Delivery route planning for florists
Flowers do not wait. Funerals have service times, office deliveries have opening hours and Valentine's Day packs a month of orders into one morning. SoloRoute helps a florist or delivery driver plan the run around all of it.
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What makes flower delivery different
A florist’s delivery run has a few things most routes do not:
- Hard times. Funerals, weddings and events have a service time. Arrive late and the order is worthless.
- Business hours. Office and hospital deliveries only work when someone is at reception.
- Fragile cargo. Vases tip, stems snap, and heat or cold does damage fast.
- Peaks. Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day can bring five or ten times the usual orders.
A route planner will not arrange the flowers. It can make sure the van leaves with a plan that respects the times and keeps the arrangements in the van for as short a time as possible.
Set up the morning run
- Bring in the orders. Export the day’s deliveries from your shop system as a CSV, paste the addresses as a list or scan the printed delivery sheet with your camera.
- Add time windows. Funeral at 11:00? Set the window to arrive before 10:30. Office that opens at 9:00? Set 9:00 to 17:00.
- Pin the first stop. A same-day sympathy order or anything wilting-sensitive goes first.
- Add notes. “Reception desk, 3rd floor”, “Ring twice”, “Leave with neighbor at 14 if out”.
- Tap Optimize. The order respects your windows and your first and last stops.
If the shop takes a new order at 9:30, add the stop and re-optimize what is left. Every stop is editable at any time, and arrival times update right away.
Load the van in route order
Use the package location field so the driver knows where each arrangement is: “Floor rack 1”, “Box 4”, “Front passenger footwell”. Set the package count for addresses with more than one item, like a hospital ward or a wedding venue.
Load the last deliveries furthest back. Put the tall vases and the first stops where the driver can reach them without moving anything else. Fewer moves means fewer broken stems.
Delivery and proof
Tap Navigate to open each stop in Google Maps, Waze or Apple Maps.
At the door, take a photo of the arrangement as proof of delivery and mark the stop delivered. If nobody is home and there is no safe place, mark it failed with the reason not home, and retry later in the run. Shops find this photo useful when a sender calls to ask if the flowers arrived.
Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day
On a peak day the free plan’s 20 stops per route will not be enough. Pro is $7.99 a month for up to 100 stops per route. Many shops turn it on for the week of the holiday and cancel after. Billing runs through the App Store or Google Play, so you can cancel from your phone.
A few tips for peak days:
- Split by area or by time. Two shorter routes are often easier than one huge one, especially if the van has to come back to reload.
- Put the hard windows first. Use time windows so funerals and offices are not pushed late by home deliveries.
- Use reverse route. If traffic builds on one side of town, Pro can flip the rest of the route in one tap.
- Check your history. Route history keeps last year’s runs, so you can see how many stops a busy day had.
Regular customers and venues
Hotels, restaurants and offices that take weekly arrangements belong in your address book. Add them once and pick them for each route. The free plan holds 100 saved addresses, and Pro makes it unlimited, which helps if you service a lot of corporate accounts.
One driver or the owner driving
Most small shops have the owner or one driver doing deliveries. SoloRoute is built for exactly that: one person planning and driving their own route on their phone. You can sign in with email, Google or Apple, and the route syncs to another device if someone at the shop wants to see it.
Try it before your next peak
Install SoloRoute (free for 20 stops per route) and paste today’s delivery addresses to see the optimized order. Notes are included. Pro adds time windows and photo proof.
Questions
Can I plan around funeral and event times?
Yes, with Pro. Add a time window to the stop, for example 9:00 to 10:30, and the optimizer plans the route so you arrive inside it.
How do I get orders from my shop system into SoloRoute?
Export the day's deliveries as a CSV or spreadsheet and import it. You can also paste a list of addresses, or scan your printed delivery sheet with your camera.
How many deliveries can I plan on a holiday?
Up to 20 stops per route on the free plan. Pro is $7.99 a month for up to 100 stops per route, which is the plan most shops use for Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. You can cancel after the peak.
Can I note the recipient's name and card message details?
Yes. Each stop has a name, notes and a phone number. Keep the card message itself on the arrangement, and use notes for delivery details like the buzzer or reception desk.
Can I prove the arrangement was delivered?
Yes, with Pro. Take a photo at the door as proof of delivery. It is useful when the sender asks whether the flowers arrived and what they looked like.