This tech-enabled flower startup offers at-home floral arranging kits

Tech-enabled flower company Poppy launched a new initiative to offer at-home floral arranging kit with shipping nationwide.

The Ivy City-based startup was founded last year by Cameron Hardesty, the former head of product at UrbanStems. Hardesty first learned about floral design while working at The White House flower shop back in 2014. After arranging the flowers for her own wedding in 2017, Hardesty decided to launch Poppy as a direct-to-consumer, ecommerce company with a mission to make picking event flowers a fun and easy process.

Poppy launched the brand new Poppy At Home product to provide a distraction while we’re all social distancing at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In times like these, once we are lucky enough to have our basic needs met, we have to pay attention to the needs of our souls and our hearts,” said Hardesty in a statement. “We won’t get through this any other way.”

For $68, consumers can purchase a Poppy At Home floral arranging kit, which includes up to 55 stems of flowers that were grown at the base of the Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador, according to the company. Each purchase comes with access to video and written arranging tutorials. Poppy has four different floral arranging kits available in its catalog.

At this time, Poppy is still booking weddings and events for late 2020 and 2021. The company uses a proprietary software to enable customers to receive quicker responses on proposals and customize floral arrangements online. Poppy currently serves events hosted in the D.C. area and New York.

For couples still getting married in the near future but who needed to cancel their big bashes, Poppy also launched another floral package for courthouse weddings, with customization and order placement available online as well.

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