During the festive season, relatives look for ways to send mithai or rakhis, as per the occasion, to their relatives living outside India. As couriering a box of mithai or a rakhi can turn out to be an expensive option, so when a gifting company gives you the option of sending a mithai box or a rakhi along with some flowers or a gift to your relatives at a reasonable price, it is a tempting offer. From being a flower company, the 30 year old company previously known as Ferns & Petals has now evolved into a gifting company. A recent rebranding exercise as FNP shows this change.
FNP was started as Fern and Petals by Vikaas Gutgutia with a single flower shop in 1994 in New Delhi’s South Extension. The shop did well as he was able to bring in flowers that were not available in the city. What also helped his flower business stand out was that he made some beautiful flower arrangements in unusual holders. For instance, a lantern would be repossessed into a flower vase, or a gas-cut iron bucket would have flowers flowing through it. This innovative way of doing flowers helped the company grow by attracting franchisees and expanding its retail footprint. This was followed by an entry into the wedding market.
In 2001, Gutgutia brought on board Pawan Gadia as CEO (today Gadia is the global CEO, FNP.) Soon after, in 2002 the website indiatimes.com reached out to Ferns and Petals to deliver flowers in Mumbai. This would entail taking orders from indiatimes.com for their customers to be delivered in Mumbai. Within three months of tying up with indiatimes.com, Gadia realized that both the flower shop to whom the order was being passed on to, and the company itself were making money. So other websites were added to the roster. The next obvious way to increase business was to increase distribution, so the company tied up with florists across the board, which increased sales for the next couple of years. The next step was to add categories and cakes were added, followed by toys, chocolates, plants, which were bundled with the flowers. Personalisation – printing a picture or message on anything – has worked very well for the company, and today is a big part of the business.
Since the company’s entire business model has been built on the franchise model, Gadia and team convinced the franchisees of undertaking investments to set up the personalization at their outlets. It was a similar story when the company started bundling cakes with the flowers. As it found itself selling a lot of cakes, a separate cake vertical was created. By 2016, the company’s product mix had gone into three buckets of which flowers contributed 1/3, cakes 1/3 and other items 1/3. A separate cake brand was launched and today, according to Gadia, the company has approximately 130 odd cake shops in the country spread over 60 cities.
In 2015, Gadia realized that the company had a template of how the business was done, and it was replicated. “We decided to set up the FNP.ae in Dubai. That was a bold move,” says Gadia. According to him the company now employs 250 people in Dubai and will do around Rs230 crore from Dubai this year. This template has also been expanded to Singapore, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Today FNP has a presence in five countries, including India.
Since inception growth has been at a constant CAGR of 22 per cent. For the financial year 2024-25, FNP is targeting a turnover of Rs1,000 crore. “In 2001 when I was joining here my friends told me where are you going? Nobody can make money out of flowers,” he says. Well, who would have thought! Flowers today attribute one-third to the company’s revenues. According to Gadia, while the Indian business contributes 60 per cent to the company’s turnover, business from other countries contribute the remaining 40 per cent.
The flowers that FNP delivers are all Indian flowers. The government of India encourages the sale of Indian flowers, and 98 percent of the flowers sold are produced domestically. In fact, the import of fresh flowers is banned in the country. Imported flowers attract an import duty of 40 per cent – 60 per cent which makes them very expensive to buy. Flowers are mainly grown in the two areas which have moderate climates in India – Pune, Maharashtra and Bengaluru, Karnataka region. Flowers are supplied from these two destinations primarily depending on the forecast, the season or whatever the customer might need at that point in time. Thereafter the flowers are distributed across the country depending on the distance either by air, train or bus, and there is a small supply chain around it. The lilies come from the hills.
In the GCC countries of Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Qatar, flowers mainly come either from Kenya, or South America – Ecuador and Colombia – and Aalsmeer, Holland. (Aalsmeer is the largest flower auction facility in the world.) In Singapore, flowers mainly come in from Holland or China.
Gadia wanted FNP to be a part of the customers’ entire journey from birth to demise, and be a part of every possible occasion, festival and celebration in between. Since the company was already doing a lot more than just flowers, in 2022 the company decided to show this change from a flower company to a gifting company with the change in brand identity. Hence, the change from Ferns and Petals to FNP.
How has this made a difference? While Ferns and Petals has had a longer presence in the Indian market, it will take some time to change that impression in the customers’ mind. However, the company has been successful in implanting the new identity in the mind of the overseas’ customer. For instance, in Singapore and the UAE the company has been able to communicate with the customers that FNP means gifting and not just flowers. “There was also the advantage that we started there pretty late – we started in Qatar in 2019 and Singapore in 2020 – so the customer did not have the legacy of the company being a flower brand. So it was easy to change there,” he adds.
The flower and gifting business is a people business. While the company has some very passionate franchisees, the new young employees who join are all full of exciting ideas. Also, today you can buy flowers on Zepto, or a cake on Zomato. With hyper local and quick commerce services, the gifting business is only getting augmented and gaining popularity. With all kinds of days being encouraged, this business is just expanding every year.
According to Gadia, the most exciting part of the business is that they deliver happiness. “It’s not that I’m sending a flower or cake or plant that has to go to the customer, but it is his emotions,” says Gadia. “We ensure that people’s emotions are conveyed however they should be. What makes me very happy is that I’m able to make at least 15,000 people happy every day across the world. It starts with that,” he adds. Of course, all this is very rewarding as money and recognition also comes with this.
Moving ahead, Gadia has three main challenges to deal with. The first main challenge for the flower business is that of climate change. With the climate going through a huge change – with temperatures touching the highs of 45 degrees celsius across the country on an average – it is going to affect the business. The other challenge is how does the company predict what it will sell in the next five years. “That guesswork and discovery is what keeps us excited and we want to work on that path,” he says. And third is how the company should make its team future ready and achieve what it wants to. “Out of the 1,500 employees, 150 are very passionate and motivated. So how do you bring in that same passion in the others,” he says.
Gadia has taken upon himself the task of making FNP a Rs4,000 crore brand over the next five years. Experts and mentors have been roped in to figure what is the next big thing the company can leverage to be much larger than where its natural growth can take it. With Gadia’s go-getter attitude, it won’t be long before the company finds its next big thing.