 | Episode Cheat Sheet |
EP672
12 OCT 2026
55 MIN LISTEN
Courtney Ray
Founder and CEO, Daily Blooms
| Brought to you by |   |
| From Bushy |
I always love interviewing founders of flower and gifting brands. I really think they are smart. Think about it. Two sets of customers to keep happy - the giver and the receiver. Often first-time buyers in a competitive category. A hard delivery timeline. Products that go off in a matter of days. A highly emotional purchase. But... they are usually the most chill operators. And today is no different.
Courtney Ray built Daily Blooms as an online florist so she never had to open a physical shop. She lets us in on how her thinking has changed.
CHEERS, BUSHY
| Watch the Full Episode |
| 01 Skip To The Good Bits |
Tap any time code anywhere in this cheat sheet and the episode opens on YouTube at that exact moment.
| Spotting the working capital problem in floristry | 4:54 |
| One bouquet a day and zero waste | 6:27 |
| Changing every ad and product page by postcode | 9:48 |
| Opening a store that isn't about selling flowers | 11:55 |
| The Friendship Index: one order, three customers | 22:47 |
| The refund and resend rule behind 4.9 stars | 27:50 |
| Capping Valentine's Day at 10x a normal day | 41:10 |
| Taking advice from a competitor | 42:52 |
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“Every year we do our Daily Blooms Christmas party on Black Friday. Because it is the worst day of our year.”
COURTNEY RAY | Daily Blooms
| 02 The Big Lesson |
THE FRIENDSHIP INDEX: EVERY GIFT HAS TWO CUSTOMERS
A gifting order has a buyer and a recipient. But it's easy to only market to the one who paid. Courtney built Daily Blooms to more than a million customers from a $500 start by treating the recipient as the next buyer. Here's how she approaches gifting as a growth engine.
RULE 01 23:33
Model who gifts back
When one friend sends another birthday flowers, Daily Blooms can predict the recipient will send some back on the sender's birthday, then send to a third friend. They brought in an outside company to model who those people are in the database. Klaviyo segments then reach them around each occasion, and people stay in the list until they drop out. Internally it's called the Friendship Index.
That friend will also go on to buy a third person a bunch of flowers for their birthday.
RULE 02 24:00
Count the recipient as a customer
Daily Blooms is built for women gifting other women, so the person at the door looks just like the person who paid. Every delivery is an ad to a lookalike customer, so the bouquet is designed to arrive looking like the photo, carrying the sender's message. If it doesn't, they refund and resend, because that first impression is the next sale.
It's actually the beauty of our industry, because for every individual sale, there are two touch points.
RULE 03 24:43
Talk to the occasion, not the person
Daily Blooms reads card messages in bulk to see which occasions drive orders. Birthdays are a big share, alongside graduations, housewarmings and thank-yous. Each occasion gets its own Meta campaign and social ads, plus a send to the whole database or one segment. Nobody's own message is ever used to target them.
We can't be breaching privacy laws, and also it's like really unsettling.
If your products are given as gifts, you have an inbuilt growth model. You just need to think about the journey for the giver and the receiver. And if you're not encouraging gifting yet... why not?
4.9
STAR RATING
Across about 1,300 reviews on one bouquet, for a product that can wilt, overheat or get crushed on the way. The rule behind it is simple. If there is an unhappy customer - refund and resend, no questions asked. 30:16
| 03 Test Yourself |
Every gift order has a second customer. With Black Friday six weeks out, how many of yours are gifts?
Roughly what share of Black Friday and Cyber Monday orders are actually gifts?
Submit your answer and get the correct answer at the bottom of this email.
| 04 Steal These Tactics |
1
If your range changes by location, ask for the postcode up front and run location-specific ads to match, even if the pop-up annoys people. 10:48
2
Judge a flagship store like any other marketing spend, not on its own P&L. 19:09
3
Put your warehouses next door to your suppliers so stock gets out the door the day it lands. 9:00
4
Feature your team in the product pages. Daily Blooms credits each bouquet to the florist who made it so customers know real people are behind it. 35:27
5
Set your peak target at what operations can handle, then hit it at the lowest spend. 41:36
| 05 The Stack |
Ecommerce platform. Daily Blooms is staying on it for the full website rebuild now underway.
Email and SMS marketing. Its segmentation is how Daily Blooms targets the Friendship Index around each occasion.
Search advertising. Every campaign is location-specific because stock changes by state.
Social advertising. Occasion themes like birthdays and graduations, pulled from card messages, shape the campaigns.
Team chat. On Valentine's Day and Mother's Day they're on it with their agency all day, adjusting spend to pace the orders.
| 06 If This One Landed |
EP288
Adam Sharon-Zipser from Giftnote: Express Delivery of Love Letters Now Available
The person at the door is half of every gifting order. Adam explains how to spot recipients in your data and turn them into buyers.
EP117
You Can't Smell Flowers Online: The Roses Only Story
One of the best moments this week is Courtney taking advice from a competitor, Kelly at Roses Only. Here's Kelly's own story, from same-day cut-offs to selling something you can't smell online.
EP024
You LVLY F*cker: Appealing to the Millennial Customer
Coming into flowers from outside the trade is a theme this week. LVLY's founders built same-day flowers around what younger customers expect, from personalisation to values.
| Pass It On |
Episode Cheat Sheets are built to be forwarded. If you know someone heading into gifting season, send them this one.
| Continue the Conversation |
Would you put a store in your marketing budget? Do you know who your recipients are, or only who paid? And is a growth ceiling a smart call or money left on the table?
Free to join. 700+ Australian ecommerce operators talking shop every week.
| Quiz Answer |
About 30%. Giftnote's Adam Sharon-Zipser shared that on EP288 back in 2023, with most of them bought for the holidays. Every one of those orders has a recipient you could be talking to.
| 2027 Partnerships Are Open |
Want your brand in front of Australia's ecommerce operators next year? Our 2027 partnerships are open now. There are 25 categories, including 2 Gold and 6 Silver spots. First in, best dressed.
