Elaborate on the 3 personal creativity drivers such as task expertise, task motivation and creativity skills on the netflorist company that drive creative decision in the company

NetFlorist- a dot.com success story \"Harold's relationship hotline, how can I help\"... NetFlorist has become a household name as the largest flower and gifting supplier in South Africa. With 2000 deliveries a day, the oldest ecommerce company in South Africa, has distributed over 2 500 0000 gifts and flower packages via its own hubs and supplier network across South Africa and the world. In 1999 Ryan Bacher, Lawrence Brick and Jonathan Hackner launched NetFlorist just before Valentine's Day and it has been a company ever since. According to Ryan who is still with NetFlorist \"Our plan was to run the site for one day to prove that we could do it. And then we got R30 000 worth of orders. That was the equivalent of a whole month's revenue at a flower shop.\" As Managing Director, Ryan is responsible for all day-to-day operations and strategy of the company. He is the co-founder of the South African Forum for Etailers and sits on the board of the Johannesburg chapter of the global non-profit Entrepreneurs Organisation. The founders of NetFlorist had no intention of starting an online floral and gifting company. Ryan and his two partners, Lawrence and Jonathan, were asked to build an online test store for the South Africa wholesale giant Makro to showcase the possibilities of online retail. \"Ecommerce didn't really exist in South Africa and we were testing to see if we could sell stuff - and we picked flowers randomly,\" Bacher said. \"There was no strategic thinking and none of us knew about flowers. We just thought, 'I wonder if flowers could sell\" and so on 1 Febraury 1990, just thirteen days before Valentine's day Netflorist was launched. Valentine's day came and went, and the 'test' site did unbelievably well, so they didn't shut it off. \"What's really crazy is that people were paying for us to provide a service. We had no stock and knew nothing about flowers. We just sent the orders to a flower shop in Sandton,\" says Ryan Bacher. E-commerce was a relatively unknown and untapped idea and NetFlorist became first in line to succeed. Commenting on how the team was able to make the business work, Ryan said \"We knew our best bet was to get the website out, hack it, and keep changing it. We would learn more from the site being out there in the market than we could ever learn in-house, trying to develop a perfect product. It was basically always a work in progress\". Even though NetFlorist was founded by accident, it is now South Africa's oldest online store and gets at least 730,000 orders every year. Ryan studied and completed a Bachelor of Arts and Law Degree at Wits in 1994. He worked for the Club Med Group in the Caribbean for a few years and then joined the NetActive Internet group where he worked in marketing and sales for 2 years until NetFlorist was founded in 1999. Under Ryan Bacher NetFlorist has grown into a firm with five warehouses and 200 franchises, all over the country. \"Initially we liked the idea of selling flowers and that worked for a few years and then we realised flowers don't tick every occasion,\" Bacher said. \"So we started branching off into all sorts of different things and it's gone quite wide. There's a bakery here. We can laser engrave your name on a chopping board.\" NetFlorist has expanded their offering to sympathy gifts, baked goods, branded jewelry, Ecuadorian cigars and customized gifts all offered on the same delivery business model. Reflecting on why the market was ready for them Ryan notes that \"people were used to phoning a florist, so we didn't have much of a hurdle to overcome. We did R30 000 in our first month, which is about the same revenue of a physical florist\". Instead of seeing the lack of 'product' as a shortcoming NetFlorist was proactive about defining the category they were competing in. Simply put Ryan notes that \"We're expanding the business rapidly. We don't see ourselves as florists, but rather as a gifting service\". The company has not stagnated and note that about 10 percent of their orders are coming from smartphones, but that this is only set to increase. With their success has come attention from companies interested in buying out the NetFlorist brand, however the management at the company has noted that in spite of these enquiries they would prefer to stay independent and \"own their own destiny\". In an interview about how he built the business and the lessons he learnt along the way Ryan reflects on why it is so difficult for e-commerce business in South Africa to attract venture capital funding?; \"Entrepreneurs hoping to launch an e-commerce business may find it difficult to attract venture capital funding, because there is a reluctance to compete with established and successful websites. However, if you can create a niche and solve a problem using online in South Africa, you will fly.\" When NetFlorist was launched in 1999 it was a test case for e-commerce in South Africa when online retail was in the early stages of development. Bacher said there was very little initial focus on fulfilment, strategy, industry, market research, and marketing, human resources, technology or the product. This admission is shocking to say the least when considering the importance of planning in traditional businesses. However as an entrepreneurial venture NetFlorist had the perfect, trial and error approach, bootstrapping to get going has been invaluable to their initial success, as much as planning has been invaluable to their subsequent success. A basic website was built and the business relied heavily on email marketing, which was still a novel form of communication at the time. Ryan admits that \"our next steps were to research the flower market, grow our supply chain, set up a call centre and launch an affiliate programme\". Affiliate marketing with established brands assisted NetFlorist to acquire customers and sell products in the early stages of its existence, helping it to stay afloat during the dotcom bust of 2002. The collapse of many e-commerce companies globally and in South Africa was due to online start-ups not being able to translate hype and online customers into profitable sales. Much of their working capital was spent on marketing, and when companies approached investors for a second round of funding, they were unable to demonstrate profitability and businesses collapsed. As the NetFlorist business matured, Bacher said the company made the important transition from internet startup to retailer, and had to consequently learn key retailing theories such as margin and mark-ups. Bacher explains that the difference is that \"Retail is about the product that you sell. The technology is not all that important\". The business expanded from 11 to 150 employees in 2007 as it brought its suppliers, drivers and florists in-house, which was a significant change to its business model. According to Bacher the motivation for the business model change came about as the business grew, \"selling the product online is only one part of the journey. The logistics of delivery are difficult and you can very easily become over reliant on suppliers\". NetFlorist deliveries are not just limited to South Africa, clients can have flowers delivered in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, most of Europe, Argentina, Hong Kong, Israel, selected countries in Asia as well as neighbouring countries Namibia and Zimbabwe. Today almost all successful e-commerce retailers in South Africa have their own warehouses to control distribution. NetFlorist now sources 70% of its flowers in South Africa and the other 30% from the rest of Africa. Bacher notes that \"we are able to maintain a consistent service because we are still an owner-run business with a dramatically flat structure. All 350 employees are passionate about what we do\". Key data and analytics are a crucial part of online retail. Bacher explained customer relationship management can be a challenge for a site like NetFlorist as the majority of purchases are flowers or gifts for third parties. Essentially, \"your personal preferences are largely irrelevant and the usual customer segmentation categories of transaction history, geography or previous deliveries are often unrelated to future purchases,\" he explained. Another important aspect that NetFlorist has to get right is the online payment system and the protection of client data. They have to protect client data with stringent security measures and ensure their privacy. Because they use client information to market additional offers they also have to offer them the opportunity to opt out of future specials and information by unsubscribing from mailing lists. NetFlorist goes out of their way to provide a secure online shopping environment making it clear how and what visitor information is collected, offering clients the opportunity to change or restrict what information is collected. As the business expanded, NetFlorist had to reach a decision whether to continue to exploit its current revenue streams or explore new ones. Bacher explained, \"as there is very little customer loyalty online, the only differentiator in our industry is product and service. We have to innovate\". Since expanding their offering into gifting, confectionary and deli products and same-day personalisation of gifts, 60% of sales are from flowers and 40% from non-flowers, with an average order size of R400. Future product extensions include an exploratory foray into fresh fruit and vegetables delivered to homes and international deliveries with local offerings set to launch in Singapore, Malaysia and India. Explaining their drive for innovation Ryan notes, \"we have to do things that are slightly different and difficult to copy as a way to build a moat around the business, or we will immediately attract imitators. The key is to focus on the core, while at the same time be good at exploring new things\". Ryan Bacher credits the company's longevity to flexibility and willingness to learn new skills. Valentine's day 2019 While Valentine's day 1999 was a great catapulting success, Valentines day 2019 had quite a different outcome. Hundreds of NetFlorist customers took to Twitter, Facebook, and HelloPeter to complain about their orders not being delivered on Valentine's Day. Customers recounted similar experiences: In one case, a reader stated that he ordered his girlfriend flowers and a teddy bear on 11 February for delivery on 14 February. He then received an email at 15:00 on Valentine's Day stating that his order was only being released for delivery then. After contacting his girlfriend after 16:00, she stated that no delivery had been received, and she was leaving work - the delivery location. Another client commented on Facebook: \"Dear Netflorist. I ordered a valentines gift for my mother, for whom this is the first Valentine's day without my father who passed away in December. You have not delivered it.\" NetFlorist managing director Ryan Bacher said the combination of rain in Gauteng and loadshedding created the perfect 'storm' with heavy rains in Johannesburg resulting in traffic jams across the city. \"We have never had this in previous years and it caught us by surprise. Our drivers couldn't get to our pick-up point in time and then, when they did, couldn't get the orders out in time,\" said the company. \"We don't have final numbers yet, but our delivery success rate was in the low 90s as far as we can tell - this is a disaster for the people we let down.\" NetFlorist said it would redeliver orders the next day and \"will manage any customer-specific needs over and above that in whatever way we can\". The company acknowledged that \"it's going to be a tough few days for us, our teams, and most importantly our customers. We will do whatever we need to make this right.\" It must be mentioned that NetFlorist certainly seems to have taken the lessons learnt seriously as Valentine's day 2020 passed without any poor public relations for the retail florist. Cloud Marketing services NetFlorist uses email marketing tools to communicate promotional email campaigns to its many subscribers, leveraging annual special occasions like Valentine's Day and Mothers' Day. Leading up to and during these special occasions, NetFlorist receives up to 18,000 transactions on their website in the form of orders. Their email sending frequency is one mailer a week for standard promotions and twice a week for days leading up to an event. Their campaigns are heavily timebased. After 12pm, no more mailers are sent so as to accommodate same day delivery. When considering a new software provider to power their digital communications, NetFlorist needed to decide between using an internal system (self-built) or Everlytic. Everlytic is Cloud Marketing Software developed in South Africa. Whether it be newsletters and notifications, to statements and system generated messages, Everlytic ensures top delivery rates. The factors to consider included: Which system generated the most revenue The sending speed for time-based campaigns Reporting features available To determine which solution would work best and true to their ethos, NetFlorist conducted a test, sending to half of their database with Everlytic and the other half with their internal system. Each campaign was sent simultaneously to a randomly selected base of subscribers. The campaign tested a number of outcomes including sending speed, deliverability, reporting, and revenue generated by both systems. Google Analytics was used for a real-time overview of transactions on the e-commerce website to measure conversion rates and revenue generated by the email campaigns Overall, Everlytic delivered better results than NetFlorist's internal system and it helped generate 7.7% more revenue for NetFlorist across all four campaign tests. Everlytic also delivered better campaign reporting in the form of delivery, bounce rate, and unsubscribe reporting, none of which NetFlorist previously had access to when sending from the internal system. While NetFlorist's internal system is still used for order tracking, Everlytic's reporting suite enabled NetFlorist to better track, analyse, and understand campaign results, providing insight into how best to optimise their newsletters. It did this in the following ways: Everlytic's heat map functionality opened up new business opportunities as NetFlorist could prove that subscribers were clicking well below the fold all the way down to the email footer. So, they approached advertisers to use the additional advertising space. Everlytic's automated bounce reporting was used by NetFlorist to cross reference results and update subscriber information in their CRM (Client Relationship Management system). Sending speed was a huge convenience factor. The NetFlorist team only had to concern themselves with clicking send. Everlytic's servers would ensure perfectly timed campaign deliveries. According to Thalissa Theeruth the marketing manager at NetFlorist, \"platform reporting showed us what our subscribers use to access their emails and because we could see how many users access their mailers via mobile devices, Everlytic's reporting particularly impacted the launch of the NetFlorist e-commerce mobi site,'' Since commissioning the tests and switching over to Everlytic, NetFlorist finds added value in being able to track the base growth of subscribers and use Everlytic's link-click reports to see which calls-to-action are most effective. NetFlorist adds links throughout the email body and in the footer to establish whether people are scanning the entire email or only looking above the fold. NetFlorist is looking to get involved with CRM-based integration and Everlytic's API (Application Program Interface) to automatically update subscriber information in their CRM. This will allow NetFlorist to have automatic updates to subscriber information in their CRM and allow for easy integrations. Fresh produce deliveries NetFlorist has been investigating the possibility of delivering fresh fruit and vegetables for three years and started doing so on Monday the 23rd of March. The delivery of fresh fruit and vegetables to consumers in Johannesburg North and Pretoria coincides with the presidential order for people to stay home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Retailers across South Africa, including Checkers, Pick n Pay and Woolworths, have recently stepped up their food delivery services. NetFlorist has teamed up with foods wholesaler and distributor Fruitspot to deliver fresh produce to consumers within one day. The service is set to expand to include prepared meals in the near future, NetFlorist said. According to NetFlorist's website, it is charging R89.95 per delivery. Deliveries at Pick n Pay costs R60. The Checkers' Sixty60 grocery delivery service is free. Consumers can find the new NetFlorist offering on its fresh produce website page. Ryan Bacher says the company's warehouses and vehicles are already cooled for flowers, making it perfect for fresh produce and current circumstances have sped up their entry into this market segment. Health practices have also been improved to curb the spread of coronavirus, including regular sanitising, and non-contact deliveries. Nowadays, starting an e-commerce company is difficult - there is a reluctance to compete with established and successful websites, said Bacher. Today, Bacher is known as the 'Grandfather of the internet' in South Africa for his innovation and for leading the way with e-commerce. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for NetFlorist! Sources: https://foundersafrica.com/how-ryan-bacher-launched-NetFlorist-sas-largest-online-gifting-company-by-accident/ https:/ewsroom.mastercard.com/people/ryanbacher/ http://www.702.co.za/articles/10428/how-ryan-bacher-who-knew-nothing-about-flowers-created-NetFlorist http://www.702.co.za/articles/2398/how-flower-power-led-to-the-creation-of-a-south-african-ecommerce-behemoth https://www.businessinsider.co.za/south-africas-oldest-ecommerce-retailer-NetFlorist-2019-2 https://www.gibs.co.zaews-events/events/forums/Pages/the-NetFlorist-story--from-lean-start-up-to-categoryleader.aspx https://www.NetFlorist.co.za/floral-gifts/about.htm https://www.NetFlorist.co.za/Security.htm http://blog.NetFlorist.co.za/NetFlorists-story/ https://www.everlytic.co.zaetflorist/ https://www.businessinsider.co.zaetflorist-will-now-deliver-fresh-fruits-and-vegetables-due-to-covid-19-2020-3 https://mybroadband.co.zaews/it-services/296036-massive-valentines-day-delivery-failure-by-netflorist.html