1-800-Flowers.com, Inc. is a floral and gourmet foods gift retailer and distribution company in the United States. It was one of the first retailers to use a 24/7 toll-free telephone number, then the Internet, and then conversational commerce via chat/chatbots for direct sales to consumers.
History
Founding and early years
The concept of using the word "flowers" within a Phoneword was originated by William Alexander in the early 1980s. The phone number, 1-800-356-9377, had been randomly assigned to a trucking brokerage in Wisconsin owned by Curtis Jahn and was used for that company until 1981. In an agreement with Jahn that would later be sharply contested, Granville Semmes and David Snow formed a Louisiana corporation that began to use that number to sell flowers in Louisiana, starting in 1982. The use of the number would trigger a series of lawsuits. Their business struggled and that company was dissolved, with its assets going to investors James Poage and John Davis of Texas. The new corporation struggled financially as well. Its assets were acquired in 1986 by Jim McCann, an owner of several flower shops in the New York City area since 1976, under whom the business saw success and growth.
1990s
In the early 1990s, two events helped bring 1-800-Flowers to national prominence. First, AT&T created an advertising campaign featuring the company that aired repeatedly during the 1992 Summer Olympics. Then, at the time of the first Persian Gulf War, many advertisers were pulling out of CNN, unaware that CNN's war coverage would draw additional viewers. 1-800-Flowers agreed to remain as an advertiser at founder Ted Turner's request. The company was among the first retailers to partner with CompuServe and AOL, in 1992 and 1994 respectively. On September 1, 1995, the company registered the 1800flowers.com domain name. In 1999, the company went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol FLWS and changed its name to 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, to match its website address.
2000s
The company has merged with or acquired a number of other gift and retailing companies. In September 2007, the company announced a partnership with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia to produce a line of floral products inspired by Martha Stewart. According to the Consumerist in 2008, customers have reported unknowingly being subscribed to LiveWell after receiving rebate checks from 1-800-flowers. It had 4,000 employees as of 2008, with a market cap of US$119 million. In 2009, revenue was US$714 million. Operating income wasUS$-72.2 million, net income was US$-98.4 million, assets were valued at US$286 million, and equity was at US$134 million. In March 2017, Ferrero SpA bought Fannie May and Harry London from 1-800-Flowers.com for $115 million.
Conversational commerce
The company was an early example of conversational commerce on Facebook Messenger an IBM Watson artificial intelligence-powered chatbot/virtual assistant. The virtual assistant had previously been implemented on the Web.
Acquisitions
May 2006, 1-800-Flowers acquired several Alpine Confections Inc. brands including Fannie May Confections, Fannie Farmer and Harry London Candies.
April 1, 2008, 1-800-Flowers purchased DesignPac Gifts LLC.
July 21, 2008, 1-800-Flowers purchased Napco Marketing Corporation.
August 1, 2011, the company acquired Flowerama.
August 5, 2019, 1-800-Flowers was the successful bidder of the Shari's Berries brand.
