In March 2020, Farmgirl Flowers CEO Christina Stembel realized she had 12 hours to shut down her San Francisco production facility due to pandemic restrictions. To save the business she started 10 years ago, she shifted operations to a small facility in Ecuador and scrambled to notify customers that orders would be delayed. On this episode of the Retail Gets Real podcast, Stembel shares how she built her business from the ground up, created growth even while slashing marketing during a challenging year, and inspired countless Instagram-worthy moments and memories for customers along the way.
The idea for Farmgirl Flowers stemmed from a problem Stembel noticed while managing events at Stanford University: Ordering flowers was expensive and delivery was inconsistent. She went down a rabbit hole of research during the economic downturn of 2008, trying to find out why flowers cost so much. Then an idea sprouted — she could compete with the companies that were out there in just about every way from design to selection to pricing. In 2010, she founded Farmgirl Flowers and has been sprouting seeds of growth ever since.
Farmgirl Flowers differentiates itself from competitors by offering a limited selection of bouquets that rotate seasonally. Listen to the full episode to learn more about how Farmgirl Flowers is continuing to disrupt the flower market, and how despite the challenging environment, it’s managed to grow during the pandemic.
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