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Q&A with Aron Gelbard, co-founder of blossoming startup Bloom & Wild

Bdaily’s associate editor, Ellen Forster, grabbed a few minutes with Bloom & Wild co-founder, Aron Gelbard to discuss the implementation of Apple Pay, the power of YouTube and being an agile startup in a 10,000-year old industry.

Launched in September 2013, Bloom & Wild offers a digital solution to an age-old problem. Using either the app or the fully-responsive website, customers can order individual bouquets of fresh cut flowers, or sign up to a monthly subscription, at the click of a button.

The founders of the London-based startup, Ben Stanway and Aron Gelbard, have designed packaging that not only keeps the flowers safe, but also fits easily through a letterbox. By dealing directly with the growers, Bloom & Wild is able to supply fresh flowers at a significantly lower price than competitors.

I caught up with Aron one day after the launch of Apple Pay, the tech giant’s new contactless payment system compatible with iPhone 6, 6 Plus and Apple Watch.

EF: What makes Bloom & Wild different to other online flower suppliers?

AG: “Our ambition is to create a brand for those that genuinely love flowers. A brand that people will associate buying flowers in the same way that they may associate Uber with getting a minicab now. In order to do this, we need to create the best buying and receiving process.

“On the receiving side, we have created the packaging that fits through your letterbox, which has proven to be very popular with recipients as they no longer have to be at home to receive flowers.

“On the buying side, it is very important we make the buying process as easy as possible. We’ve discovered that more than half of ecommerce activity now takes place on mobile, therefore, it is very important that we provide the best mobile shopping experience.

“We’ve built both Android and iPhone apps to support the mobile buying experience. With mobile ecommerce, many people enjoy having an app to make purchasing on-the-go easier.

“As a mobile-first shopping experience, we have a simple selection of flowers. Many of our competitors have tens or even hundreds of different kinds of flowers, but we are focusing on offering high-quality, fresh flowers with an attractive price point and smooth checkout experience. We think less is more on mobile!”

Why did you feel it was important that Bloom & Wild adopted Apple Pay at this early stage?

“We’ve seen that the app has proven very popular with our customers, in fact, it now makes up around 50 per cent of our orders. We asked our customers why they liked the app and they said it was because it makes it so much easier for them to order on the go, and there is a lot of functionality on the app that isn’t available on the website. For example, the app can link to your address book and your calendar to pull in information such as important dates and delivery addresses.

“We’ve done what we can to make address entry as simple as possible, with the integration of a system called Postcode Anywhere. We’ve also tried to simplify credit card entry with an application that allows you to take a photo of your card instead of having to manually input all the details.

“When we heard that Apple Pay was coming to the UK we thought that this would make both of these steps even simpler. Our goal is to allow customers to order flowers on their mobile in under 10 seconds, without having to input any details at all, since most of the information about your loved ones is already stored in your phone.”

Bloom & Wild is frequently mentioned by lifestyle bloggers and ’vloggers’, what effects have you noticed from this form of viral marketing?

“We have been mentioned by a number of prominent online figures and we always notice an influx of traffic and app downloads when this happens.

“It also helps us find out more about our customers. There have been places where we have appeared online where we have noticed a spike in traffic but not necessarily an increase in orders, however there have been other occasions when we really have seen an increase in orders. This has helped us further define our target market and find out more about what kind of partnerships help us exhibit our product with like-minded audiences.

“As a result, we have learnt a lot about our customers and how we can serve them better.”

What are you plans for the rest of year?

“It has already been a fantastic year for us. We are now the top-rated online flower company according to independent review website, reviews.co.uk and we have consistently received 5-star reviews for our Android and iPhone apps. We want to continue this customer-focused approach, while remaining agile in an ever-changing marketplace.

“We are currently trialling some non-flower gifts and we are hoping to expand our range of both flower and non-flower gifts in the future. We’re interested to see whether customers want to use Bloom & Wild for just flowers, or whether people are in search of a easy-to-use gift-reminder-and-buying app.

“This company exists for our customers. If we can offer a service that makes our customers’ lives easier, and their recipients happier, we’ve done our job. As a small business, we are able to be agile within the marketplace and therefore adapt to our customers’ feedback.

“We hope more and more people will try out Bloom & Wild and have a great experience in the process.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .