More than fifteen years ago, it was unlikely that anybody saw a link between flowers and technology. To perhaps most florists or engineers, they appeared as unrelated as say, a crystal vase and a set square. One engineer though, saw an unmistakable match. Rarely conventional in his thinking, Mark Fox, founder and present day CEO of Novator, saw that there could be nothing more rational then pairing flowers with technology.
Novator may have been in its early days back in 1993 but it had the capability to provide strategy and technology solutions to anybody with the foresight and desire to sell online. Mark brought the idea to FTD: to sell their products on the fledgling Internet. Perhaps if it weren’t for FTD’s understandable skepticism of the Web - and its unproven retailing capabilities - the partnership may never have initiated.
The very next year, Novator established an exclusive outsourcing contract with FTD and the two-person team of Mark and Tressa Fox had a fully functional site up for launch in December 1994. Running off an ISDN line and hosted out of a closet in the Fox’s home, the site began to accept a small yet consistent number of orders. Early 1995 saw the orders increase from 1 order a day in January, to 3 a day in March. These were the earliest days of commercial ecommerce and single digit order days signified huge victories to pioneers like Mark and Tressa.
Relationships evolve through a mutual understanding of each other’s needs. While online traffic and order volumes began to increase, ecommerce retailers needed automated solutions to handle order processes more efficiently. Novator responded by being the first to introduce cutoff delivery logic and automated order confirmation applications to FTD’s growing online customer base. Along with an innovative redesign in 1996, Novator’s ability to provide inventive and effective solutions to the evolving needs of FTD’s market encouraged an ongoing partnership between these unlikely associates.
Novator’s ability to respond to the mounting needs of FTD.com (and its rapid growth) was a fulltime responsibility - but they needed more. FTD and its network of 20,000 retail florists across North America were beginning to take notice of this new medium and the affect it was having in the marketplace. They responded by requesting an online retail solution of their own. The challenge was finding a solution that could account for and manage multiple catalog, taxation and delivery rules based on potentially hundreds of individual ecommerce sites. Furthermore, these sites would have to be managed by florists so there needed to be a simple tool for them to administer the catalog and original content. Novator responded by implementing a cost-effective solution for FTD.com and its florists - known as Florists Online (FOL) - and has launched over 12,800 floral and gift sites to date.
Despite the growing responsibility, Novator remains FTD and FOL’s sole outsourcer for all of its online initiatives. Pretty impressive considering the industry’s continual growth. Sales estimates this holiday season for Flowers, Greeting Cards and Miscellaneous Gifts show a 19% increase from $2.6 billion last season to $3.1 billion in sales in 2007. Forrester research indicates that over 20% of total category sales now occur online and online sales in this sector are expected to hit $5.4 billion by 2011.
The industry’s perennial growth becomes no more evident then on the second Sunday of May. Mother’s Day is the single most important merchandising event for the floral industry in the calendar year. During the week leading up to Mother's Day 2007, FTD.com order volume jumped over 300% from the previous week at a processing rate of 2.8 orders per second and 10,000 transactions per/hour - without any degradation in site reliability, speed or performance. FTD.com's capacity to process transactions rapidly and respond instantly to customer actions resulted in record-breaking sales. As the industry continues to grow, Novator continues to innovate and respond to the evolving needs of FTD.com, FOL and its growing client base.
Just as flowers need bees to succeed, flowers need technology. FTD and Novator have evolved together in the online environment as each have responded to the needs of each other along with the needs of the market to contribute to the successful union. They have survived what has become one of the industry’s longest and most successful relationships to date. With a partner like FTD, the experience has been exciting, informative, professional and prosperous. Not all success comes without struggle, and though the industry has provided some bumps over the years, our strong partnership based on trust, compatibility and respect has helped us navigate through the difficult stages of growth this medium has endured.
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Media Contact:
Amani Saif
Novator Systems Ltd.
Toll Free: 866.668.2867 ext 268
media@novator.com
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