Conversion rates pick up for online flower retailers ahead of Mother’s Day, but are not matching the uptick ahead of Valentine’s Day.

May flowers are blooming, but online sales are not yet booming for Mother’s Day.

Conversion rates for major online flower retailers—including 1-800-Flowers.com Inc.’s 1800Flowers.com; FTD Companies Inc.’s FTD.com and ProFlowers.com; and Telaflora.com—are increasing as Mother’s Day (May 13) approaches, according to marketing analytics firm Jumpshot. However, their conversion rates have not yet reached the heights of their  Valentine’s Day season’s peak conversion rates. Jumpshot’s analysis is based on its review of more than 160 billion monthly clicks made by 100 million consumers globally.

Both Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day are major sales events for online floral retailers. In fact, Mother’s Day is 1800Flowers.com’s largest floral holiday for sales and Valentine’s Day is No. 2, CEO Christopher McCann told Internet Retailer previously. Mother’s Day accounts for roughly 12-14% of annual floral sales at 1800Flowers.com while Valentine’s Day accounts for roughly 9-10%, McCann says.

Here’s a look at average weekly conversion rates for the four flower retailers, plus Berries.com (the Shari’s Berries brand is owned by FTD Companies Inc.), jewelry retailer BlueNile.com, EdibleArrangements.com, HarryandDavid.com (owned by 1-800-Flowers Inc.) in aggregate:

 

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Online retailers—and consumers—have a few more shopping days to go before May 13, and retailers may see a further upswing in conversion. In fact, according to an Internet Retailer survey with Bizrate Insights of more than 3,000 consumers in April, 19% of shoppers don’t think about buying a Mother’s Day gift until a few days before, the day before or on Mother’s Day itself.

Last year, flowers were the most popular gift, with 28.1% of Mother’s Day shoppers saying they purchased flowers, according to the survey.

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Here’s how the flower retailers have fared on average as Mother’s Day draws near:

 


Broken down by devices, mobile conversion rates for all four of the online floral retailers were highest the week of April 30-May 6 compared with the previous two weeks’ averages. Jumpshot’s mobile analysis only includes mobile site conversion and not app conversion rates. ProFlowers, Teleflora and 1800Flowers.com have a consumer shopping app. Desktop conversion rates, however, varied week to week.

 

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1-800-Flowers is No. 66 in the just-released Internet Retailer 2018 Top 1000, FTD is No. 138, Blue Nile Inc. is No. 108 and Edible Arrangements is No. 123.


In an ongoing effort to understand the most vital business strategies of merchants that sell online, Internet Retailer is taking a deep dive on conversion rate. Help us improve our estimates and category benchmarks by answering the two questions below. 



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