Online shop for a florist: bouquets, delivery, stock

A florist's days are uneven. On an ordinary Tuesday you sell a couple of bouquets and a houseplant over the counter. But in the run-up to Valentine's Day or Mother's Day, hundreds of orders arrive at once — some online, some by phone, some at the counter — and each one has to be made up, delivered and paid for. Meanwhile a couple rings wanting advice on wedding flowers.

If the online shop, the till and the stock records are in different places, you feel it most painfully on the busiest day: the vase is still on sale online even though the last one went over the counter this morning.

What florists complain about most

• "Delivery costs the same everywhere, but driving to the other side of town costs more."
• "A bouquet comes in three sizes, but the online shop can only show one price."
• "Over the holidays we sell things online that we no longer have."
• "Wedding consultations live on my phone and on paper."

An online shop that understands a florist's orders

In the NUNDINAE online store, a bouquet is an ordinary product with variants: small, medium and large, for example. Each variant has its own price, its own photos and, if you want, its own stock level. The customer picks a size on the product page and sees the right price immediately. Under the product's "Attributes" you can describe, say, care instructions, which the shop shows below the description.

Delivery by postcode. Delivery methods and prices can be set by country, postcode, weight, order value and customer group, with a free-delivery threshold. So delivery to the city centre costs one price and further out another, and a larger order can be delivered free. Smaller gifts can also be sent to a SmartPost parcel locker.

Holiday campaigns. Basket rules can have a validity period — a Valentine's campaign starts and ends by itself. A bundle deal adds a gift automatically, for example "buy a bouquet and a vase, get a card free". Gift cards can be used both online and at the counter.

Payments go through Montonio — bank links, card, Apple Pay and Google Pay — or by bank transfer. The shop works in Estonian, English, Russian and Finnish, which helps when flowers are ordered from abroad for someone living in Estonia.

The shop and the website on one stock level

For a florist, what matters most is that the online store and the stock are one application. The vase, houseplant or candle you sell over the counter is the same product you sell online. When the last one goes through the till, it disappears from the online shop at the same moment. You don't need to buy two separate applications or integrate them.

You don't have to track stock for every product. For finished goods (vases, pots, candles) you switch stock tracking on; for a bouquet made up on the spot you can leave it off, or allow ordering even when the quantity is zero. The choice is made per product.

Goods are received with a barcode scanner: scan each product and it's added to the stock. "Do we still have this vase?" — scan it and see what's left. When something is running low, the dashboard tells you and you can put together a supplier order sheet. More in online store and inventory management in one application.

A till at the counter

At the till you search for a product by name or scan its code. Payment can be cash, card, gift card or several at once; you can print a receipt and get a summary by payment method at the end of the day. Every counter customer and online customer is in the same customer register.

Wedding and event design consultations

If you offer design work, you switch on the bookings module. A consultation is a service with a duration and a price; the customer picks a free time online and gets a confirmation with a calendar file. If you want, you ask for a prepayment on online bookings and set how many hours before the appointment it can be cancelled free of charge. You can put a booking block on any content page — your wedding design page, for instance.

The client card keeps notes and visit history. If the customer has given consent, automated messages can send them a birthday greeting — optionally with a personal discount code that works in the online shop. I cover this in appointment reminders and birthday offers.

What to check before switching

1. Delivery zones: write down which postcodes get which price. That's the basis for the setup.
2. Bouquet sizes: decide whether a bouquet has variants or separate products.
3. Stock: which products to track stock for and which not.
4. Existing products and customers come across from your old online shop (e.g. WooCommerce) and from CSV; I redirect the old addresses so Google's links don't break.

I do the migration and setup myself. If you'd like to see how this would work for your shop, order NUNDINAE or ask for a demo — before your next busy day.