Rethinking \"Designers Choices\"

Author: Kelsey Thompson

Rethinking \"Designers Choices\"

Offering designers choice bouquets as part of your product mix can be a good strategy for more profitable sales. Some florists do this for holidays only or may have done this during that high COVID time frame. I recommend making it a standard part of your online catalog. It allows you flexibility in purchasing and designing.

But many of our consumers don't know what designers choice means and that introduces a barrier to buying. And the goal of sales is to make the purchase as easy as possible!

Are "designer's choice" style arrangements good sellers for you? Here's some tips on ways to sell them online to get a little higher conversion rate on them!

The words "Designer's Choice" may not make sense to your customers. What about "Fresh Picks" or "Blooms of the Week"? Use your location in the bouquet name - we did a bouquet called “Iowa Sunset” that was a huge seller for us because people liked that it was a local themed bouquet. It was just tones of blue, yellow and orange, nothing wild. But it was a huge seller. You could also title these by color scheme or style, like “Orange Crush” or “Wildflower Wonderful”.

The key with converting sales of this design style is to grab attention with the visual, then be descriptive as possible. How will this bouquet make the recipient feel? What design style is it? Will it be sunset tones or cool ocean shades? Use your words to sell and support the visual aid you're using.

Here’s some ideas for different website graphics to convert those browsers into confident buyers:

1) Color Schemes - Sell by color story or warm/cool tones. I've got two examples in the photos below of ways you can create a product graphic for this. The product listing is a color descriptor like "Hues of Blues".

2) Action Shots - Show a close up of a design being created!

3) Personal Touch - Sell it literally as the designer's choice. So I would have a photo of me holding a few bouquets as the product photo, and it would be "Kelsey's Favorite Design" or "Kelsey's Choice Bouquet". This is eye grabbing and creates connection. Your product listing could even include a story.

4) Flat Lays - Creatively style stems on a flat surface and take a few photos. You can combine this with the color scheme method or the style method I describe below.

5) Seasonal - Use a palette that includes traditional colors and textures. A collage of mixed mums, fall leaves, acorns and some solid blocks of brown, mustard and orange will convey the feel of a bouquet without making promises.

6) Sell by Style - This is my current visual on my website. We use a slightly transparent overlay on product photo - it gives customers a visual of the style of the design but doesn't rope us into a specific flower. Our most popular version is our "Bold and Stylized" listing. Here's the verbiage for it:

"Put the design decision in our hands! We will craft a custom one-of-a-kind arrangement in a modern, structured style. Bold grouped colors, unique textures and sleek greenery define this look"

How can you tweak your designer's choice listing for better sales? Think about the words and phrases your customers respond well to when you sell over the phone, and incorporate them into your website copy to convert those sales. Whatever you decide to name your “designers’ choice” collection, include it as a menu item to give it a place of importance, instead of hiding it at the end of your catalog scroll.