LAS VEGAS, NEVADA (June 13, 2017) – Today, florists operate in a competitive gifting marketplace with a new set of rules offline and online that relies on an ever-evolving landscape of knowledge of social, mobile, online, and digital technologies to succeed. Teleflora, the world's leading floral delivery service and leading provider of award winning business technology solutions for florists, today announced the 2017 Technology Conference entitled, "Accelerating Growth," that's being hosted at the Mirage Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on June 13 – 15, 2017.
| SPEAKER | TOPIC |
| Paul Bascobert, President at XO Group (The Knot local business) | "The Evolving Role of Technology in Weddings & Events" |
| Eric Feinberg, Vice President of /Marketing, Foresee | "Understanding Today's Shopper: How Consumers Are Deciding What, Where and How to Buy Products and Services" |
| Art Conforti, Founder of Boomerang Digital Solutions | "Understanding the Do's and Don'ts of Setting Up Online Campaigns" |
| Charlie Conrad, Digital Strategist at Yelp | "Yelp: Under the Hood" |
| Andrew Fleischer, Client Partner at Google | "Using Google Analytics to Drive Your Growth" |
| Genna Gold, Manager of Local Business Outreach at Yelp | "How Word of Mouth Impacts Your Customers" |
| Dan McManus, Founder of TeamFloral | "The Future of Flowers" |
| Crystal Vilkaitis, CEO, Crystal Media | "The Social Selling Mindset: The Methods Other Local Retailers are Using to See Sales from Social" |
The Conference, which has drawn over 300 attendees from Teleflora florist partners across North America is on track to be the largest gathering of local florists this year. The event will feature a lineup of technology expert speakers and education tracks focused on the latest technology tools and insights, as well as solutions from Teleflora to grow their local florist businesses. Highlights of some of the topics that will be covered at the conference include:
"With over 80 years of partnership with florists, this conference is a great example of our commitment to ensure local florist success and profitability, and to remain the largest network of local florists. Teleflora's own expert team and several worldclass technology partners will be sharing the latest consumer technology trends that every floral retailer should understand. And, a multi-day track of education sessions centered around our best-in-class technologies like our award-winning POS and web-hosting solutions will allow our florists to optimize their benefits of using these products," said Jeff Bennett, president of Teleflora.
Serving as Teleflora's Keynote Speaker on Wednesday, June 14 of the Conference is Bill Deakin, vice president and customer experience (CX) evangelist of Oracle's consumer goods and retail division. His presentation, "As the World Goes Mobile – Are You Ready?" will explore the growing influence of mobile and the social nature of today's consumer, which creates both new opportunities and challenges for predictable growth and meaningful engagement for all businesses.
"We are thrilled to have a world-class technology partner like Oracle as our keynote and for them to be sharing insights on such an important consumer trend facing floral retailers today," said Bennett. "Last year, Teleflora.com re-launched on Oracle Commerce, its industry leading platform, and is currently transitioning our e-Florist platform as well. This has continued to drive substantial improvements in many of our ecommerce metrics."
"We are pleased to participate with Teleflora and present to members of their florist network. It is exciting to work with valued customers like Teleflora as they transition platforms and build experiences that drive innovation and growth," said Ken Volpe, senior vice president, Oracle product development. "Oracle Commerce is a differentiating piece of the broader Oracle Customer Experience (CX) applications portfolio."
"Today's successful retailers are giving customers a seamless shopping experience through strategic integration of multiple technology platforms. Teleflora, along with partners such as Oracle and Google are bringing point-of-sale, mobile, web & social together so I can effectively give my customers that omnichannel experience," said Chris Drummond, Teleflora member and president of Plaza Flowers and American Flower Markets. "The Teleflora Tech Conference allows me and other florists to preview the latest insights and information from world class technology leaders and to share ideas with others who are creatively implementing this technology."
Teleflora brings together the time-honored tradition of sending flowers with the modern benefits of an advanced florist network. Partnering with over 10,000 local member florists in North America alone, Teleflora offers consumers the ease of use of ordering online, with the kind of personal touches, artistry and expertise you expect from a trusted neighborhood florist—even if that neighborhood is across the country. No prepackaged flowers in nondescript boxes dropped on your doorstep—Teleflora's network of professional florists create artistic arrangements personally delivered in a vase, often on the same day. In turn, Teleflora offers best-in-class technologies, including an award-winning POS and web-hosting solutions, and products like Flowerbuyer that empower local florists to increase efficiency and profitability.
The Oracle Cloud delivers hundreds of SaaS applications and enterprise-class PaaS and IaaS services to customers in more than 195 countries and territories while processing 55 billion transactions a day. For more information about Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), please visit us at oracle.com.
