According to Send Your Flower, research shows that more than 95% of women like to get floral presents when it’s least expected. Hence gentlemen, it is not necessary to wait for a special occasion to send flowers to your loved one. And helping you to be the one to put a smile on your loved one’s face is Malaysia-based startup BloomThis.
BloomThis is an online subscription-based flower delivery service. Started by Giden Lim (whose family runs G-Ray Florist) along with Penny Choo, BloomThis is a luxury flower delivery service that specialises in sending specially handpicked fresh and luxurious flowers right at your doorstep. Alternatively, you can also choose to surprise your loved one with fresh flowers.
“I was thinking of how to improve the experience when people send and receive flowers. Being in this business for sometime, we’ve seen very little innovation so I started thinking about how we can innovate from the products we create to the business model,” Giden answered to the question of what prompted him to develop BloomThis.
The co-founder of BloomThis, Penny continued, “Hence we really want to disrupt this space, by changing the experience of how people send and deliver flowers.”
BloomThis Before Blossom
It is inevitable that things were all not smooth sailing especially in the process of developing a startup. For BloomThis, the team shared with us that one of the challenges was to look for a trustworthy delivery partner.
“We had an unpleasant experience once when our vendor mishandled our products in which many of them were damaged. It was a painful lesson and we learnt that getting our deliveries right is very important,” said Penny.
Fortunately, the team managed to eventually find a reliable delivery partner. To-date, BloomThis receives around 100 to 120 orders per week. Penny mentioned, “The business was quickly validated and it picked up very fast from then on. We are doubling our subscribers month on month ever since we launched.”
How BloomThis Works
To subscribe to their flower delivery service, you’ll need to go to their website and choose your desired subscription plan—Signature (one-off delivery), Quinzena (biweekly delivery in a month), or Sabbath (weekly delivery in a month). The flowers will get delivered for an affordable RM69.00 if you opt for the Signature plan.
Currently, BloomThis delivers flowers to their customers every Thursday of the week. “Our customers do not know what type of flowers they are getting until they unbox it. So basically the flowers of the week are handpicked by our florists and our customers get the surprise out of it,” Penny told Vulcan Post.
Why only Thursdays? According to the BloomThis, most of the imported flowers arrive in Malaysia on Wednesday. To ensure that their flowers are of the highest quality possible, the team makes sure that they are delivered to their recipients the very next day.
“What happen is that when you go and buy flowers, the flowers are typically stored by the suppliers, so it actually just sits there and the lifespan of flower reduces. What we want to do is to give freshly cut flowers,” said Giden. He further mentioned that they have received a lot of feedback from their customers saying that their flowers last the longest in comparison to other florists in the market.
What goes inside BloomThis?
While you are not given the option to pick your flowers, BloomThis ensures that all their flowers are fresh and luxurious.
You may ask where does the team source their flowers? According to Penny, most of the flowers are imported from China, India, Taiwan, Holland, as well as Kenya. Giden added that they do have flowers from Cameron Highlands too but the flower choices are dependent on the season. For example, he shared that the Tulip season is in April as Cameron Highland don’t have tulips.
The flowers will come in an eco-friendly box, arranged and packed in-house by their florists. “We find this method is better in ensuring the quality and standard of our products,” said Penny.
When you open the box you will be able to see the flowers are well packaged with a ribbon to keep your flowers snuggled together in the box. On top of the flowers there are two cards—the first card is filled with a warming message from BloomThis and instructions on how to take care of the flowers, and the other card is to let you know what type of flowers are in the box.
A quick look their Instagram page will show you many beautiful floral arrangements in various vase designs. BloomThis lets the flower recipients have the liberty of arranging the flowers themselves so they can express their creativity in their own way.
Verdict: 3.5/5
Would BloomThis be the next big household name in the floral gifts industry? Compared to other subscription model based businesses, BloomThis is a new concept in Malaysia’s flower delivery space.
Speaking from a subscriber’s perspective, I had no idea what flower will I receive and this unique selling point of BloomThis keeps me excited and looking forward to the delivery day. However, if I would like to send flowers to my loved one, the downside is that I will not be able to know what will be delivered and I might be concerned about whether my recipient will love the flowers (after all, flower preference is personal to some).
Next, the most crucial question: how sustainable is it? So far according to Penny, BloomThis has taken off very well since they started. Reason being people enjoy the concept of conveniently receiving beautiful flowers at their home or offices with a tinge of surprise.
Having just started in April this year, catering to 100 to 120 orders per week is impressive and the demand validates what they’re doing. If BloomThis continues to lead the floral industry with their unique concept, that’ll be their key to redefining the flower delivery experience.