The web garden blooms for Proflowers.com

The holidays were boom times for web-based flower retailers. The latest: Sales at San Diego-based Proflowers Inc., a direct-from-the-grower web-based flower retailer, increased 71% for the second quarter, which ended Dec. 31, to $13.8 million.

1-800-Flowers.com’s revenue for the quarter grew 21% to $162.3 million while FTD.com’s revenue grew 24% to $40.4 million.

Proflowers says the growth was the result of marketing agreements with MSN, Amazon and Yahoo, expansion of its business-to-business sales and increased spending by repeat customers. More than 55% of orders in the quarter came from existing customers.

"Given the fact that 2001 proved to be a challenging year for online retailers, we`re pleased that Proflowers was able achieve such substantial growth," said Bill Strauss, Proflowers` chief executive officer. "Looking ahead, we`re confident that the company is poised to achieve similar growth during the upcoming Valentine`s Day sales period."