Algemeen Blog

Buying smart: less hassle, greater control and flexibility

5 minuten leestijd

Gepost op 25-03-2026

door Joyce van Galen

What does buying smart mean to you? During the Flora Spring Expo, we put this question to William Heijl from Hoekhuis Bloemgroep and Michel Heemskerk from Javado. Buying smart goes beyond efficiency: it includes a flawless information flow, greater flexibility and control, putting customers in charge and reducing frustration.

William Heijl explains, "I started my company, Hoekhuis, 32 years ago. At the time, we were already thinking that everything should become digital, even though digitisation hadn’t really taken off yet. With Hoekhuis, I built a platform which is now linked to Floriday through an API connection instead of multiple separate connections. This platform allows buyers to purchase large and small batches of gerberas, find information and organise the logistics immediately."

Extended ordering windows thanks to the company's own transport

"We do all the transport ourselves," William continues. "We drive vans to the grower two to three times a day, and this allows us to extend the ordering windows from the grower. These extended ordering windows are recorded in Floriday and we communicate them to our customers through the Floriday API. They're mostly exporters, so they can see exactly how long they have to place an order, which can be later than the grower’s delivery conditions.”

Our preference is to purchase entirely from the available supply

“We place the bulk of our orders ourselves — currently about 58% — through the Floriday API, based on what is in supply. The only limitation is that some supply isn’t available on Floriday, or the grower’s software doesn’t always allow all the desired information to be included. Otherwise we’d already be up to 100%. The main benefit is that this allows us all to communicate in the same way. We always said we did, but everyone interprets the rules differently. Now there's just one language, which makes everything much more efficient."

Buying smart is buying without knowledge

"To me, buying smart is 'buying without knowledge', and I think Floriday is well on its way to that. It's more and more common for buyers to be supported with complete information on products and availability together with filtering options to assist them in selecting from the offer. There’s now an increasingly unified way to communicate digitally, so as a buyer I don’t have to coordinate with each grower anymore — and that’s ideal. For our company, which has been digitising for a long time, it may not save 'hours per day', but it does save a lot of frustration."

Michel Heemskerk of Javado also sees the benefits of buying smart. Michel says, “I’ve been working for 16 years at Javado, a plant exporter that supplies a large number of European countries, focusing particularly on England and Ireland. Everything goes through our own webshop. The webshop offers a broad assortment of products, which our customers carefully order in small quantities. So efficiency is incredibly important to us."

Taking advantage of all opportunities in Floriday

"In Javado, we're transitioning to a new software system linked to Floriday. We use the API connection to bring in supply and are gradually activating and applying all the benefits and features that Floriday offers,” Michel continues. "The main advantage compared to the way things were previously is the information flow. Sometimes you felt more like an administrative assistant than a buyer. The information flow is absolutely seamless — just no hassle at all anymore."

Saving time and putting customers in charge

“To give an example: we’ve used Floriday's MyShop to provide several major customers in Eastern Europe with access to their own environment within Floriday. This gives our customers the freedom they need to make their own choices regarding supply, quality and price. They can manage the process themselves, while we remain equally in control. MyShop is another form of buying smart because it saves us a lot of time. As a buyer, it can be hard to gauge what a customer needs. And when customers themselves are in charge, they decide."