NetFlorist scores with new, improved website

Johannesburg, 28 January, 2009 - South Africa's online pioneer, NetFlorist recently launched a brand new website, www.netflorist.co.za, with an improved user interface which has directly resulted in a sixty percent increase in page views over the December period, alone.

The web site upgrade was necessitated by the need to accommodate the over 220 floral and 400 gift items now on offer from NetFlorist.

“Over the past 18 months NetFlorist has substantially increased its range of gifting and floral options,” said Ryan Bacher, Managing Director of NetFlorist. “Obviously ease of navigation was critical to the customer experience as it directly impacts thier likelihood of finding the right product at the right price.”

“With an improved look and feel, superior navigation technology, and a more comprehensive list of categories, the new NetFlorist site now makes finding the ideal gift a matter of a few clicks,” Bacher added.

In 1999, NetFlorist was one of more than a 100 South African online start-ups, intent on riding the Internet wave. Just under 10 years later, the number of original e-tailers has shrunk substantially, with NetFlorist remaining as among the most successful.

Despite many retailers feeling the pinch of the economic downturn, NetFlorist's growth has continued in a robust manner, with current figures, for the trading year to date, 20 percent up on last year. Traffic to the website increased by 30 percent in December relative to the same period in 2007, and page views were up 60 percent. December sales were up 40 percent relative to the same period last year.

Sue Morris, NetFlorist's Marketing Director attributes the increase in traffic, page views and sales to the new user-friendly website and expanded product range, “We launched our new website at the beginning of the festive season and it seems that our customers found it easier to navigate and therefore visited more pages. We are very encouraged by this movement.”

“Interestingly, the growth we are experiencing is not driven by heavy advertising spend. We have always been aware of the size of the market and our marketing efficiency, while many other online businesses were not. We focus much of our energy in having the right products, a great website and delivering a very reliable service. A somewhat obvious point is that we are in a category that works online and offers an easy purchase process which puts control fully in the hands of the purchaser,” says Morris.

The new website is set to contribute to NetFlorist's favourable growth rate by greatly improving the user experience. “The website is now much faster, and is stronger from a search engine optimization perspective, which to the consumer means we are better represented in Google's natural search” says Morris, “It is also more contemporary in design, with more products in high definition images visible on each page.”

“Convenience is our greatest draw card,” says Morris. “It is much less time-consuming to find exactly what you are looking for on the Net than if you were "on foot". You can browse through a huge range and compare offerings without having to travel to multiple stores.”

Morris believes that those businesses with real online value propositions and a clear understanding of the size of the online market will continue to grow and prosper in the short term. “In the longer term” she says, “we all wait impatiently for a step-change in the cost of broadband to drive more people online.”

/ends.