Challenger to Watch 2017: Bloom & Wild
Delivering progress (via letterbox).
There are few brands that will be as credited with 'saving lives' as often as these guys. At the touch of a button, Bloom & Wild dispatches flowers to your loved one/angry one, arriving just as you need them.
Where Bloom & Wild excels is in their approach to understanding what today's consumers actually want, rather than creating an online version of what has always existed. Although they also offer a subscription model, a category first, Bloom & Wild's key innovation lies elsewhere. It’s not in colours or range, it’s not price or availability. It’s simply a matter of speed, and with a 2-hour delivery service, that’s what they are challenging within the market.
“We want to make it a joy to send flowers as well as to receive them – we want the whole end-to-end journey to be awesome so that users keep coming back", says Head of Product, Sharon Anne Kean, "That means innovating at every single stage through the supply chain to the customer experience - challenging how this has been done before”.
Bloom & Wild deals directly with growers to ensure that they get the flowers first, without having to deal with wholesalers or flower markets. They ask for flowers that are still closed, meaning that they can be easily transported, and will open a few hours after arrival. The natural outcome of the speed with which they get the flowers means that they end up lasting longer in your living room too.
On top of this, their packaging is designed to fit through a standard UK letter box (200mm x 38mm), to ensure there are no hold ups with delivery by your local postman (though same day deliveries are slung on a courier bike). The specially designed box holds the flowers in place, and they are protected even as they fall through the letterbox to the floor.
Finally, faster flowers demand a speedy interface. Sharon and her team celebrate every microsecond they gain by speeding loading and processing times of orders, knowing that each step gets them closer to a service that is completely frictionless.
With a stated ambition to become Europe's most loved flower brand, expect Bloom & Wild to keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible in 2017, forcing progress on a category that has been static for years.
