.

Hassle-free Payment Methods

You can integrate your flower delivery app with safe and secure payment gateways. By this method, you can also allow your customers to know your most preferred method of getting paid. It can be directed to your business bank account through a secured and end-to-end encrypted payment gateway or to some online wallet of yours.

Similarly, it offers flexibility to customers also to make their payments the way they want to do. They can pay against your bill through their debit or credit cards and can also go for other online payment options. Collectively, it provides you with a compact and hassle-free payment medium.

Low Maintenance of Physical Store

An on-demand flower delivery app helps you to receive online orders and payments. This reduces the chances of customers personally coming to your store to order what they need. This also reduces the chances of any accidental damages during rush hours or wearing or tearing of your store decoratives.

This helps you with a lesser maintenance level of your physical store as you are not required to spend a lot behind the decoration or customer waiting for amenities. 

Less Investment at Start-up

If you are thinking of starting a flower delivery business, you should focus on flower delivery app development as it will reduce your start-up cost significantly. To start your business, you will not be required to invest in a well-furnished shop and above that, you can operate your business from a simple warehouse. You have to simply deliver the orders on time and at the right place and no customer is going to peep at your place if your services are perfect and punctual.

An on-demand flower delivery app development requires a significant investment, but, in spite of that, your overall investment will certainly be less than that of starting a physical store.

Opportunity to Create Strong Brand

An on-demand flower delivery app development can give you a huge customer base, digital tools to do easy marketing campaigns, and ease to reach out to more people. This enables you to create a more effective presence in front of a wide range of audiences and that too in a short span of time. This is enough to initiate a strong branding campaign to make your e-store famous.

All that is required is to identify the correct range and demographics of the customers you are targeting. If you know the channel of users you are planning to do business with, you are halfway done with your branding process.

The above mentioned are the benefits which you will surely get by default. Rest depends upon the uniqueness and quality of services you provide to make you famous quicker. Now you must know what types of business models are supported by a Flower Delivery App.

Related read: Struggling with Last Mile Delivery Logistics? – Here’s a Complete Guide

Business Models served by Flower Delivery App

A mobile or web application is a digital interface that helps in serving users and business owners without any need for face-to-face interaction. Hence, depending upon your requirement, you can develop a flower delivery app that can support your business model and modes of operations.

Store Owner Model

This business model is a dedicated approach by which you will be owning a store and delivering flowers or floral products directly to customers of your flower delivery app. By this model, partners or shop owners can conduct their business, which is suitable for all scales of business. The owners can keep the records and maintain all of their flower and bouquet stores with a systematic dashboard to track their sales of each and every outlet.

Flower Vendor Aggregator Model

This business model allows vendors and marketplace owners to grow their business using a flower delivery app. The app owner may or may not have any flower business of their own and offer a digital marketplace to real stores to connect with customers through the app. Earnings of the app owners are generally in the form of commission per sale or any other agreement done when registering any flower store on their platform.

Multi-Store Flower & Bouquet Chain

You can have a chain of stores or multiple points of sale which you can link through a flower delivery app. Users can select products visible under each store category. You can also keep records and view performance analytics for each of your stores individually.

The most important aspect of an on-demand flower delivery app is its features. The features which you think of integrating into the app must be coherent with your business model. It will help you keep proper records of business operations and will be easy for customers to order and pay.

Related read: How To Make The Most Effective Business Model Of Milk Delivery App?

Must-have features on On-Demand Flower Delivery App

Depending upon your business plan, you have to integrate features in your app. These are the tools that will help your customers to get better access to your products and services. Following is the list of the few most important features which can grow your app to an on-demand status.

User or Customer Panel

This panel is dedicated to the users or customers using which they can order, pay, and receive their ordered products at their doorsteps. Let us have a quick glance at the must-have features.

User Registration & Authentication

This feature allows users to register on your on-demand flower delivery app using contact credentials like email ID, contact number, or social media accounts. The credentials are authenticated with the OTP verification process sent to the contact IDs provided by the user. Using these verified credentials, users can log in to the app whenever they wish to buy something from your store or check your collections.

Search & Filter Products

Flowers and floral products are of many varieties and more importantly is that different persons are having different choices and preferences. To match these two ends, your flower delivery app must have the search and filter option. From this feature, users can select their preferred products by filtering your collection on the basis of types, price, or availability.

Schedule Delivery

As we all know that flowers are mostly purchased for gifting purposes on special occasions. Apart from that, customers may wish to receive their ordered products at some scheduled time or date depending upon their availability at the delivery point. To support this requirement, your flower delivery app must have scheduled delivery features by which customers can set their preferred time and date of delivery of the ordered products.

Customized Note

Enabling users to add a personal note with the flowers ordered can be an interesting feature to consider for your on-demand flower delivery app. Users can write a note while placing an order and you can get it printed to deliver with the flowers or bouquet. This feature adds a personal touch and helps users to convey their message more effectively.

Real-time Tracking

Another essential feature is to enable your customers to track their orders in real-time. They must receive updates of each step starting from ‘Preparing the order’ to ‘Order delivered’. By using the GPS-enabled feature of the app, customers will be able to view the delivery executive’s movements when he is on his way to deliver their order.

Order History & Re-order

The customer panel must have the order history feature by which they can view the previously booked flower delivery details including date & time, flower type, quantity, cost of service, and others. To save on time, your customers can view previous order details and tap “re-order” for instant or scheduled booking with ease.

Flexible and Secure Payment Methods

A flower delivery app being an online digital interface for ordering and delivering products, must have secure multiple payment options. Customers must be able to pay through multiple modes of payments which can be credit cards, debit cards, or online wallets. This flexibility will make your app more preferred among the customers.

Offers, Promos, and Coupons

Every customer likes to get pampered with offers, cashback schemes, and discounts. Your app can help you fulfill this wish of theirs and all your scheme related announcements get highlighted on the user dashboard. You can announce offers, cashback or referral schemes, and discounts which get calculated automatically at the time of billing.

Delivery Boy’s App

This panel is responsible for automated actions starting from recruitment till payment to your delivery staff. Check the following points to know-how.

Registration, Authentication & Verification

Once downloaded, the flower delivery app asks for all information from the delivery boy which you need to complete their recruitment process. The contact details are authenticated by OTP verification and you can check the documents uploaded by them straight on your dashboard.

Set Availability and Manage Orders

Delivery staff can set their availability at work and accept or reject orders as per their convenience. If they reject any order, it gets passed on to another delivery boy on duty. They can manage multiple orders in reference to the sequence of orders placed via your flower delivery app.

Track Route to Delivery Location

Your on-demand flower delivery app has accurate and precise GPS technology that guides your delivery staff to the delivery location without any fault. This feature also provides route guidance so that your delivery staff can take an alternate route to the delivery point if there is any issue with the general route.

Manage Earnings & Payments

The flower delivery app has earned and payment management features for the delivery boy. There is an in-app wallet in which they can receive their payment after delivery as contracted with the owner. They can link their bank accounts with the wallet and transfer the money as per their need anytime and from anywhere.

In-app Communications

The delivery staff can communicate with customers and the store owner using the communication interface in the app. They can call the person concerned or consult with them by text messages. Once an order is accepted by the delivery staff, they get access to the contact details of the customer to communicate in a better way.

Push Notifications

The app updates the delivery staff about new orders, announcements or any information related to their concern by push notifications. They get the notification straight to their dashboard which triggers the notification functionality. Apart from this, they also receive alerts via SMS and emails.

Admin Panel

This panel is going to be responsible to update you about all the activities related to your business operations, revenue status and manage users and delivery staff. Following are the must-have features of the admin panel.

Manage Multiple Stores

A flower delivery app will allow you to take care of the business operations at your stores from the dashboard itself. You can manage customers and delivery staff and check daily sales status from the admin panel dashboard. 

Order Management

You can view the orders you receive at your store, order delivered until a certain point of time and manage undelivered orders simply from the admin panel dashboard. The app records complete order history which you can view by filtering by date, delivery status or delivery staff anytime.

Related read: How to scale your car-sharing and delivery business?

Delivery Management

Just like the orders, you can also track the delivery status of the orders placed at your store. Using the live GPS tracking system, you can precisely view the location of delivery staff engaged in their tasks. You can also chat with your customers in case there is any confusion regarding the orders.

Revenue Management

You can keep a track of the income and expenses at your flower eStore. The dashboard of the admin panel provides you with details of the payment you receive and the expenses you made, hence providing you with all analytics related to your business revenue generation. You can also pay your staff from the in-app wallet where you receive all the payments made by your customers for their purchases.

Staff Management

The highly interactive dashboard of the admin panel helps you manage your staff much effectively. You can verify the documents that they upload at the time of their registration with the app. You can monitor their activities, set their payment schedules, and track their performance records whenever you feel like it.

Inventory Management

An updated flower delivery app can always help you keep a track of the stock and inventory status of the products in your store. Your stock and inventory value is always adjusted with each delivery to provide you with a regular update on the current status of the same. The app itself shows the customers about the availability status of the goods automatically.

Complaints Management

There can be times when issues might be faced by customers or delivery staff during any order transaction. The flower delivery app provides you with the capability to manage complaints arising due to such issues. You will receive the complaints of the customers or staff on your dashboard which you can review and resolve as per your convenience.

Promotional Offers and Banner Management

To attract more customers, you can announce promotional offers in the form of referral, cashback or discount schemes. You can also display digital banners of other brands to earn advertising revenues. The announcement, management, and dissolution of all these offers and schemes can be done from the dashboard of the admin panel of your flower delivery app.

These are the major app panels required for a modern, updated and attractive flower delivery app. If you go for an aggregator model, there will be another app panel named “Store or Vendor App”. It will be very close to the Admin App in functionalities, but will not have the master control, as that panel will also be controlled by the admin.

Steps to be taken before Flower Delivery App Development

Market Survey & Research

You must do a market survey on the choice of people in your locality and the estimated strength of orders you are going to receive. You should research the buying preferences and the ongoing market rates in which such services are being delivered. 

Competitor’s Analysis

As floristry is a flourishing business, it has caught the attention of many people across the globe. Hence, you must keep a note of the list of probable competitors and study their business strategies and techniques used by them to sustain their business well.

Know the technicalities

You must have an idea about the technical aspects of flower delivery app development as what should be the platform, coding language or the plugins required to provide you with all features and functionalities you need. You must also know and focus on the UI/UX of the app which you can never afford to be of poor quality if you want your app to be popular.

Related read: 7 UX tips to design better taxi apps

Hire the Best Development Team

Research several times before hiring a development team on the basis of their skills, resources, and support they can provide. Enquire about their knowledge on frontend development and backend support along with their specializations in designing and development from multiple sources.

Cost Estimation

Cost of on-demand flower delivery app development depends upon the features you want to have in it and the quality of the team working on it. Generally, the cost is defined on the basis of hours required to develop your app, but many development companies do the same in their pre-estimated packages.

Steps Towards Monetization With AllRide 

By now, you are having all the necessary details required to proceed with on-demand flower delivery app development. Now it is time to get prepared with your finances. Always remember that you receive a ballpark estimate from developers. There can be chances that the expenses exceed their quotes. So always keep some backup funds prepared for such emergencies.

Now you are ready to start your own startup. Prior discussions clarify all the platforms available in the market focus on the freshness of flowers and same-day delivery. This clearly indicates that you have to be perfect and punctual which is quite tough without an on-demand flower delivery app.

To develop an extraordinary flower delivery app, it is necessary to find the right development company like AllRide with the bouquet in hands and skillful developers. Share your ideas and requirements with a team of experts to guide you to develop your own startup and make you stand on top of the floral business.