Ordering via Floriday ensures guaranteed order requests at Ferry Verbeek

For almost eight years, Henry Doornekamp has been working at exporter Ferry Verbeek. He deals with buying and selling on a daily basis: "Basically, together with our team, I try to make our customers fall in love with us. Not only by delivering the most beautiful plants, but also by providing the best service." 

Henry: "Ferry Verbeek is a relatively small and young company. We started in 1999 and have been exporting since 2012. We target the higher end by focusing on exclusivity. Our customers are mainly garden centres from Germany. A number of garden centres are also in the Netherlands, Switzerland and France. We buy everything directly from the grower. For us, quality, reliability and good relationships with growers are paramount. As a result, we maintain stable prices throughout the year."

Transparency is paramount

Henry explains that the relationship with the grower is hugely important to Ferry Verbeek: "We try to make customers fall in love with us thanks to the most beautiful plants and by offering the best service. We are fully transparent with both the grower and the customer. For the grower, we let them know where the product ends up. And vice versa, the grower's name is on the invoice towards the customer, including the grower's price and our commission. That transparency works tremendously well. We can confidently visit the grower with customers without fear of sensitive information being shared. Ferry Verbeek is the link between growers and their customers."

The 1-to-1 links with growers, on the other hand, cost us a lot of time. And the mostly single items we order through this route become 'ghost items' in our system. For the rest of the steps in the chain, this does not work well. For us, it is easiest if everything goes through Floriday."

Greater delivery security

Henry: "It is based on a feeling, but I dare say that since we have been ordering everything through Floriday, the performance is heading towards 99%. With an old-fashioned Florecom, you always had to wait and see when the grower responded and whether it was available. Now there is much more security of delivery. In 1% of cases, there might be another correction or cancellation request." In practice, Henry also notices a time saving in the contact with the grower. "Previously, a lot of time went into the grower confirming the order request. Now you order and have nothing to worry about. You can assume that the order on available supply will actually be delivered."

On the roadmap: mandatory EAN and supply of 'sweeties'

Of course, as a daily user of Floriday, Henry also has some wishes. "It would be nice if the location of any EAN could be mandatory to fill in. This information is important to us and this way we always have this information available." We also notice that so-called 'sweeties' are still sometimes offered outside Floriday. It would help us a lot if growers could offer this through Floriday to avoid 'floating items' in our system and be able to do everything through Floriday."

Future plans

We conclude the conversation with Henry by asking him about the future. Henry: "In terms of stickers, we want to take this even further. It would be nice if the warehouse and our customers no longer have to worry about stickering and it is immediately clear what is presented in the shop. Preferably, we can do it all in Floriday to only have to work in one system."

Henry: "Our added value is and remains connecting the right grower with the right customer. We make sure that everything in between goes as quickly as possible and takes as little effort as possible. And this runs most efficiently for us now when the orders go through Floriday."

"Put supply online"

"Floriday offers growers a wealth of opportunities. If I know that something can be set up more efficiently, I pass this along as a tip to the grower. Consider, for example, customer-specific offers. Our request to growers is to put supply online in Floriday. If we miss trade because we can't order, it's not workable for us. Also, our wish is that growers just offer the price listed in Floriday; verbally offering 5 or 10 cents cheaper outside Floriday becomes cumbersome for everyone. We don't want to go back to Florecom or orders by mail."