Tracking and Packing Petals

In the globalized world it now seems common practice to place a same day delivery order for a bouquet of roses to your significant other on Valentine’s Day.

Despite the illusion of flowers magically materializing out of thin air on your significant others' doorstep for $44.99 there is actually a complex 10-12 day process from warehouse to door that many millennials accustomed to the black box system of user friendly services and technologies may not be aware of.

For North American consumers, the story behind that extensive process most likely starts at a large-scale farm in Colombia or Ecuador. The challenge arises not only in terms of distance the product must be transported but also in the fact that the goods are perishable and therefore time and environment sensitive.

From the farm the flowers are cut and pre-cooled to 35 degrees Fahrenheit. Next they are delivered by truck to their country of origin’s airport and flown into the relevant North American central floral importing hub to be processed by customs.

After passing customs they are delivered again by truck to a central warehouse to be cooled once more and assembled into a bouquet. Once assembled another refrigerated truck arrives to transport the flowers across the country to independent retailers, brick and mortar stores and other storage facilities. The flowers are finally available for purchase and couriers provide the last mile delivery service directly to the doorstep on February 14th ready to acquire a proof of delivery statement and a gleeful reaction.

Due to the extensiveness of this seemingly menial process of ordering flowers online, it is clear due to the many changing hands in the supply chain that a proper system of management is necessary to ensure not only that as a business your consumers have access to real-time tracking tools to verify that their package is on time, but also in the respect that if an item is lost or compromised along the way you have the proper means to identify which hand in the supply chain came into contact with it last in order to rectify the situation. Additionally the acquisition of proof of delivery status consents customer satisfaction and the accurate and timely execution of the end-to-end delivery process.

Remember this Valentine’s Day when you give or receive flowers that it’s more than just the thought that counts. As a sender you could technically make the claim that you arranged for over 1,000 hands to create and transport a bouquet 4,000+ miles to show that special someone just how much you care.