For most florists, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day decide the year. On those days, delivery is the bottleneck: arrangements are ready, but there aren't enough drivers, routes are built by hand, and the phone rings nonstop with "has it arrived yet?" The fix is to plan delivery the way you plan flowers, weeks ahead. This post lays out a peak-season delivery plan and how florist delivery software like FULFLLD supports it.
Why peak days break florist delivery
A normal week might have a few dozen deliveries spread across days. A peak day can bring many times that, all wanting to arrive on the same date, often in the same hours. Three things go wrong:
- Too few drivers. Your regular driver can't cover a day that needs five.
- Manual routing. Sorting a stack of tickets into runs takes hours you don't have on the morning of.
- Anxious buyers. The person who paid isn't the person receiving the flowers. They want to know it arrived, and they'll call until they do.
Valentine's Day is fixed on February 14, and it can fall on a weekday, when many recipients are at work. Mother's Day falls on a Sunday in May, so most deliveries land on the days before it, at homes. Each needs a slightly different plan.
Six weeks out: set the rules
Decide your capacity
Start from what you can deliver, not what you can sell. Count your drivers, how many stops each can do in a delivery window, and how many windows you'll run. That number is your delivery capacity. When pre-orders approach it, either add capacity or stop taking delivery orders for that day.
Set cutoffs and windows
Offer broad windows on peak days, such as morning, afternoon and evening, rather than exact times. Set an order cutoff for each delivery date and stick to it. Make the windows clear at checkout so buyers know what to expect.
Line up extra drivers
Recruit seasonal drivers early, such as staff family members, part-timers or local drivers you've worked with before. With FULFLLD, every plan includes unlimited driver accounts, so adding seasonal drivers doesn't change your software bill. Get them set up on the driver app before the rush, with location set to "Always Allow" so you can see them on the map.
Arrange overflow
Connect your Uber, DoorDash or Roadie accounts in FULFLLD so you can send individual point-to-point orders to an on-demand courier from the order card when your drivers are full. Decide in advance which orders are suitable: single arrangements going a long way are good candidates. Large or fragile pieces are better with your own team. See how this works on our delivery network page.
The week of: build routes in waves
Peak-day deliveries are mostly scheduled, which makes them a good fit for routed, multi-drop delivery. Instead of sending one driver per arrangement, group orders by window and area.
- Get orders into the system early. Orders can arrive through your online store, the API or a bulk import from a spreadsheet, so you don't retype pre-orders.
- Check addresses the day before. Office deliveries need floor, suite and reception notes. Home deliveries need gate codes and "leave at door" instructions.
- Route each wave. Select orders on the map or draw a polygon around an area, then create a route. Route optimization sequences the stops using traffic, delivery windows and vehicle capacity. Bulk route optimization on the routing plans helps when you're building many routes at once.
- Load in reverse. Load the van so the first stop is on top. Fragile arrangements go where they won't tip.
- Adjust live. When a recipient isn't available or a new rush order comes in, edit the route, drag stops into a new order, remove an order or change the route's driver.
For more on how sequencing works, see our route optimization page.
On the day: keep buyers and recipients informed
Most of the calls on a peak day come from buyers asking if their flowers arrived. Automate the answer.
- Driver nearby. A geo-based or "2 stops away" SMS to the recipient helps make sure someone is there to receive the flowers.
- Delivered. An action-based SMS when the drop-off is completed, with a tracking link.
- Running late. A time-based alert when an order is delayed past a set number of minutes, so you can reach out before the customer does.
Messages can include the business name, delivery window, driver name, ETA and tracking link. Note that FULFLLD's SMS rules send to the pickup or drop-off contact on the order, so think about which number you put where.
Photo proof matters more for flowers
The buyer rarely sees the delivery. A photo of the arrangement at handoff is the best proof you can give them, and it settles "the flowers looked wilted" complaints with evidence of condition at the door. Require a photo of delivery on every peak-day order, and require notes when an arrangement is left with reception or a neighbor.
After the rush: review and plan next year
Within a week, while it's fresh, look at what happened. Pull on-time rates, failed deliveries and which routes ran long. For routed work, the route completion email gives each route's summary, stop-level proof and a downloadable report. Note how many orders went to on-demand couriers, and whether your capacity number was right.
Florist peak-day checklist
- Set delivery capacity per day and cap orders at it.
- Publish delivery windows and an order cutoff for each date.
- Recruit and onboard seasonal drivers on the driver app two weeks ahead.
- Connect an on-demand courier account and test one order.
- Import pre-orders and verify addresses the day before.
- Build routes by wave and window, and load vans in reverse stop order.
- Turn on SMS rules for nearby, delivered and delayed orders.
- Require a photo on every delivery and notes for alternate recipients.
- Review results within a week and write down next year's capacity.
Want peak season to feel like a busy day instead of a crisis? Book a demo and we'll walk through a Mother's Day plan with you.