The Q4 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 Q4 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call. 

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;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's top and poorest-performing flower delivery services, or request a copy of the report for the full review.

Request the report

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.

In Q3, we found 1,322 4xx errors on the Bloom & Wild site. In Q4, Bloom & Wild has secured a phenomenal improvement, now showing no errors at all. The least technically compliant site is now Prestige Flowers, which has returned 1,111 4xx errors - 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.

Cornish Blooms has retained its revious lead on side speed in Q4, with a score of 55. Looking towards the lower end of this scale, Waitrose Florist has the slowest mobile site, scoring only 4 when it comes to mobile page speed. Waitrose Florist must ensure that site experience is not too poorly impacted for users, causing them to turn elsewhere in frustration.

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 13 to 71, with Bloom & Wild still sitting at the front of the pack while Cornish Blooms remain at the rear, having lost seven DA points since our last report. This is a significant drop within a relatively small time frame, and Cornish Blooms must examine its backlink profile or recent changes to organic strategy to identify where this reduction has come from.

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 Q3, all flower delivery brands were seeing a reduction in organic traffic year on year. In Q4, however, Teleflorist is achieving an increase in digital footfall, securing 85% more visits than in 2022. The biggest loss overall has been seen by Wild at Heart, which has increased its 51% loss in Q3 to 60%.

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.

'Images' and 'people also ask' results are the most appeared-for Universal Search result types for flower delivery services. Interflora has secured the most visibility overall for Universal Search, with 9,200 'image' results and 2,400 'people also ask' results making up most of these appearances.

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".

Teleflorist, Cornish Blooms, and Wild at Heart have continued to improve on their longtail keyword profiles, as noted in our previous reports. Though none of these brands have reached a competitive level that can challenge rivals, these ongoing improvements to key, conversion-focussed terms will secure improved profitability from their keyword strategies. Interflora remains the top performer for longtail keywords, appearing for 4,085 in the top three positions, accounting for 15% of its 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 Freddie's Flowers' recent Facebook ads. Freddie's Flowers has capitalised on vertical video, with lifestyle content that will fit seemlessly into organic 'Reels' content, helping capture a pre-engaged audience.

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.

Bunches had returned the highest level of accessibility errors in our previous two reports, with 133 contrast errors and 139 alerts at our last count. While Bunches has made minimal improvements to these figures in Q4, Wild At Heart is now flagging with the most accessibility alerts, with 172.

GET THE FULL 79-PAGE Q4 2023 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 Bianka Csenki on Unsplash