During the Webwinkel Vakdagen 2026, founders Carlo van Noortwijk and Yvar Achterberg share how they broke open a traditional market with a model that seamlessly combines online and offline. Not a classic retail story, but a case about speed, availability and removing friction at any point in the customer journey. The fast-growing company's company motto is not for nothing "Always the right moment."
A gap between quality and convenience
The idea for Daily Flowers arose from a simple observation, Carlo explains. "The traditional florist delivers quality, but is limited in opening hours. Supermarkets and gas stations are always open, but compromise on experience. Online players offer convenience, but lack immediate availability. That last-minute need isn't really being met well anywhere."
The solution: flower vending machines. Fully automated outlets in places where many people pass: from shopping malls to gas stations and railway stations. Always accessible, without concessions to quality. What started as an idea quickly grew into a clear positioning: buying flowers should become as easy as grabbing a snack or a drink.
From one vending machine to a national network
The first step immediately proved to be the most difficult. No investor without proof, no proof without investment. So the founders start themselves: with their own savings, they open one vending machine. That first location - in Hoog Catharijne - becomes the basis of the model.It is followed by an investor and the rollout of fifteen additional vending machines, strategically placed to test what works and what doesn't.
Those insights form the backbone of growth. By now, the majority of vending machines are in three types of locations: shopping malls, gas stations and train stations. The remaining locations are used for experimentation: from hotels to hospitals. The two entrepreneurs soon discovered that one location is not the other. "The difference can be huge," explains Yvar. "We had two vending machines at one gas station on either side of the highway. One was turning five times more sales than the other."
Three channels, one brand
Although Daily Flowers' vending machines are becoming more visible on the streets, the company is more than just that. Daily Flowers is deliberately building a three-channel hybrid model. In addition to the vending machines for impulse purchases , there is a Web shop for planned purchases and a physical flagship store for brand experience. "At three in the morning you don't sell bouquets through your webshop," says Yvar, "but through a vending machine you do."
The webshop complements that with scheduled moments: birthdays, anniversaries, standing orders. And the physical store in Amsterdam acts as a place where the brand comes to life. That's where they get to know the customer. Something that vending machines and online sales largely lack.The challenge lies in the connection between those channels. "You don't want someone to be a fan of one channel," says Carlo. "You want someone to always choose Daily Flowers, regardless of the moment."
We wanted to understand exactly which locations are successful."
- Carlo
Social media as both growth engine and test environment
Within Daily Flowers' strategy, social media play a big role. Ivar: "That works, broadly speaking, like this: new bouquets are filmed and shared every week. What works goes live on the webshop and in the vending machines. What doesn't work, disappears. Actually, we have a free product development team, without long meetings or assumptions, but supported by direct feedback from the market."
In addition to that digital test environment, Daily Flowers also uses TikTok and Instagram to generate more reach. That too is catching on, Yvar tells us proudly.
Growing and making choices
Daily Flowers quickly grew from one to dozens of vending machines; that growth brought challenges. Whereas the founders initially distributed bouquets themselves, that soon became untenable. Logistics became complex, teams grew, mistakes increased."At one point there were five vans driving around and something was always going wrong," says Yvar.
Daily Flowers deliberately chooses to keep the team small and work with specialized partners for logistics, software and production. Carlo sums it up powerfully: "We have to do what we are good at. The rest we leave to parties who are better at that."
We suddenly got messages from Brabant and Groningen: when are you coming here? "
- Yvar
Paying as a bottleneck
Those specialized partners are also in less visible - but extremely important - parts of the process. For example, ease of payment is a crucial part of the vending machines' success, Yvar explains. "With the first vending machines, only 50 percent of transactions were completed successfully. So then you lose half of your customers," says Yvar.
"In cooperation with Mollie, the payment process was therefore optimized. The result: an acceptance rate of about 70 percent. A seemingly small technical improvement, but with direct impact on sales and conversion. It underlines how important it is to remove even the smallest frictions in the customer journey."
From Randstad to national coverage
Behind Daily Flowers' rapid growth is a clear structure. Each location must grow to a turnover of about €4,000 per month within the first year. Data is continuously monitored: from sales to product shelf life.
Stock is tracked in real time, so replenishment and replacement can be done immediately. "Everything is about control," says Carlo. Moreover, new locations are not placed randomly, but in clusters. Like an oil slick, the network expands, keeping logistics routes efficient.
Thus Daily Flowers grew from one vending machine to dozens of locations and the two founders expect to pass the 100 mark in the near future. The goal: national coverage and eventually international expansion. In doing so, the strategy remains the same: scalable, data-driven and focused on convenience. "We don't believe in a difference between online and offline," says Carlo. "For us, every contact moment is an opportunity for conversion.
