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Case Studies
Toronto Flower Company Uses Payfirma To Support Online Growth
“I initially had sent in a support ticket at a ridiculous time outside of business hours, and the person who ended up replying to me was Michael, who I learned was the CEO of Payfirma. I have a lot of respect for a person who cares that much about his business.”
The Background
Toronto Flower Company was born after Olek and Patrick, brothers-in-law and business partners, were off buying suits for a wedding and got to talking. They were struck with an idea – why not sell luxury flowers online directly to consumers? Together, with their combined knowledge of online businesses and 15 years in the flower industry, they saw an opportunity to shake things up.
Traditional online giants such as FTD and Teleflora use middle-men to fill their online orders. The friends saw a gap in the market and decided to do something about it. The two incorporated in May 2013.
Fast forward to 2015. Toronto Flower Company now has over 20 employees, their own trucks, warehouse, standing orders with farms and solid relationships with large online businesses.
They’re a million dollar company delivering to over 8 million Canadians across Ontario alone as well as partnering with many high quality florists across Canada.
Toronto Flower Company is flourishing and Payfirma is happy to help.
The Challenge
Initially starting with PayPal Merchant Services, this became a huge painpoint since PayPal was impossible to communicate with. It also quickly became clear that Paypal didn’t seem to have any fraud detection in place.
Coupled with the slow turnaround time it took to make deposits into Canadian bank accounts and a lack of communication from anyone knowledgeable there, Toronto Flower Company started to search for a new payment processor.
Communication, fraud detection and an open source API that would allow Toronto Flower Company to expand and grow, were all must-haves on their list for finding a new payment processor.
Moneris, although a popular payment processor, didn’t even cross their radar based on the difficulties other businesses have mentioned having with them.
The Solution
After searching for a processor that could meet all of their needs, Toronto Flower Company came across Payfirma. Toronto Flower Company said they “…primarily looked for any Canadian processors that would directly set us up with a merchant account, Payfirma seemed to be the ideal solution”
What appealed to them about Payfirma was the low initial cost and processing fees, and the fact that Payfirma is a Canadian company.
Payfirma’s focus on exceptional customer service was something they found to be extremely reliable.
Co-founder Patrick stated, “I initially had sent in a support ticket at a ridiculous time outside of business hours, and the person who ended up replying to me was Michael, who I learned was the CEO of Payfirma. I have a lot of respect for a person who cares that much about his business.”
Lastly, they found that with Payfirma’s powerful API they were able to modify the plugins to suit their specific needs, allowing them to be in control of their own destiny.
The Result
Toronto Flower Company says they “love that everything about Payfirma works and works well.” They now have time to focus on expanding their business.
Payfirma’s API allows them the ability to do just that. Communicating with Toronto Flower Company’s in house software is easy, which allows their employees to focus on customer service and selling; creating a seamless and efficient solution.
The ability to customize their checkout page means they are able to tailor the experience to their customers needs; which Payfirma helps them to do. Because of this they have seen increases to their conversion rate; a benefit that every company wants.
But the biggest enhancement they see is through fraud detection, something which will become even more important as Toronto Flower Company expands into other areas such as mobile payments.
Toronto Flower Company was looking for a payment processor but more than that, one that could really scale with the company. What they found with Payfirma is a growth partner that will be with them every step of the way.