Bas La-Graauw, Product Owner at Floriday, keeps busy every day developing new features in Floriday. We talk to him about last year's developments and look ahead to 2024.
Every week, Floriday has a release with improvements to the platform. In addition, some 150 wishes in total became available from the roadmap last year. Key improvements and additions for users included:
- The Exporter module that allows buyers to give their customers access to (part of) the supply in Floriday
- There is now one unified letter for direct trade, applicable to all hubs of RFH. With this, we are working towards a single standard for the floriculture industry. Read more
- The Explorer has been further improved and expanded; buyers can now purchase direct supply as well as clock pre sales supply.
- With stock planning growers can now manage their stock in an advanced way. Read more
- Growers with mix bundles can now work even easier with Floriday. Read more
You can read back over all releases in the Helpcenter for growers or buyers.
We again have great plans for 2024, which we will develop together with growers, buyers, software suppliers and partners. In this article, we look ahead.
Facilitating interaction between users
In the coming year, the focus of new developments will be on further facilitating interaction between growers and buyers on the platform. Bas: "We started building Floriday Messenger last year. Floriday Messenger allows users to start a chat very easily from the platform. This is now being tested on a small scale with growers and buyers and will become available to all users this year."
In Floriday, growers and buyers work with a network. Bas: "For a new (international) buyer on Floriday, it is sometimes tricky searching for the desired supply. Especially for this group, we are going to improve the start of using Floriday. Buyers can introduce themselves to growers with a message on the timeline. The grower can make a connection request as a result."
Functional improvements aimed at buyers and cut flowers
Next year, several more functional improvements are planned:
- A major development planned for next year is the Public Explorer. With this, we make it possible to search for all trade items in a public environment of Floriday, without the need for a login. Items are shown without prices. This allows a grower to present the assortment and increase visibility. A buyer's end customer can create a wish list here, which the buyer can open in Floriday to select it as a favourite or buy directly from it.
- We also continue to continuously develop the Explorer. We will work on optimising search results here. Specific requirements are made possible for buyers of cut flowers, such as being able to search by VBN abbreviation instead of item name.
- We are adding more and more product categories to Floriday such as hardware and dried flowers. These also require other filtering options, for which additional codes have been added. That makes searching easier.
- We will also further improve the contracts section based on needs of our users. This will make it clearer and make it easier to add a sticker and other attachments.
Increase international convenience
This year, we are making the platform more accessible to international users. Bas: "We want to ensure that new international buyers can get a flying start on Floriday so they can quickly find relevant supply and network with growers. In addition, buyers will soon be able to search more easily for available supply from growers for air freight, for example. And with improvements to the eWallet, we will soon give buyers more insight into their digital wallets."
"And for international growers, we are working on a separate app that allows growers to create batch stickers for on the flower box, for transport to the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, this batch sticker is used again for the further process."
Unlocking sustainability data
In terms of sustainability, Floriday sees an important role for information disclosure. Bas: "Together with Floricode and other chain partners, we are developing and opening up a packaging register. The packaging supplier enters what materials are used for packaging. This information is then displayed on purchase orders and in the Explorer. A buyer may need this at customs. And we will also unlock the sustainability scores required by European legislation through Floriday."
"Ensuring our continuity is essential"
Bas: "The continuity of Floriday is hugely important. For this reason, we make regular improvements to ensure the best possible. Thus, we will better monitor the load on the API. For example, should the wrong implementation be done, it could affect Floriday's performance. With this new tool, we can detect them faster to ensure the stability of the platform. Another development developed for this purpose is the Emergency Portal. Should there be a major failure of the server that Floriday runs on, growers and buyers will still be able to carry out the highly necessary operations through the Emergency Portal."
Extensions to the Customer and Supplier API
Changes to the API are rolled out at regular intervals. The 2024v1 and 2024v2 versions will be delivered this year for growers and buyers working in a software package. These follow the topics that are also built on the platform. These versions are activated through the grower's or buyer's software package.
Developing together with the market
Bas: "In addition to the above developments, new releases take place weekly on the platform and we organise a quarterly wish week in which we develop the smaller wishes on the interactive roadmap. To develop Floriday, we work with our partners; our users, various grower and buyer groups, software suppliers, transporters and other supply chain partners. Together with the market, we are increasingly developing Floriday into a platform for the entire floriculture industry."