"Sold while items are still at Vilosa"

Vilosa supplies a diversity of Kalanchoë and special seasonal products, while Van der Plas offers florists a unique assortment of flowers and plants. Vilosa and Van der Plas have been working together for years. Loek Ammerlaan, account manager at Vilosa, and Johan Oskam, buyer at Van der Plas, talk about their collaboration and especially the use of the special offer and purchase tip in Floriday. Read more in this update.

Benefits of special offer

Vilosa is a progressive grower when it comes to digitisation. Loek, too, has been using the functionalities in Floriday for some time now, and he uses the special offer and purchase tip (3-hour special offer) quite a lot: "We especially make use of these at times of fast trade, as they allow me to easily supply Van der Plas with the stock they require. Of course, the buyer must always respond. Especially in the event of scarcity, it is nice that you can create the special offer on a countdown basis. That way, you can be sure that you have enough products to supply the regular customers."

Van der Plas works with a webshop for end customers, with this webshop containing stock for the end customer to purchase. Purchasing still takes place primarily through FloraXchange, but the Floriday special offer and purchase tip work especially well for them in association with growers that have a large assortment. “ The grower gets everything ready and I can place an order with a single push of a button," Johan explains. "There are even cases where the products are already sold through our webshop while they're still with the grower, which is ideal.” 

Using the purchase tip

In addition to the webshop, Van der Plas also works with customer orders. "Often, the order is discussed and set up over the phone," says Johan. "The grower then creates a purchase tip through Floriday. I just log in, look at it, press the button and forward it to the customer." Even if Johan briefly steps away from the computer, work can continue as usual: "Loek then sends me an SMS, and all I have to do is click on the order button in Floriday. It doesn't work great with mobile phones just yet, with the smaller screen and all that, but when you're on the move it is certainly convenient that work can always go on."

"Before, I didn't know exactly what I was buying"

The provision of information in terms of photos is also an advantage. "Before, I didn't know exactly what I was buying" However, the photos that are now included in Floriday give much more insight into this," explains Johan. Loek would go even further: "It would be great if we could add a picture of the moment itself. That way, Johan could immediately see what the item looks like at that point in time."

Fast trade

As far as Vilosa are concerned, using the special offer and purchase tip ensures that, in the event of scarcity, large assortment and fast trade, cooperation with Van der Plas remains efficient. Mind you, it doesn't come much quicker than items already being sold while they're still at the nursery!