William, I'm very disappointed in you since you didn't send me flowers on valentines day.:-(
>February 17, 2000
About 85,000 romantics clicked on ProFlowers.com's Web site to send flowers during Valentine's Day week, a fragrant 700 percent increase in sales compared to the same period last year.
The San Diego-based company -- which estimated it would sell about $2.5 million in red roses and kindred flora -- said revenues amounted to nearly $4 million.
"We could have done even better," said ProFlowers President Bill Strauss, noting that the firm cut its Valentine advertising budget by $600,000 to avoid an Internet stampede by love-struck clients. "It slowed our growth, but we want our customers to have a comfortable experience."
About 11.3 million Americans took to the Internet last week to order candy, plants and jewelry for their sweethearts -- up from less than 5 million in 1999, the International Mass Retailing Association estimated.
The Valentine's Day week is important to the $15 billion florist industry, which derives about 20 percent of its annual sales from the lovey-dovey event, according to the Society of American Florists.
ProFlowers.com got its share of romance-induced purchases.
The company said it averaged more than 150,000 visitors to its Web site during the week prior to Valentine's Day, with more than 500,000 of its Web site pages viewed on the busiest day.
Prior to last week, ProFlowers said the heaviest computer traffic to its site had come during Christmas week last year, when nearly 34,000 orders of flowers were shipped. |
