PostNL lets retailers easily sell flowers and plants online

Dutch postal operator PostNL has launched Flora@Home, a new solution for online retailers to easily sell fresh flowers and plants online. With Flora@Home, retailers can improve the product offering on their websites, while PostNL takes care of almost everything.

According to PostNL, the initiative is in line with the trend of growing online sales. Earlier this year, the company started with delivering frozen meals and groceries to consumers in the Netherlands, and now PostNL has set its sights on the potential offered by the flower and plant market.

In Europe, every year consumers spend 30 to 35 billion euros on these kinds of products. The online share of this industry has been low however, somewhere between 2 to 4 percent in most European countries. But it’s expected this will increase substantially in the coming years.

At the moment, there aren’t many online retailers who offer fresh flowers and plants next to their existing product ranges. With Flora@Home, online retailers in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg will have the opportunity to increase their sales by marketing these products.

Flora@Home is free of charge

PostNL has made the Flora@Home platform available free of charge. Online retailers won’t have to make any big investments , won’t have to maintain their own stock and don’t need to worry about logistics. Whenever a customer places an order online, it is forwarded directly to the grower, who will prepare the order for shipment and make sure it will be delivered to PostNL’s Aalsmeer site, from where the postal company will send it to domestic and international destinations. Aalsmeer is also the place where Royal FloraHolland, one of the world’s largest auction companies, is located.