e company is expanding into the physical retail space through a partnership with the TerryWhite Chemmart chain, as well as establishing a presence in places like hospitals and convenience stores – all places where people are looking for an appropriate, yet premium, gift for someone important in their life. Inside Edible Blooms’ offerings “When I look at what we do and what our purpose is as a business, it’s about delivering joy and making people happy every day,” Jamieson said. Jamieson said Edible Blooms’ products are about celebrating life’s moments, making people feel special, and ensuring it’s easy for someone to make a person who is near and dear to them feel amazing. “So that’s our role in life, to spread some happiness and joy.” The company’s signature product is its chocolate bouquets, made with Melbourne-based Lindor Chocolates, a family chocolatier Edible Blooms has worked with for the last decade-and-a-half. More recently, it has expanded into fresh fruit bouquets. Strawberries are dipped in chocolate and presented in a gift box.  “We have a really strong gourmet gifting range, which is how we started, but we also now do gourmet gift hampers and a plant delivery service, because the way I see it, we are more than a gift. “We’re creating those special moments in life where you get to acknowledge whether it’s a special birthday or a thank you.” Corporate gifting is also a core plank of Edible Blooms’ offering. These gifts are personalised with individual swing tags and the ribbons used to wrap the products are corporate-branded, she said.  “So, if you’re Telstra or similar, and you want to send out a thank-you to customers or clients, then you can really make our gifts look like your own branded gift when it goes out.” A passion for gourmet and gifting Jamieson started the business in 2005 with her sister, who is still general manager. Growing up in country South Australia, they both went to boarding school and when they finished their education, they had friends scattered across the nation.  “We often needed to send flowers and gifts to our friends. We also loved gourmet gifting and flowers and so we kind of put them together and created Edible Blooms,” she said. “It was quite a novel concept when we first introduced it.” One of the early challenges they faced was in educating the market about the idea there was an alternative to flowers or the traditional gift hamper but, as Jamieson noted, once people saw and understood what Edible Blooms offered, it went viral. Recipients who get one of its bouquets suddenly have a lightbulb go off in their head, and then order for the people who are important to them. “It creates a flow-on effect.” A shift from being a pure-play e-commerce business Founded as a pure e-commerce business, Edible Blooms is now shifting its strategy and has begun partnering with key retailers. “We’ve developed a brand-new range and created a mini-florist for retailers to have in-store,” Jamieson said. “We are already in 200 retail points around Australia and the goal is by June of 2024 to be in thousands of retailers.” She said the new strategy is all about making sure Edible Blooms’ products are where its customers are. The added bonus for retailers is the products have a six-month shelf life, and so for those partners, it’s a different offering to the traditional fresh flowers, which have a short shelf life and can look wilted and not at their best after a week. The new strategy is all about listening to customers and responding to where they want to make a purchase, which is both online and in retail. “So partnering with a pharmacy was a really strategic move for us because pharmacies are places where, if you’ve got somebody who’s unwell, often you’re filling a script for a family member [and you may want] the ability to buy something to cheer them up while you’re filling the script or if you’re a busy parent and you need to get teacher gifts, you can collect them from the pharmacy,” she said. “Pharmacies have great locations, and they have great opening hours. “So, we saw that as a really brilliant fit.” Jamieson said she wondered why the company didn’t embark on a retail strategy 10 years ago – “I guess we’ve been busy and just focusing on e-commerce” – but added that it was a realisation they had a unique product that eventually drove the new approach. Like all retailers, she worries about the economy and cost of living and said the company is watching trends carefully. “It’s one of those challenges you have to work around, but you don’t have control over.” The cost of living has also had an impact, and the company has seen growth numbers slow, but the business is still growing. “I think when things do get tighter for retailers, it actually pushes us all to think outside the box and look for those new channels,” she concluded. This story first appeared in the 2024 Australian Retail Outlook.