In 2015, Venus et Fleur delivered flowers to New Yorkers just like the over 30K floral businesses in the US – an e-commerce website and some innovative packing and delivering. The product is what set it apart – the real flowers were treated to last about a year. In addition, unlike the traditional florist, it started online without a physical presence. That didn’t matter to the tech-forward New Yorker, but eventually, the brand realized the value of having a storefront.
“We started our first retail endeavor doing a pop-up in the Oculus World Trade Center during their holiday fair 2018. It had a lot of success – many people knew about the brand but hadn’t pulled the trigger on a purchase, and so they went in see the product learn more about it, and that’s the part that sparked the idea in our minds – people were showing interest in just learning about the brand, about who we are, what we do you and what goes into our products. So, we sat down and talked about a retail strategy and launched our first doors at Oculus and Garden State Plaza in 2019,” shared Sunny Chadha, cofounder of Venus et Fleur.
Education & Building Relationships
The value of having a store stems from the ability to educate potential shoppers, people who had heard about the brand or those who hadn’t, that required some education to understand how the product was made and what led to its valuation. Some of the brand’s most popular products, like the Small Square box of roses, start at $299, significantly more than consumers are used to spending on florals. However, when considering their lifetime, it becomes more of a home goods purchase rather than a consumable.
Therefore, perhaps more than most retailers or florists, the shopper requires some education. An example of a company at a similar expansion stage and facing a similar education dilemma is Ephemeral – a tattooing service that provides temporary (about a year and a half) tattoos. Its value is reversed because its tattoos are not permanent but just as real as the traditional ones. Given the lack of similar tattoo providers, the brand does a lot of education online and in its various locations. After complaints about the tattoos lasting more than a year, it had to update some of its wording online.
When a product is new to its industry, it requires more education and transparency; something Venus et Fleur found was enhanced in stores.
Upscale Design
The boutiques themselves are not your traditional floral shop – they’re upscale, meant to reflect the lifestyles of their shoppers. “There will be less product on the floors but more storytelling. Window displays will be a focus and something that we will constantly be updating. The product team has done a great job at innovating the product offering and vessels. One of the areas of opportunity is getting retail exclusivity, so products that are only available in our retail doors, but then taking it even a step further and having products specific to retail boutiques or region-specific products,” said Seema Bansal Chadha, cofounder of Venus et Fleur. Since its first store, the design has changed and evolved. The most recent location to open was in Westfield’s Century City in Santa Monica. The newer store design also incorporates an enhanced experience, with more VIP events and unique early access offerings to products.
Unparalleled Location
The traditional florist isn’t located in a mall or retail shopping center – it’s on a neighborhood street or local grocer. The unique quality of Venus et Fleur’s flowers is how long they last, making them more of a décor item than a traditional floral purchase. Therefore, the brand has chosen locations where people shop for home décor items. This also means areas that have higher foot traffic. So, the brand achieves benefits to its overall business that goes beyond the transactions that take place in-store.
“The person buying may not be the person keeping it [the product]; they may be gifting it to somebody. So we do see that that branches into another transaction. We also see when customers come into our retail doors or when we open our retail door, awareness goes up, web traffic from certain geographies goes up, and interest goes up in certain areas,” stated Sunny Chadha. Therefore, the company’s boutique expansion into these unique locations has helped drive interest in the brand overall.
This effect of stores and the decision to open stores in untraditional locations is similar to what the service sector is doing. More and more malls and shopping centers have service-based tenants like HeyDay and Studs. There’s a greater understanding of the value of traffic from being in a shopping center and the changing consumer behavior – more shoppers now seek service-based experiences. A survey by PwC showed that consumers are craving experiences in-store, with education from sales associates coming out on top. Another feature Venus et Fleur is focused on in its stores given the lack of understanding around how the product is made.
Venus et Fleur currently has nine locations open, mainly in New York and California, but it has plans to open four to six doors over the next several years, including some international openings.
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