The Q3 2023 benchmarking report for UK flower delivery services has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK flower delivery services perform across the digital space.

The research in our report will give you an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice within the flower delivery space in the UK. We've included 12 top brands in the space; Bloom & Wild, Interflora, Freddie's Flowers, Waitrose Florist, Bunches, eFlorist, Prestige Flowers, Flower Station, Floom, Teleflorist, Cornish Blooms, and Wild at Heart.

Our insights quantify the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for both you and other top floral brands to win digital brand exposure, secure online views, and ultimately win new orders and regular subscribers. The report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from your online strategy and will identify the barriers that may be reducing your ability to optimise digital performance. 

To see a preview and contents page of the Q3 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call. 

What the industry research report covers

The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each flower delivery service based on 50+ metrics and indicators of successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.

Technical website compliance

Savvy digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance. For brands managing a seasonal rotation of stock, such as flowers, they must ensure removing unavailable items is done with care and that redirects are effectively managed.

Throughout our three reports on the flower delivery sector, we've seen fluctuations in Bloom & Wild's performance. In Q4 of 2022, we noted 339 4xx error codes on the brand's site, with all of these errors removed in Q1 of 2023. Our audits are now showing 1,322 4xx errors on Bloom & Wild's site - this represents a huge volume of dead ends for their customers, that could be costing them conversions.

Site speed & conversion rate performance

When 62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load makes a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. When you're competing to sell a luxury item in a saturated market, such as flower subscriptions, an unappealing site (or one that doesn't signpost well to key products) can mean users turn to your competitors instead.

In our last report, Cornish Blooms were ahead of the competition, with a mobile page speed score of 67. Cornish Blooms remain in the lead in Q3, with a score of 55. Though this appears to be a drop in performance, we have seen mobile page speed scores fall across all sectors we specialise in, usually falling far further than this!

Building competitive advantage with domain authority

Domain Authority (otherwise known as Domain Rating) helps create a reliable overall gauge of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it’s generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. Flower delivery services can look to collaborating with high-authority bloggers, as well as outreaching to online publications in the interiors, gardens, gifting, and general press in order to gain backlinks and improve authority.

The DA range for flower delivery services now ranges from 20 to 72, with Bloom & Wild still sitting at the front of the pack while Cornish Blooms remain at the rear, having lost one DA point since our last report. 

Organic performance - mobile & desktop

A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for key, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. For brands within a luxury, or 'treat' sector, such as flower delivery, they'll find they're competing for a smaller pool of traffic as customers cut back on non-essentials due to the cost of living crisis.

In our last report, we noted that two flower delivery services had seen an increase in organic traffic year on year. However, all brands are now seeing a fall in visitors to their sites. Waitrose Florist have seen the largest fall, losing 53% of traffic compared to 2022, though Wild at Heart (who had seen an increase of 65% in mobile traffic in our last report) are not far behind, dropping 51%.

Ultimately, when competing for a limited pool of customers, your competitors' gains become your losses. Our UK flower delivery services must not take for granted that low-performers will remain at the bottom, and should be proactively optimising and defending their traffic.

Universal search opportunity

Google Universal Search Results  is an evolving opportunity to make your pages more visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. You can also appear for a universal search result without being strong in other organic performance. For flower delivery services, 'image pack' is the most useful option for standing out from competitors and showing off their arrangements.

Though 'image pack' was the most used Universal Search feature of Q1, very few brands are securing any 'image pack' appearances - something we have seen across a variety of sectors. 'People also ask' is now the most-used Universal Search feature, with Interflora making the most appearances, with 2,400.

Longtail keyword opportunity

Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific.  Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for retailer new search terms as they enter Google’s index. For flower delivery services, these keywords could include terms such as "flower subscription plans sign up" or "order quick flower delivery".

In our last two reports, we have noted that Teleflorist, Cornish Blooms, and Wild at Heart have gone from appearing for no longtail keywords in the top three positions, to between 20-29 each. Each of these three brands have maintained this performance in Q3. Interflora remains the top performer for longtail keywords, appearing for 4,713 in the top three positions, accounting for 16% of their total longtail keywords ranked for.

Facebook adverts

With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) hitting over 52  million users at the conclusion of 2022, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. For flower delivery services, Facebook (and other paid social ads) represent the chance to show off their highly visual products and grab attention from their target market. Facebook ads are also a great way to quickly push and pull ads for products that are either already selling well, or need an additional push.

Below, we've included examples of Bloom & Wild's Facebook ads. Bloom & Wild have used Facebook ads to share a discount code with prospective customers, a tactic highly likely to boost conversion rates. They have used images of their completed bouquets, with complementary colours used in their graphics.

Top social shares & content

When it comes to social media and on-site content strategies,  it is important to release evergreen content that has a longer shelf life and maintains its relevancy to an audience for long periods of time. It's great for your retailer engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Content creation also helps with DA, appearances for longtail keywords and 'people also ask' results, so flower delivery services should look to creating shareable pieces that can support performance in all of these areas. 

Flower delivery services and online florists face the additional challenge of having highly-seasonal stock, so must ensure they have a well-considered content plan that anticipates trends and can be re-used the following year. These can include seasonal arrangements, flower arranging tips, or how to increase your bouquet's longevity in particular weather conditions.

Waitrose Florist have the largest audience on social media, with 516,800 Facebook likes, and 587,500 Instagram followers, representing an audience who are readily engaged with the brand and more likely to see their organic content, without the need to turn to sponsored posts or ads.

Website readability & accessibility

20% of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. Sites such as flower delivery services often focus on their need to appear visually appealing and can therefore fall short of the accessibility requirements their users with visual challenges will need. Even for a product which is highly visual, such as flower arrangements, brands must ensure their website is universally accessible.

In our last report, we noted that Freddie's Flowers and Bloom & Wild were the only flower delivery services not showing high levels of accessibility errors. Interflora have also now removed nearly all their accessibility errors and alerts. As with our previous two reports, Bunches are seeing the highest levels of accessibility flaws, recording 133 contrast errors and 139 alerts, remaining consistent with their Q1 performance.

Who is the digital winner of the Flower Delivery sector?

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 flower delivery services on, check out our quick-look table below;

GET THE FULL 79-PAGE Q3 2022 REPORT

To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Mike Movassaghi.

Photo by Carrie Beth Williams on Unsplash