There are several exciting milestones that FlowerStore has achieved within the past few years.

Yes, the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for the Southeast Asian startup ecosystem. But for some, it actually opened up doors of opportunities. In May, as Metro Manila underwent a lockdown as a consequence of the global health crisis, online flowers and gifts platform FlowerStore Group actually managed to pull off a successful Mother’s Day campaign in May.

As most offline flowers and gifts retailers were closed, the startup seized this opportunity and managed to deliver tens of thousands of flowers to customers.

In August, at the height of the pandemic in Southeast Asia (SEA), the company announced its second office in Vietnam, a market that they have entered in 2019. Starting off in Ho Chi Minh City, FlowerStore expanded its presence to Hanoi.

“We see that from a demographic point of view it is pretty similar to the Philippines. But at the same time … the marketing costs are actually way lower than Indonesia, and the labour costs are way lower than Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia,” FlowerStore founder Saul Molla says.

In this interview with e27, Molla explains how the company sets itself apart and breakthrough a market in a challenging time.

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A budding potential

FlowerStore Group was founded in July 2018 in the Philippines with the goal to bring affordable flowers to the emerging market.

This year, the company says that it sold out its 20,000 Valentine’s Day delivery slots one week before February 14. The milestone has encouraged the company to increase its Valentine’s Day slots to 100,000 next year.

“Being able to scale up at this level while generating significant positive FCF has always been a challenge in the industry due to high customer acquisition costs (CAC) and promotions to attract consumers. FlowerStore’s strong P&L due to its direct access to the producers will continue to help the company achieve its goals,” it explains in a press statement.

It also stated that its revenue continues to surge while generating positive EBITDA and Free Cash Flow (FCF) unlike traditional fast-growing e-commerce companies in the region.

According to Molla, the company’s focus on pricing and customer experience help them to get ahead of the competition. In addition to providing affordable flowers and gifts that were sourced directly from farmers and suppliers, it also tries to adjust to unique user behaviour in the market.

For example, cash-on-delivery (COD) remains a popular payments option for many markets in SEA. But considering the fact that most customers are buying flowers for gifts, FlowerStore recognises that it would be strange to have the flowers delivered to the recipient’s door and the delivery man asks for the payment.

“Basically, what we do is send one rider to pick up the cash from the customer … And then with another rider, we deliver the order –it is all about making it a seamless experience for the customers. This is something that has received very good acceptance from the market,” Molla says.

Also Read: FlowerAdvisor is building a million dollar business in flowers and gifts

Blooming to the future

Prior to founding FlowerStore, Molla was previously known as the CFO and Head of Business Development of Lazada Philippines, a position that enables him to get a good idea of the e-commerce scene in the region –and what it takes to win it.

With a background in aerospace engineering, he came to the Philippines in 2016 from Spain. He cited boredom of the European market as the reason for his move.

“Flowers and gifting are vertical that is already established in the developed markets. But it’s still completely unattended in SEA, without any market leader,” he explains.

Molla credited his experience at Lazada for enabling him to generate strong customer demand for FlowerStore within the first two years of its operations –especially with floral and gifting e-commerce industry being highly underpenetrated in the region.

In 2019, FlowerStore raised a US$1.5 million seed funding round led by “local family offices with large stakes in the agriculture and real estate industries.”

The company used the funding to fuel its Southeast Asia expansion plan and to strengthen its gifting category capabilities.

This year, FlowerStore plans to continue its regional expansion plan.

“We have reached some kind of a sweet spot which we actually weren’t expecting until now … we are at a scale that allows us to have a kind of flywheel of a business, a business that is generating money, that allows us to continue expanding,” Molla says.

“I thought that there was also a good moment, in the sense that it is good to bring kind of positivity to the community when, just a while ago, I was reading about another e-commerce in Indonesia closing down,” he continues.

Today, the company has over 150 team members and delivers thousands of orders across the Philippines and Vietnam.

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Image Credit: FlowerStore

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