UrbanStems, Walmart GoLocal grow partnership ahead of Mother’s Day

Forget Valentine’s Day—Mother’s Day is one of the busiest holidays of the year for flower delivery company UrbanStems, which is planning to deliver 13 million blooms this year.

Ahead of the holiday, UrbanStems is growing its same-day delivery service, which was previously available in Washington, DC; New York; and Los Angeles, to four more metro areas—Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, and Chicago—with the help of Walmart’s white-label delivery service, Walmart GoLocal.

UrbanStems announced in January that it had secured $5 million in Series C extension funding to expand its same-day delivery to new cities. UrbanStems CEO Meenakshi Lala told Retail Brew the company’s strategy has pivoted over its 10 years in business, especially as it grew and scaled nationwide with next-day delivery. In the last couple of years, it’s been more focused on its original ethos around the speed and reliability of same-day delivery.

Locations where same-delivery delivery has been offered have led to customer growth, giving shoppers “confidence” to make multiple purchases and spread awareness of the service through word of mouth, which she said remains the company’s “biggest customer acquisition tool.”

Rina Hurst, VP of Walmart GoLocal, told Retail Brew UrbanStems is a unique partner for the retailer in its strategy to use fulfillment centers for florals. The strategic location choices for these centers, situated where there’s a dense population of customers within about a 25- to 30-mile radius, has also allowed GoLocal to batch orders together, Hurst noted, which keeps costs lower for Walmart and UrbanStems.

GoLocal is a year-round service, so it sees the weekly “ebbs and flows of retail,” and the service often peaks the day before or day of holidays from the Fourth of July to Christmas, she said. The service is a particularly good match for the floral marketplace because it delivers on Sundays, Hurst noted. And in case you’re wondering, there’s plenty of business on Mother’s Day itself, Lala shared: “You would be surprised; we can tell you from experience that there are quite a few people who do wait.”