What Is a Digital Florist?

What Does a Digital Florist Do?

Being a digital florist is a way of working, not a gadget you bought. It's the decision to run the shop out of one system instead of a paper diary, a wall planner and whatever's in someone's head. The craft doesn't change. How the shop keeps track of itself does, so the day holds together on the busiest Saturday of the year, not only the quiet ones.

So the work itself is the same as any florist. Takes the orders, makes up the arrangements, gets them out on the van, looks after weddings and funerals. The difference is what happens around the flowers.

With the day in one system, every order, from a phone call, a walk-in, your website or a relay network, lands in the same place, whether that's 20 orders on a quiet Tuesday or 200 at peak. You see the day at a glance: what is due, what is made up, what is out for delivery.

How Is a Digital Florist Different From a Traditional Florist?

The table above is the short version. The longer version: a traditional shop keeps the day in its head and on paper, which holds up right until peak, when the orders stack up and something gets missed. A digital florist keeps the day on one screen, so nothing falls down the back of the counter on the busiest Saturday of the year.

What comes off your plate is the admin: the routing, the re-keying and the chasing. That frees you up to make up and serve customers. Gary at Memento Floral Designs in Belfast had spent a decade on his old software. After switching, his delivery route planning went from 2-3 hours an evening at peak to 10 minutes.

What Software Does a Digital Florist Use?

There is no single "digital florist app". It is a handful of jobs working together on one platform:

• Orders puts every order on one dashboard, whatever channel it came in on.
• POS is a till built for a flower shop: walk-ins, future-dated delivery orders and deposits in one session.
• Deliveries builds your routes, runs a driver app and captures proof of delivery.
• Digital Florists Events handles weddings and funerals, from the proposal through amendments to the make-tasks, then the order lands on your dashboard like any other. See how it works for wedding and event florists.
• The Companion App is for the shop floor and the road: drivers working their run, and the team viewing and ticking off tasks.
• Go Paperless is what it all adds up to: no order pads, no delivery sheets, no filing cabinet. The team works from the computer in the workroom or their phone, so paper costs drop and lost orders go to zero.

The point is that they share the same orders, customers and stock. No double entry, no copying a delivery address from one screen to another.

How to Go Digital, Step by Step

You don't have to move everything at once. Most shops go in this order:

1. Get your orders off paper. Bring phone, walk-in, website and relay orders onto one dashboard.
2. Bring the till on. Walk-in sales and future-dated orders run through the same system.
3. Add deliveries and routing. Build the run, hand it to a driver on the app, capture proof of delivery.
4. Bring in wedding and event work. Quotes, deposits and make-tasks in one place.
5. Switch on customer notifications. Let text and email updates go out as orders move.

Most shops are adding orders within minutes. Moving everything across takes 1-2 weeks, depending on what your old system lets you export.^*

Built by a Working Florist

Digital Florists was co-founded by Gemma Wakerley, who owns and runs Booker Flowers in Liverpool, alongside engineer Lewis. It's a partnership between working florists and the team who build the software. Because Gemma is behind the counter day in, day out, the software handles the beautiful chaos of floristry the way a florist works: the last-minute changes, the delivery juggling, the seasonal chaos.

There are no support tickets sent to an outsourced team overseas. If a problem arises, we fix it. If a feature is needed, we build it. That matters most at peak, which is exactly when we are most reachable.

It's the way we think a flower shop should run. It's also why we're called Digital Florists.

Is Going Digital Worth It for a Small Shop?

For a one-shop florist, the question is whether it gives back more than it costs. Plans start at £75/mo with a 30-day no-card trial, so you can run it through a real week before you decide. The time tends to come back in two places: the evening route sort, and peak days, when the system handles the order bingo so an extra pair of hands is freed up to make up.

A few things are worth checking whichever platform you look at. Is the price published, or do you have to sit through a sales call to find it out? Is it built by someone who runs a flower shop themselves? Can you export your customers and orders and walk away if it's not for you? Digital Florists publishes its pricing, is co-founded by a working florist, and lets you take your data with you, on a rolling plan with no long-term contract.

^* Order history migration depends on the export options of your previous system. We confirm what is possible on your setup call before you commit.