Transforming the buying experience with Daniela Marquez and Joe Vega. The Lovingly.com story.

Foreign.

Welcome to E Commerce Growth Stories. This is your hostess with the mostest, Juliana Jackson, aka the CLV lady. And also I am the Chief Evangelist for OmniConvert.

And this is Valentin Radu, CEO of OmniConvert. Thank you for tuning in today for a new episode of E Commerce Growth Stories.

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I'm here with two amazing people. One that I know and one that I met today. And he really survived me for the last five minutes before we started the podcast. He survived the maximum test. So I'm here with Daniela Marquez, she's the head of growth for lovingly.com and with Joe Vega who is the co founder of lovingly.com and we have my co host here in the house tonight because I just texted him on WhatsApp. Valentin Radu, the one and only.

Hello, everyone. I wanted to get a proper webcam and that turned out to get way more than expected. So. Hello everyone. Hi, Daniela. Hello, Joe. It's great to have you here.

Thank you for having us.

So guys, Valentin.

Guys is in Italian. So before Juliana showed us how much Spanish she knows from telenovelas and she started to speak in Italian.

It's okay, Valentin. It's okay. It's fine. Don't worry about it. So I'm happy to have Daniela and Joe today because I discovered lovelingly.com probably I think before Christmas. Daniela, I think we talked the first time and I was like, mind blown because you guys have the best quiz I've ever seen on a website in a long time. Like it was emotional and how do you guys just basically take the customer journey to another level? But before we get to that part, I want to know what is lovingly.com for the audience that's watching right now everywhere. And what do you guys really do?

Cool. Do you want me to start, Joe? And then I'll pass?

Sure, you can start.

Awesome. So Lovingly is a connection point between consumers and local florists. And we basically try to give the best experience possible for everyone. So we work with close to 1500 florists across the US and Canada. We help them with their marketing, their technology, all that good stuff. But what it comes down to is like, there are two people out there who want to give a gift because of a reason, a moment, something that's going on in their lives, and they're wanting to that gift to be meaningful and, and be impactful. And so lovingly fills that gap. That solution of wanting to give a local gift that means something from a local florist and solving that with one place to go to one brand, but still giving access to that local florist. Joe, do you want to add to that?

Sure. So we've been in the space since 2008, and like Daniela just said, we connect customers with local businesses, obviously local flower shops. And this is important in the industry because there's a lot of, you know, wire services or other florists that are just basically call centers and just forward the orders to the local businesses. And there's a significant amount of revenue that's being broken down in that formula. And what we do is we connect customers directly with flower shops, local florists, and that business model actually works better for the florist, and therefore it works better for the customer, it works better for the recipient, it works better for everyone. And one of the things we've been able to do is, um, we don't actually call it a customer journey, we call it the gifter's journey. Because buying a gift is very different than buying something for yourself. When you are buying something for yourself, it's pretty simple. I mean, it's really easy, right? Oh, you know, you just go on whatever website you, you, you're gonna go to and like Amazon or Best Buy, whatever, and then you just buy something. You know your credit card information, you know everything about what you want, period.

And you know your links. Yeah.

The only thing that you gotta worry about is possibly review, do a little bit product research. That's, that's as much as you go. Y gifted journey is very different because you, you're not buying it for yourself, you're buying it for somebody else. So the, the, the process is a little bit, is much longer because not only are you. Do you need to Know your, You know, you obviously know your own address, but now you need to know somebody else's address. And then you're asked to be a poet and actually write something, you know, dramatic or on the personal note or in the card message section, which, you know, in our. In. In our history, we notice that that's the. That's the section that people struggle with the most, is the card message. People don't know how to express themselves. I'm in the business and I still have to look up card message.

They don't have a Juliana right there telling them what to say.

Yeah.

Dropping F bombs.

Yeah.

So we've been able to sort of.

Like, it's okay, I will offer my services. Go ahead.

So that's basically what we do in a nutshell, is we focus on the gift, on the gifter, not so much the customer.

I never heard before of a gifting journey, and I think it's an amazing way to put it because indeed, when you're purchasing from. For someone else, there's like a different level of emotions that you have to deal with because you're constantly asking yourself, oh my God, will they like this? Is this, you know, is this gonna make them feel. In a way, I think it's also because we're selfish bastards and we want to feel better about what we give to other people. Right. And it's like, oh, like, I want to feel good about. About giving this gift, but it's very. Especially when it comes to flowers, I think you want to like, impress because you guys are not selling flowers. You're selling emotions and you're selling moments in. In my opinion. But like, how did you guys came up with. To this idea? Like, how did it happen?

Well, the, you know, I co founded the company back in 2008 out of a need, actually, and has graduated into much more. But the need originally was I was working for a major wire service, a wire services. You know, there's about three, four wire services in. In North America that basically allow florists to transfer orders within each other. Right. That's how the. This business, this industry was born about 100 years ago. And at the end of the day, they were not getting what they needed from these wire service providers when it came to online marketing or conversion rate optimization. At one point, you know, the wire service that was providing websites for. For these local flower shops didn't update their website in about 12 years. Believe it or not, that's a true story. 12 years without you updating your tech, it's like insane.

But that's actually what like they're built in like the 90s or 2000.

Right. So we were able to come up with this idea of providing our business model actually is a, is a performance based, which means we don't actually make any money unless we, we actually deliver a paying customer for the, for the flower shop. So that unto itself was very innovative in the space. No one else was doing that before. And that business model, along with the technology, along with the psychology that we were using to sort of move the customer through the journey and the gifters journey came about, about, you know, three, four years ago when we started really looking at it. It's like it's really not a customer because every, all the research that we've ever done, it's customer journey. Right. And it makes sense, but I'm like this doesn't quite fit, fit what we're doing. There's more to this and there's the whole gifting, there's the card message part of it. There's. So it's that naturally sort of organically happened after we were, you know, diving into the data and into the research. So that, that's how we came up with that.

So when you, when you say, Joe, that this is not, let's say this is not enough in terms of you, you've realized three, four years ago that this is not about the, that journey. What do you mean? Can you give us a different angle on this matter? So you realize that there were different needs for the same customers or you wanted to address other customers with different needs.

I think that it's a different need overall because you're not buying it for yourself, you're buying it for some, someone else. This particular term hasn't caught on, but I don't know who came up with it. I wish I could give him credit, but like, I don't know, 10 years ago somebody tried to come up with the word gift commerce instead of E commerce. And you do find like remnants of, of this. But no, it didn't catch on. But that's what they meant. They meant that the, you know, a gifter is very different from, I mean, they're all customers. Don't get me wrong. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. You're not buying for yourself. So when you're not buying for yourself, the variables change, right? You have to know more information. Like if I ask you right now, do you know where one of your friends, let's say you wanted to send flowers to a friend of yours at their job. You probably know where they work. You probably know the building, but I guarantee you probably don't know the exact address with the zip code. And like, no one knows that. So you have to like, these are.

All.

Parts, these, all these variables are friction to the process of buying through the customer journey. It's not a friction in the regular customer journey because you know your own address. You don't need to look that up, right? So that's how, that's why, that's how it's different. That's one thing. It introduces more variables, but also the fact that it's. The card message, believe it or not, is the big one. Because all the, the example that I just gave can easy. You can easily look it up on Google. That's why Google Maps exists, right? You look. So it's a friction you can overcome. But the card message part of it, it's difficult for people to cause. You can send the perfect arrangement, but if you said the wrong thing on the card, it may not go well for you.

And there's not just the sort of transactional elements that are different. It's even the emotional state, right? Because your whole goal is to make that person be happy or feel a certain way with that gift. So even the mindset of that gift is, is trying to a make them happy but also look good like you. You want the kudos for, for giving a good gift.

You got to be judged.

You're going to be judged one way or the other.

When you're buying something, you're not being judged. You're like, yeah, maybe a lot. You're judging it, right? You're going to like it. You may not like it. Hopefully you like it because that's what you bought it. But when you're sending some, some, there's a period of anxiety that happens when, when, when someone sends flowers. As a matter of fact, it became such a problem that we came up with a solution for this. But the problem is people get anxiety, especially the guys. When we're sending flowers for, for the, for the ladies or whomever they, they like. They, they, they always call up the shop after they place the order like an hour or two or whenever, and they always ask did you, did she get it yet or did they get it yet or who did? And they're like, yeah, they got it, like, but they haven't responded back to me like, was she happy? And they, and florists particularly don't like this, these calls because they're like, yeah, she's happy. What do you like? That's between. So that actually that was a Very good lesson for us because that told us that the journey isn't completed until the recipient thanks the original gifter, the original customer. That's when it's actually completed. A flourish's job is not done. The minute they deliver the flowers, it's done. Yeah. Nor is our job done. So we. You want to talk about the thanks since you came up with that?

For sure. So basically, like, part of the delivery of the flowers, there's a little card message, right. That's kind of stuck in the flowers there. And. And we actually have our own sort of super ticket paper that the florists use. And so it's nice and branded and all that good stuff. And what we did is basically have a QR code and a link on that card message so that when the recipient now is excited, they see their flowers, they're reading their message, they're like, oh, this is amazing. They can right then and there get their phone out, just scan the QR code, and now they have their own journey in which they can thank you, message, take a picture, and that gets sent right back to sender. And they also have the option to share that on social media. So it's like the journey again, like, looking at just like that purchase, and it's not complete at the moment when the purchase or the transaction is complete, now the recipient's doing their part. They're getting that. That gratitude, you know, feedback loop back to their. To the sender. And, you know, we're kind of just scratching the surface here. There's so much more potential that. That we see with this possibility, especially going on social media. Because then, like, your friend sees that and like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe so and so got you flowers. And then you can promote the florist who's also on Facebook and said, this is like, lovingly crafted by so and so and then like, grow their business. So, like, there's so much here to, like, bring in the community and the excitement around this one moment. Especially, like, thinking of, like, when a baby's born and like, all that stuff. And then like, that just generates so much more positivity and excitement and that sort of virality around these little social moments that are happening.

How are you guys handling so much data? Because I'm like, you guys are talking, it's beautiful. But my. I'm thinking like, that's the data point. That's a data point. That's a data point. So how are you guys, from a technical, like, from an architectural perspective, there's a lot of data points, right?

Yep.

You got to make sure that all of them are connected to, you know, to follow this gifting journey from both ends. Right. So how are you handling all these data points? What are you guys doing to make sure that everything is running smoothly?

Well, we have a phenomenal tech team, engineering team in house, and we've built everything from the ground up. So the whole tech stack, the database, everything is our own. We have full control over everything. And we're able to map that order ID to the florist, to the customer, to the recipient. And everything is sort of in a full relational database that has all those touch points.

Yeah.

Okay, that's cool.

We wouldn't be here without awesome. Tech team, Engineering team, shout out design team. Yeah. And you're right. With your typical transaction, there are two main things. There's a customer, then there's a product. But with this, there's a customer, there's a product, but then there's a recipient. There are two addresses, not one. There's also a card message now, because we're doing the thanks project, there's also a reciprocating card message which is just a thank you back to the center. So that's a lot of data points. So we keep it all together.

That's awesome. Plus, what happens on the quiz side when you collect all that pre purchase data, that adds up to the whole thing. I think that quiz is phenomenal. Ever since Daniela showed it to me, I think I've been posting that quiz all over because I was impressed. Like, I never saw something. I mean, I've seen good quizzes, but yours was, like, emotional. And I mean, a lot of people would say, yeah, it causes friction because you don't know these things maybe. But in a way it motivates you because like, if you're buying flowers to your girlfriend or your mother, you should be worried. If you don't know, how do you want her to feel like you should be worried? So I think in a way, even if a lot of people would call it friction, I think it's some sort of responsibility that you have to take because you are gonna be the person that has to, you know, make a good impression or make, you know, give a moment. And how did you guys put that together? Who came up with the idea? Because I think the personalization part on that is one of the best I've seen in the market. Don't tell me everything, but just give me something. Because I'm.

No, I think. Well, I think the motivation. The motivation for it really Came down to trying to understand, like, what's the best way to buy flowers. And, and like knowing that that experience is really in the shop. Because you, you walk into the flower shop, you talk to the florist, they're the ones who are asking you those questions, right? That's the natural conversation that happens. And like, you avoid that, like the situation where it's like you're just dating someone and you went on the second date and you're excited and you're like, I want to get them flowers and blah, blah, and you're like, get a dozen roses. And the florist is like, whoa, settle down, relax. Like, save that for your anniversary. Like, get just a nice little hand wrap bouquet that kind of says, hey, I'm thinking of you. And I like the way this is going. Right? So that was that kind of, that guidance, that nurturing, that excitement, that conversation that happens. Like, why are you getting this? Who's it for? How do you want them to feel? And the florist then takes all those data points themselves and they're able to create something unique on the fly for that moment. And so that was like the goalpost was like, bring the in shop experience online. Like that's what we're trying to do. And so the conversation became the kind of the goalpost for doing that. But Joe mentioned this earlier. I think the first thing that we did, if I remember correctly, from a research standpoint, and it was one of those duh moments, was we went to the card messages, speaking of the databases, we have all the card messages from every transaction ever, and started to pour through those, read them, categorize them, really understand what's happening. And what was so cool about that was the realization that, like, when you land on a traditional e commerce website for flowers, you're forced to like, navigate, okay, it's birthday and you go here, oh, it's anniversary. And like it's, it's just very categorized, which just makes sense because that's the hierarchy of navigation. But in looking at the card messages, there was much more nuance. There was like, oh, you know, just, you know, thinking of you and wanted to brighten your day. Or I know it's your birthday, but you're, you know, in the hospital not feeling well. So I wanted to cheer you up. It's like all these little nuances. It was birthday, but get well. So how do we, how do we balance these different things? And it's not just a strict occasion. It's more than an occasion, it's a reason. And like through taking all those card messages and grouping, that's where that motivation between. For that first question of, like, why, like, why are you here? And we basically said, you know, you're either celebrating something, there's a difficult time, and that's why you're trying to cheer somebody up, or just because. So that kind of was the catalyst, like, really going into the card message and understanding the job to be done from the. From the gifter's perspective was the motivation for that whole sort of sequence and personalization.

That's awesome. And I think when I was going through those questions, I can actually visualize, I mean, how they came together because it always. There always are variables, like maybe someone's birthday and you messed up with that woman and you want to apologize for her birthday. Like, you cannot be like, you know, like, happy birthday. And like, I think it's cool. And I mean, I want to ask you something so I get what you guys are doing. I mean, as at a surface level, of course. But my question is, you take, you know, florists from the street that are selling at the corner store and what, Right? Like, people that are selling flowers in a classical floor, you know, florist shop, right? In Romania. That's how they are. They're like, at corners and they're selling flowers and have a nice shop. That's why I'm, I guess, expressing it like this in English, because this is how they're placed here in Romania. Like, if you want to go and buy flowers, you know that there's the nice lady at the corner shop that will fix you up, fix you right there. So my question is, like, did you guys had some sort of friction into getting them into the system? Because I'm asking myself, how are they getting these data points? Like, it's an order, right? So you have to give her, you know, 12 roses with this message and so on and so forth. Like, did you guys had any, like, I don't know, ramping period until you train people into the program? Because it's not the way they're used to do it, right? They like to talk to people, you know, like, it's. The whole selling flower thing for me is like a. I mean, it's an experience, right? It's the lifestyle thing. It's like you're going to, I don't know, to the. To the shop where everyone knows you, and it's like you're talking like friends. I mean, this is how it is here. So that's how I'm imagining it. Not sure it's like that in America. But I think it comes, it depends on the place probably, but here is like very community based. So like, you know who they are. Yeah. So how, how did they react to this?

So I think maybe kind of taking a step back to like how they, how we started, like, which was not. We didn't have lovingly dot com. Right. Our main business focus to get started. And still a big part of it is like the individual websites for these, for these florists across us and Canada. So they're very much used to working with us. So like the, the dual sided marketplace problem we already overcame because we had the florists in our system used to getting orders, all that stuff. So that was, that was an easy thing that we had right away. And the other thing that kind of was in our favor is that the best selling arrangement on their websites and we did this on purpose is what's called the florist choice. So that is basically a, you know, they set the price point and they get to do whatever they want with that arrangement. So that concept was already there and the ability to kind of have that flexibility. And now what we were saying is like, we're taking that same concept that florists love because it gives them that flexibility. They can be creative, they can do whatever they want. And from a more transactional standpoint, if they're running low for whatever reason, they work with what they have that there's no recipe that they have to follow. So they already love that concept and that product. And now we're like sprinkling in the emotion to it. Right. So it's like florist's choice on steroids with that, with that emotion side of things. And, and it basically also like the other things to your point, they, they are the, the center of their communities. Right. They know the stories of the people. All that's like, they're like the hairdressers, right? They know all the stories. Yeah, we have actually. Oh man.

That'S.

I know what you're going to say. That's exactly what I thought of.

Go ahead.

Yeah, all that you. Because it was before my time, but we'll go there in a second.

Yeah.

So I mean, I want to hear this.

Yeah, go, go, go.

Okay, so this is like 10, 12 years ago, we, we were using stock photography to sort of create this florist choice product. Because what do you show in a florist choice product? You're always going to, you can't show an arrangement because people are going to think they're going to get that arrangement.

Right.

So how do you show a product that's not really real, that's going to be created uniquely every single time? So what we did was we took this hairdresser. We kind of like this image of a hairdresser with, like, her arms like this, you know. You know, like they were cutting hair, basically. So we just photoshopped the hands out and we just gave her, you know, we just put some flower stems on them, and they're like, you know, then we put, like, an arrangement underneath them. And that was the. The. We still use that image today. It's like a. Oh, you guys.

Where did Joe go?

It just disappeared on its own. I don't know what happened.

Valentin is on mute. Perfect. You're not on mute anymore, Valentin.

Am I. I'm not on mute, right?

Yeah.

No, Valentin was on you.

No, it was a glitch in the.

Oh, yeah, that was deja vu. That was deja vu. So we still use that hairdresser image. So when. When Danielle is a hairdresser, that just triggered that.

Oh, Joe, I thought you were going somewhere else. I thought you were gonna tell the. The. So because of the hairdresser and they're the gossip, the town gossip. They know everything. I think it was a. It was a Valentine's Day. It was before I had joined lovingly. And we had two orders come in back to back, same gifter, similar addresses down the street, Very different card messages. One was for the wife, one was for the mistress.

He wasn't playing no games, though. He would have them close, but the same floors.

But like, this is like the. Like, you were not anonymous when you were online. Like, people forget that. And so, like, florists obviously get these two orders, and it's like, I know what's going on here. You know, Exactly.

No, you don't want to mess with the messages. Right? You don't want.

Oh, my God. Yeah.

One of the things that we're really careful around doing, and we always. We make sure. Back to your point. Is we have a lot of data, so we always ask, could you use this card message for research purposes, or can we use this to help other people write better card messages, for example? Because writing a card message is really difficult. The research is really where it's at. Because when we study our own data based on the permissions that we've received from customer, that always helps. We always nudge them to allow us to get into that so that we can gain some insights. So that works out great for us.

That's awesome.

Does it help for you to or how much it helped you to understand the satisfaction for the florist? Because I'm now on your website and I'm seeing that you have these nice ratings, 4.8, 1500 florists. So how you've measured, when you've started to measure and how the measuring of the, the customer satisfaction for specific florists has helped you. And have you decided to simply get rid of some of the florists which were below the radar?

That's a good question, Valente.

I'm not sure I understood the first part of it, but we haven't. In terms of florists, how do we keep a good enough rating for everyone for the customers to use? Is that what you mean?

How does it help you? How was it helpful for your business to get ratings for the florists for specific florists? And then if you've decided to simply let go of some of the florists which were below the radar, they were giving suboptimal products or services from your perspective.

Okay, understood. So remember I mentioned the business model is very different. It's performance based and on top of that we actually push the shop's brand out there. We don't most providers, most other like you know, competitors, they sell the flowers and they do not forward the customer information, know the email address, know the, any, any part of the contact information for the real customer back to the flower shop. Okay. And we do, we, we're transparent with it. It's, it's your, it's a co customer, you know, we're all good there. Right. That unto itself enables the flower shop to actually do a better job with these arrangements. So remember, they're getting orders from different places. Their website through us is one of them and through the marketplace is another. But they're also orders from all the other providers. But because their name, their reputation is on the line there, there is their work. You know, the customer knows who's delivering these flowers. It's, it's an inherent benefit that they actually make sure. Like if they have, if they're running out of flowers and they have two arrangements to make and I'm not saying that they're forced to pick this, right. But like if they have like expensive flowers that they're going to use on one or they're going to, they're going to choose the arrangement that they're named is on right. Because that's their, that's their brand, that's their reputation. So that actually allows us to have A high. I don't know what's happening again, high. Like it keeps going off. Am I disappearing from you guys as well?

You're there.

You're back. Yeah.

Just the voice.

Your voice is still there. So.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So because of that, because we're transparent, that that actually translate into higher ratings by the customers. It's a domino effect because florists are actually doing a better job taking care of their own orders. They consider those their own orders, whereas other orders they get from the wire services or order gatherers or anywhere else. They're. I'm not saying they don't do as good of a job, but all things being equal, they're gonna. They're gonna do a better job for the ones where their names on it. Right. For the orders that their name is actually there. So. And we haven't just answered your question. We. Everyone, for the most part, maybe Daniela, do you know. But I think everyone. Because of that reason, you know, it's. It's almost like it polices itself. So everyone has a high rating from our shops. But maybe I'm wrong. Do you know of any that there.

Might be a few, but it might just be like a volume perspective. Right. They haven't gotten enough to sort of settle out from an average perspective, but it is. It is pretty like it is 4.8 average across all of our florists, which is pretty fantastic.

Yeah.

Another reason, I think Daniela just touched up on this, but another reason why is that high. It's because we, you know, the floors choice product that they actually built, we really nudge customers and gifters to buy that product. The. The guy to gifting experience that you guys are talking about, every single product that comes from that is the guy is the floor's choice product, which means the floors is. Can do whatever they want. So they end up actually producing better products, better floor arrangements, because they were able to use their creativity as opposed to making the same cookie cutter arrangement that they, you know, they make 12 of the same arrangement a day and they. As a creative, you get tired of doing the same thing over and over. Right. You want to. You want to create. Right. You want to be original, you want to express it exactly. So they put more. That translates into more effort into the arrangement, and the better arrangement translate into better ratings. So it works out for everyone.

I have one more question regarding the business model so that I and our listeners could better understand. So mainly you give the florist the option of collecting the data of their customers or. And getting back to them or not. So mainly is this relation between the customer and the florist or is this a relation between the customer and lovingly.

That to column it's both and, and it's not a choice, it just is. Right. So any, any purchase that happens that that data is going, that all the customer data fully transparent is going into the back end system that the florist has access to and, and into, into our database as well. So it's, it's really that co branded customer idea. Like that's how it's written even in our contracts and everything. And, and that was really about important to us because that, that's a huge differentiation to the, the bigger wire services that don't give the florist that information and it's a brick wall. And so it's like Amazon. Exactly like you are just fulfilling and that's all you're doing and you stay over there and then they get the profit on the marketing and the orders and all that stuff. But it was really important for us to be like no, this is like this is valuable for you. Like maybe one day that florist wants to, you know, sell their business and they want to retire and they want to do all these amazing things. That data becomes valuable for that person who wants to buy that business and it's valuable for us as well because then we can start to nurture them and, and do all those sort of things. So it's a win win really when we think of it that way. And that was important to us as well.

So, so the relations. So sorry Juliana, I, I just wanted to, to finish so that I can make it clear in my head as well.

Yeah.

So mainly the, your. The florist can get back to their customers who owns the relationship? Who's making the remarketing? Let's say I'm buying flowers for Mother's Day next year. Are the florists getting back to the customer, reminding them, hey, this year we have something fantastic for your mother because last year you gave her 25 roses and now we have this fantastic alternative. Who's doing that?

The florists can do that. Majority of them don't. Some of them will. The ones who are a little bit more, more business savvy and have those capabilities. But, but a lot of the times we're doing that as a service or as an added benefit for the florist and again that win win. So we get, we get those customers back. And so we've done a few pilot programs. There's like literally like Just scratching the surface there again, there's so much opportunity in Greenfield stuff because like the, the majority of our purchases are first time, like, oh, I want to buy flowers, blah, blah, blah, Google. And then they, they land on either love in their local florist. So there's so much opportunity to nurture and remarket those purchases.

That's excellent.

And I also think you're empowering them to, I guess, own their own business in a way because you're not only a service provider or like a third party for them, you're also like accelerating what they're doing and you want them to, to be, you're basically helping them become more customer centric. Yeah. So I think it's like a great way for them to learn how to deliver better services to their customers because as Joe was saying earlier, it's all about their name and reputation and delivering the services. So I think it's really cool. Now that Valentino opened this door, I have to, I have to ask the question Lorenzo put here because he's gonna kill me afterwards. Yeah. He says, hey guys, big fan of Lovingly. I'm reading it because people are not. Can hear us on audio as well. So he says, hey guys, big fan of Lovingly. Can you talk about the challenges of building a two sides marketplace in the decision you have to make both times? Oh, you have to make both types of customers happy. And with becoming a three side part marketplace by adding the delivery person makes sense to you guys as well. Thank you, Lorenzo, for making me look stupid because I cannot be. Say that again, Juliana.

Can you repeat that, please? No.

You want me to go or you go? No, no, no, go ahead.

I was going to say, I mean, we, we were lucky in that when we first started, like, we weren't thinking of having to solve the dual sided marketplace problem. We were literally building websites for florists. So our main goal at that point it was like, we need to build the community, get more florists to join Lovingly. And that was the primary focus. And we were leveraging like SEO, organic SEO to bring consumers onto those properties. And it worked really well. And so now like the challenge is, you know, leveraging that same idea. We have the, the B2B side of the marketplace. Now we just need to bring consumer awareness into the Lovingly brand to grow that. So that's kind of where we're working on now. So it's been a lot of folks who are just starting out with a Marketplace Day 1 and they have to build both sides. It's a Real challenge. But we were lucky in that we had the, the back end community sort of built in as we're growing the B2C side in terms of the third side. That's an interesting question. I mean most of everything that we're doing right now is based on the florist's own delivery capabilities. So they are the order in and they have a driver who works for the flower shop who's making that local delivery there. And it's funny because most of the flower orders that happen like about 40% I think are same day delivery. So that delivery driver is busy like making those orders happen right then and there. But we have seen the advent of folks who are in the Uber Eats and Grubhub Seamless DoorDash World start to look into, into the flower side of things. So it's interesting. Like we, we haven't done anything there yet, but it's an interesting concept to look at.

Oh yeah, that's awesome.

I have a question regarding the growth. So let's look at the growth part of your, of your story. If you would be saying, okay, these two, three things were the things that made the difference throughout our, our growth story. Which, which those would, would be nobody wants to go first.

Which.

Which two things have added the most to our growth strategy? Yeah, the question, yeah, initially it was SEO search engine optimization, because that's how you get, you know, having a marketplace. So we, we, we just launched the marketplace a few years ago. But like we were always working with two parties, right? With the florist, we were always connecting florists with consumers. It's just that we added an additional channel in which we, we can do that now through a national brand of lovingly and that allows us to compete on a national level. But we were always dealing with both of them. And because of that, to answer your question, the, you know, this whole business, I got started in the industry because I was working for a major wire service and I got to spend a lot of times in the, in the flower shops and I got to hear the horror stories that they were going through in terms of, you know, their, you know, livelihood being, you know, threatened. And the way I, the way I sort of, when I once I stopped working for the wire service, the way I started working on my own was I was providing search engine optimization services for a few flower shops. And that's how these, this whole thing sort of evolved into what it is today. So in terms of growth, especially back, back then in 2006, 2007, SEO was, was, was the name of the game, like if you knew SEO, you were like this sort of golden boy or something because it was like very secretive and you needed to know it can make or break you, right, or any business. So at the beginning it was definitely SEO, I would say now it is CROW Conversion rate optimization. You know, taking the, the psychology behind the gift is journey, for example, understanding who the person is. So I think SEO and CROW would be those two things that spearheaded the growth throughout our history.

Daniela, you, you, you have.

I agree.

Okay, so where is, where is the let's say or how impactful was for you, this customer lifetime value or customer retention rate? Do you look at this type of, let's say, buying patterns, buying habits? Do you add this in the mix? Because many marketplaces are actually thriving thanks to this long term game rather than in the first acquisition game.

So it's funny, actually, we, we've been, we've been so, so, so lucky. Like the SEO game is what's really driving so much of it because people are, have a need. Like I need to send flowers because it's my mom's birthday now. So like the intent is super, super high. What you're describing is what I see like being the next phase of driving that growth for us and really understanding our, who our repeat customers are and nurturing them. Because that we have like by, by and large, by far most of our purchases are brand new customers. So like, and, and we're getting that, we are doing some advertising, but it's primarily SEO that's driving it. So like we're really lucky. Like really, really lucky when you talk about that kind of space and that we're not having to spend, you know, through the roof on advertising investments. And then we're, you know, understanding the lifetime value, the repeat rate, the, the, the RFM analysis that I know you guys talk about a lot. Like that is where I see like, you know, we've done so well with like the bare bones. Not bare bones, but like really honing in on SEO and CROW for attracting folks and making sure that they buy and now that next phase of nurturing them and nurturing them by who they are and that knowledge, again, we're lucky because we have all that in our database. It's all first party data that we can act on and react on. Those are kinds of the next phases of opportunity for being able to do awesome things and like tie that into like, you know, customer accounts. You know, again, we have 1500 partners all across US and Canada, as well as lovingly dot com. So imagine a customer who needs to buy flowers for their sister in Miami, for their mom in Michigan, for their best friend in California. We can do all that with one account and our whole community of florists across the board. And that becomes really powerful when you're talking about the subscription service or reminders or whatever, and really having that one place to go that solves all those different needs.

And you, you did share with me not long ago the, like, a number that I was like, wait, what? That's crazy. You want to share that number with us? The conversion rate for the returning customer on the funnel.

Oh, yeah. So over. Over mothers. So, yeah, our. Our typical repeat rate is around 20, 20%. So only 20% of our buyers are repeat purchasers. But if you look at the funnel, the conversational guided experience over Mother's Day, 60% of the purchasers on Mother's Day were repeat buyers. So there's something about the funnel that people are wanting to come back to and experience that again, which is like, it's funny because our overall conversion rate on the funnel doesn't. It's not yet where it needs to be compared to like the traditional e commerce path. So it's like we need to fix the acquisition and the nurture crow side there. But once they get through, they love it. So it's like, it's an interesting, you know, concept that we're looking at and playing with now.

That's a great opportunity, I guess, to craft different customer journey based on the jobs to be done. Because if you map the entire seat, the entire ear, and you map the needs, then you could be, let's say, crafting like a sequel already after you've sent these flowers and everything works fine. I think this is the next thing to be able to make it like a journey that the customer is actually building.

Totally.

Well, I mean, it's funny too. It's like we don't have it yet, but if you think about the journey through the funnel and combining that with customer accounts, and then when you have, when you log into your account, you're not just seeing your order history, you're seeing your emotion history. And then couple that. Whoa, you heard it here first. No. And then couple that with like the messages that you got through the gratitude, through the thanks cycle and now you have a complete story. Like, you can go back and say, oh, you know, a year ago I was starting to date this person and I was really excited and they said this about me. And now, you know, we're going on our fifth anniversary. You know, from being married and now we feel this way. So, like, you start crafting your. A timeline of your life and these different relationships in these moments and having the place to kind of see that becomes.

As long as they're good, right? As long as they're good.

Yeah. Like, oh, we got the person. Like, yeah.

I think the best thing is an integration with Google Photos or these services. I think those. Those things, if you are in this emotional thing, if you have the. If you have some pictures and if you make this integration happening, then you're. You're in different level of importance for them.

Right.

Yeah. One. One of the funny things that has happened is our thanks program. You know, when the recipient actually scans the QR code and says thank you back, we actually give an opportunity to take a photo of themselves and the flowers. Take a. Basically a selfie. And the data that we got, we get from that is. Is absolutely fabulous. Like, that's what it's all about. It isn't. And this is something that we always sort of like. Like talk to the florist about. Like, yes, it's about the flowers that's important. That's your creative work. That's the deliverable. That's the output. But that's just one part of it. Right There's. It's all about how the recipient feels and how the recipient makes the sender feels. Right. That. That is the most important thing above the product and above the card message. All these things collectively add up to that. But that's what it's really all about. So once we see the, you know, again, those selfies with people. For some reason, people love sending pictures back with their. Of their dogs and their. Yeah. With the flowers. Don't ask me why. I have no idea. But that's. That's awesome. And seeing in the. In the. In the sender, the gifter, the customer, actually seeing that moment in time. You can't ask for a better experience when you're sending a gift to actually physically see it. Yeah.

That'S cool. So I want. I have one more question that I want to ask you. So you guys are clearly customer centric, even if they're not the customers, but you are customer centric, as you know what customer centric means as a. You know, it's not a buzzword, but it is a buzzword, but you know what I mean. Juliana, stop talking. So I want to ask you something. I want each of you guys to tell me what type of efforts, because for me, customer centricity is like an internal Alignment thing. Like you see companies when there's three people that are customer centric and the leadership or other people are not that customer centric are more like revenue centric or product centric or whatever. But you guys seem to be in the same ship on the same page. So what are some advices for the brands that are listening to this right now that are struggling to acquire this. Not to acquire, to accomplish this internal alignment when it comes to putting the customer first, because typically in direct to consumer, they're not putting necessarily the customer first, they're putting the traffic and sales first. So how did you guys got to be like this internally? Because that's the, you know, the impression that you guys give. And how can people what steps they need to do in order to get there? I hope you understood my question, because I felt like I went like this.

No, you haven't felt you went like this.

I know.

So one of our core values, I think that we can attribute what you're asking for the most is curiosity, is seek to understand, fully understand. Not just surface level understand and the sales, the traffic, the revenue, all those things are a byproduct. They will come, they will be there if you truly, fully understand, understand how the human works, not just the customer. Right? There's a difference, right? Like, we're all wired the same way. We're all, you know, we all, even though we come from different cultures, we are buying different things at different types of customers. At the end of the day, we all have a brain. And that brain works pretty similar to everybody else's brains. We call these other people crazy, but that doesn't matter. You know, we all work the same, seek to understand that. Like if you understand, if you go deeper, we're like that annoying kid in the back of the car saying, are we there yet? We always ask why. We don't stop asking why, why, why does that work that way? You know, don't take anything at face value. Really seek to understand that they're not just. They're not just a Persona. Don't use demographics. Only use demographics, but also use psychographics. Try to really understand deeply what it's all about. And don't just stay at the surface level because that's just, you know, that's just laziness, Right? That's just like, yeah, like you can read that in a million blocks. That doesn't. That's not adding any value. So I would say go deeper is. Would be my number one and stay curious.

I for sure second that. And I think for Us, like, like the way that we did that was through the card message, right? And through reading the card messages, we asked, why are people giving gifts? Why?

Why?

Why? And there we found the emotion there. That was where the magic was happening. And so it was, it kind of like we knew what we were doing was important, but it really kind of, it really made it true and big and like, like, oh my gosh, I get it now. Like, you see what's happening between these two people and then, like putting that at the first level and then us being able to shepherd that. And, you know, we talked about the, you know, the florist, and they're really, our relationship with them is a partnership, right? They have skin in the game. They wanted to do well. So by almost like, our job is to help them see that possibility of what they're doing as well, because sometimes they take it for granted or they don't realize the impact they're having is in important through that journey as well. So I think, you know, find that one thing that is unique to what you're doing. Like, for us, it was really the card message or that data point that can really hone in and align everybody and say, like, okay, it's about the moment. It's about the relationship. This is what we're going after. And that, that has helped kind of be able to cement that.

I, I, I have one more. If you don't, that is, you know, this is a, it's gonna sound harsh, but it's, don't make it about you. It's not about you. It's about the customer. It's about the other. It's about the person you're serving, you know, and I understand that's hard, difficult. Like, that concept is really difficult to get over because at the end of the day, we always think of us first. And I'm not saying don't do that, but when you're building a product for others, don't use anecdotal evidence. Don't say, well, you know, that's how I like it. Like, that's just a recipe for disaster. It's, it's, you're not the person gonna be using it. So put your ego aside, basically, and design products that are for the people who are actually going to be using it, not just for you, basically.

I think that's, yeah, that's fantastic. And what I think it's like a paradox is that your own business is built around the same principle, because the ones which are actually investing in making other people happy or putting a Smile on their face when they are going through harsh times. You are asking for the same thing and your audience is looking like you if you consider this. And on the other hand, the flowers are the closest material thing to express love and to express appreciation and affection to the others. And I guess we. What I think it's genuine is that the progress that you're helping people to make in their lives is towards showing and expressing love. So I think it's fantastic and it's so meaningful, your business, Even though we've talked about data and whatever strategies, I think it's fantastic that you have this genuine approach towards helping your customers be better, become better. Because the more you express gratitude, the better person you. You actually become.

Absolutely.

I love that. I love it. This was. This was a great episode. And my last question is, am I gonna receive one of those T shirts that Daniela has?

You got it for sure. Send me your address. Yeah.

Cool.

You want that one or you want the V neck?

Oh, yeah, we have a V neck one.

Oh, you have the V neck.

We'll talk after. We'll figure out what you want.

I think I'll take the V neck because I have some nice tattoos that, you know, I can. No, I'm becoming like the beggar of LinkedIn every time I see a T shirt. Can I get one of those bad boys?

You got it.

Thank you.

Yeah.

See, Valentin, this is what I do.

Valentine, we'll get one for you too. Don't worry. Don't. You're not left out, I promise.

That's great, actually. I love how you've made this brand to make it digital and to associate heart with it. By the way, it's a cool brand that you.

That's why I want the T shirt.

Where can people find you, Daniela and Jo, if they want to get in touch. In touch with you?

LinkedIn? Yeah.

With us personally or with a brand?

Yeah, yeah, with the brand. It's the. The link is over here.

Lovingly.com lovingly.com for customers. They should definitely buy flowers through there. If it's a. If it's a flower shop. Lovingly.com join will be the other URL. That's where they can find us. And like Daniela said, We're on LinkedIn. I don't even know my handle. You can just search for Lovingly.

Thanks a lot for joining us today.

Thank you. This was pleasure to be here. Thank you everyone that listen and ask questions. I'll see you guys next week. Bye.

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