Did you meet Brian Gomes at mesh last year? If you didn’t, you should this year! His story and his passion are the elements that make mesh more than just a conference.
Brian has been part of mesh since 2006, having attended every year. This year, he returns not just as an attendee, but as a sponsor. I believe he is the truest and best definition of what a “friend of mesh” sponsor is all about. It also helps he is one heck of a nice guy!
Last year Florist One announced the Florist One API on the mesh blog, and told the story of how their API was inspired by mesh.
As an online florist with a partner program, the Florist One API is a free tool that lets partners create and embed flower storefronts into their own websites and applications. Orders from flower storefronts are transmitted to Florist One in real-time for processing and fulfillment through local florists in the U.S> and Canada. Partners sending orders through flower storefronts are paid a commission on flower sales.
The result was a bunch of really cool flower storefronts!
Stewart Enterprises, a national operator of funeral homes, added flower storefronts to their funeral home websites that offer their own custom line of flower products and are delivered by local florists of their choosing.
Frontrunner Professional, a maker of online memorials for funeral homes, added flower storefronts to their online memorials. Website visitors viewing a memorial can buy and send flowers to the funeral service without ever leaving the funeral home’s Website. Frontrunner uses the Florist One API to offer flowers directly from their application to create new revenue streams for its funeral home clients.
But what about small independent funeral homes not affiliated with software providers – how could they easily implement a flower storefront without development resources? This was a problem Florist One solved by eating their own dog food.
Florist One used their own API to create a flower storefront that could be added with three lines of Javascript code. The result was a pretty slick flower storefront that an independent funeral home like Hansen Spear could add to their flowers page. The flower storefront is branded as Hansen Spear. Hansen Spear selects the local florists making the flower delivery, and creates a new revenue stream for itself. All this is done in minutes by adding a few lines of Javascript code to a page.
Florist One is feeling pretty pleased with itself – creating an API that lets flower storefronts be created anywhere, and then taking it one step further by using their own API to allow their partners to create flower storefronts for funeral homes in minutes.
It is their story – their API was inspired by mesh and now in the spirit of mesh, they want to share it with you!
