Ferns and Petals is all set to make an international debut. After being present in India for about five years, the company, which has both online and retail presence in India, plans to expand operations to Dubai.
“We are planning to open one outlet in Dubai by March 2013. It would be a part of our wedding business,” said Pawan Gadia, CEO, Ferns and Petals. The company expects a group turnover of Rs 175 crore by March 2013. This international investment of about Rs 4-5 crore will be from internal accruals.
Ferns and Petals is also looking at expanding its presence in the domestic market by increasing the number of outlets to 250 by December 2013. “We plan to increase our presence to 62 cities. We have about 136 outlets at present,” said Gadia.
Sensing the increasing demand in tier two and tier three cities, it will open about 50 per cent of the outlets in these towns, such as Imphal and Durgapur. The company is already opening its second and third shops in towns such as Dehradun, Jalandhar and Lucknow. Although the flowers are priced steeply, the online business of the company has seen a growth of about 55 per cent on a year-on-year basis.
Ferns and Petals is now focussing on ‘add-on’ products such as hellion balloons, chocolates, green plants and soft toys to be delivered along with flowers. “We have been introducing products that are non-competitive to our core business. These are high-margin products which are available in gift hampers,” said Gadia.
The company sources 95 per cent of its flowers from Bangalore, Pune and Uttarakhand. As certain flowers are not available throughout the year, it imports those from Thailand and China. The company has no plans of setting up farms in India. In the floral business, perishability is high and the company has wastage of about 10 to 12 per cent on its monthly requirement of fresh flowers.
As far as marketing investment is concerned, the company plans to spend Rs 10-12 crore in the next fiscal. The per customer acquisition spend is about Rs 250.