Robert en Merijn of Florafy about Combidesk
Sometimes you know it after the first meeting: these guys are going to make it. Such was the case with Robert van der Leeuw and Merijn Raaphorst. Both 23 years old, just graduated, been doing business online for years, and now conquering the Netherlands with their natural-looking artificial plants. The secret? Not 1 or 2, but 10 webshops on the go. Each with its own proposition in order to cater to the entire market. Which presents a number of administrative challenges - especially in terms of stock management, "but thanks to Combidesk's integrations, we can do this with the same ease as someone else with one or two webshops."
“Thanks to Combidesk, we keep 10 webshops up and running with the same ease” Robert & Merijn, co-founders Florafyn
In 2020, Robert moved out on his own. His parents gave him a plant as a gift. But Robert was busy, working with Merijn at an internet start-up, and also selling trend-related products through Bol.com, Amazon and a number of webshops of their own. Robert lost track of his plant. Within a few months, it was dead. "And that's how Florafy was born," Robert explains. "I thought, I'm not the only one who doesn't have time to be constantly caring for and watering their plants. There must be a market for this."
Breaking the stuffy market
"Artificial plants have a stuffy image. We are managing to break this market because our plants are indistinguishable from real ones. So we call them 'real-looking artificial plants'. There is a huge demand for them! We serve consumers and businesses alike. Consumers, like me, are at work a lot and rarely at home, and have often watched their living plants die. Companies also come calling. Our silk and artificial plants are all over the Netherlands in offices, restaurants, showrooms, you name it."
Robert and his partner's plants are of high quality. The stem is made of real wood, while the leaves - because they contain iron - can be bent. Florafy tries to make life as easy as possible for the customer by delivering the plant completely unfolded and shaped. Whoever's receiving it can just put it down as is. To top it all off, they also supply moss. All in all, this is how they manage to stand out from the competition.
Not one webshop, but several front doors
Plants aren't sold in one central location. Robert and Merijn have several webshops up and running, "each with its own proposition; after all, one customer, for example, wants free shipping, another wants free returns, a third wants a plant at a discount, and yet another wants only the very best service. By having a variety of front doors online, we can cater for the whole market." In fact, these different 'front doors' all lead to the same back door: the warehouse in Berkel en Rodenrijs.
The different front doors also posed a challenge: customers come in from all sides and have to be grouped together. "You want to avoid someone ordering another plant on Amazon when we have just sold the last item through our own webshop or Bol.com," he says.
Manual work became impossible
Another problem was accounting. "We sold a lot of artificial hanging plants through our own webshop kunsthangplant.nl. In the beginning, we put these orders manually into Exact, our accounting package. At a certain point, we grew to 20-30 orders a day. This made manual work not only very time-consuming, but also impossible to do error-free."
You obviously don't want to be making typos in email addresses or amounts. So Robert opted to only enter the most important data: name and amount of the invoice. In doing so, he missed out on opportunities, as the address, email address and products weren't being recorded. Which made follow-up through mail campaigns impossible at a later stage.
Automatic accounting brings new opportunities for the future
"That's when I came across Combidesk. Combidesk's integrations ensures that all customers and orders from our webshop are automatically entered into Exact. Including all the details. I can also find them in our system, so we can run mail campaigns with them later."
Stock management still remains a challenge, but this doesn't stop Robert and Merijn from already making plans for the future. And these extend beyond the border. After all, whether that front door is in the Netherlands or Belgium doesn't matter to them. They want natural-looking artificial plants everywhere!
Automate your bookkeeping = instant time savings
Connect your webshop (such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Lightspeed, CCV Shop, Magento2, Mijnwebwinkel or Plug&Pay) with your accounting software (Moneybird, Exact Online, SnelStart, Twinfield, AFAS, Yuki or e-Boekhouden) and let customers, invoices, and payments flow through automatically. Less manual work, fewer errors, more control. Also compatible with automatic reconciliation between Mollie, PayPal, Stripe, Pay., Shopify Payments, Rabo Smart Pay or ING Checkout.
