I work with florists. Those florists mostly work with the public – people that are not floral professionals.
Most people like flowers. Some people think they know something about flowers, but mostly what they know about flowers is what flowers they like.
That can often put them at odds with floral professionals. Sometimes the customer wants a floral that is simply out of season, or not available in a particular region. They may want a flower that is simply not suitable to a particular application – some flowers might not work in a corsage or hand-held bouquet, while others might not be hardy enough to survive an outdoor wedding in the summertime. And, in other cases, a particular flower might simply be outside the budget – a common occurrence when brides fall in love with lavish designs they see on Pinterest.
This is where the floral professional can help. They know what is available and in budget. They know what will work in a particular situation. They have years of experience and access to resources not available to the public. This is where they had value.
They just need your trust. They want to know what you like, but ultimately you are better off if you listen to their advice and trust their judgement.
It's hard for a florist when a client doesn't want to listen, when they dig in their heels and insist on something that won't work. The florist wants the client to be happy, and that is really hard if (for example) the desired flower will die shortly into the reception. That doesn't help anyone.
This is why florists so often wish that the clients would just trust their judgement a little more. And the clients should.
On the other hand florists don't always make the best clients. I have friends in the business of providing florists with ecommerce website, and they share a similar complaint: Clients that won't take their advice.
Sure – a website has to look good, and florists are visual people that create beautiful things for a living. They are experts at this, they know what they like, and they can be expected to have strong opinions on how their site should look.
But an ecommerce website doesn't just have to look good, it has to perform. That performance is generally measured in how many visitors ultimately make a purchase.
Some things that a client might think look good are proven performance killers. Things like thin light text on a dark background. Music that starts playing as soon as the visitor gets to the site.
The website vendors I mentioned are truly experts in their field – people like Jamie Adams from Flower Shop Network, Ryan Freeman fro Strider Florist 2.0 and Brandon Kirkland from Epic Flowers. They study this stuff and know it just like a florist know flowers. And just like a florist would discourage a bride from using an unsuitable flower or design, a competent web guy will discourage the client from making design choices that will hurt performance.
There is so much more to ecommerce site design than just looks. Please trust our web developer.
