The Valentine’s Day Rush + OptimoRoute Is the Perfect Match 💖

The Little Posy Co. is one of Perth’s most loved flower delivery services. The ‘posies’ on offer change every day – the range is based on what flowers are fresh, available and in season. Fifteen florists and twenty drivers work for the business, and day-to-day operations and logistics are all managed by Gabby Maynard. She oversees the process of creating and delivering the 1,000 orders received every week, ensuring they are all successfully handed over to their recipients (with love😊).

The Little Posy Co. flower delivery service implemented OptimoRoute to replace its time-consuming manual planning process which produced inflexible routes and schedules. The software has become vital for managing high volume periods, like Valentine’s Day. It’s the busiest day of the year, where the business has 5x the number of orders it usually receives!

Perth, AU

Location

Valentine’s Day fleet size

Valentine’s Day order volume

1000

Automated and Simple Planning for 1000s of Orders – Letting Your Flower Delivery Service Adapt to the Valentine’s Day Rush

Valentine’s Day is the most intense type of seasonality that a business can experience: a single day with a high volume of orders (as opposed to a period, like Christmas, or summer) and there’s only one chance a year to do it properly! Maynard explains that The Little Posy Co. has around 1,000 orders per week – the same volume that is expected on Valentine’s Day. Handling a week’s worth of orders on one day means the business needs to be agile – and OptimoRoute gives The Little Posy Co. the capacity to make the most of the busiest day of the year:

“OptimoRoute has changed the impossible to the absolutely possible on Valentine’s Day. It takes the pressure off – I could not fathom how the workflow could function so smoothly without this piece of software.”

Even though the Valentine’s Day workload is 5x the size of The Little Posy Co.’s daily workload, OptimoRoute’s automated planning process does not demand increased planning efforts and resources. Just like any other day of the year, Maynard is able to simply and quickly create routes for the delivery fleet:

“Having OptimoRoute makes this many orders possible. I couldn’t even imagine having to dispatch 1,000 orders without OptimoRoute because it’s literally a few clicks of a mouse and the routes are perfectly mapped.”

To deliver 1,000 orders in one day, Maynard needs to triple the size of the fleet, going from 20 drivers up to 60 drivers. OptimoRoute’s flexible monthly pricing structure lets her instantly upgrade the number of drivers just for Valentine’s Day – and then easily go back down to their regular number of drivers:

OptimoRoute Takes Care of Route Planning All Year, Giving You the Time and Resources to Focus on Your Core Business

With OptimoRoute relieving the planning burden that comes with handling the huge Valentine’s Day delivery workload, Maynard’s time is freed up to focus on all of the other preparation that needs to go into guaranteeing a successful Valentine’s Day. The Little Posy Co. starts preparing in November. Route data from the previous Valentine’s Day helps Maynard confidently plan the resources needed for the upcoming Valentine’s Day:

“We rely heavily on historical data – knowing how many drivers I need to recruit for the day, how many orders each driver can take, how long those deliveries would take, and how many drivers were dispatched.”

The Little Posy Co. is able to devote time to expanding its Valentine’s Day product range. Succeeding in a supremely competitive market demands original, creative and diverse products and add-ons – and The Little Posy Co. delivers! With historical data, Maynard can accurately determine the business’s maximum delivery capacity – and in accordance with this plan and source the right amount of flowers, packaging materials, and add-ons (like locally produced chocolates and candles):

“The fact that we don’t need to plan any of our Valentine’s Day logistics frees us up to be able to offer other services within the business, like additional gifting.”

OptimoRoute has become an essential part of The Little Posy Co.’s operations all year round. As well as simplifying everyday logistics, Maynard is particularly impressed with the reduced mileage that efficient delivery routes have achieved – because the business is committed to becoming carbon neutral by the end of the year.

With OptimoRoute, the Big Day Goes off Without a Hitch

The Little Posy Co. lets customers start placing orders three weeks in advance. And, because Maynard knows that Valentine’s Day customers are a bit more ‘on edge’, she aims to get around 80% of pre-orders out and delivered before 12 pm. OptimoRoute’s automated planning makes this easy to achieve, and Maynard loves that she doesn’t need to start thinking about planning routes until the day before Valentine’s Day:

“We get the first order upload into the system on the 13th, ready for the early morning drivers. On Valentine’s Day it’s simply a matter of doing the second and final upload after the 12.30 pm order cutoff. But, before OptimoRoute my role would involve planning the routes a week in advance. The fact that I don’t need to do any of that frees up my time to be able to help other parts of the business in the lead up to the big day.”

On Valentine’s Day itself, Maynard is prepared for the last-minute customer changes and requests that will come in, and is thrilled that The Little Posy Co. has improved its ability to accommodate these:

“Last-minute changes and requests aren’t encouraged – but that’s life, and OptimoRoute makes it 10 times easier than when we were doing it manually. It takes so much pressure off, because I can essentially change order details even once the driver is on the road with the delivery. On a day like Valentine’s Day, OptimoRoute is a lifesaver.”