FTD Q3 web sales bloom by 11%

Thanks in large measure to a big lift in Valentine’s Day orders, FTD Inc. increased its Q3 2006 e-commerce sales by 11% to $68.9 million from $62.1 million in the same quarter last year.

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“We executed well and delivered a very strong Valentine’s Day this quarter. We took advantage of the holiday to attract new customers to FTD.com, maintained a disciplined approach to new customer acquisition and delivered on our financial targets,” says FTD president and CEO Michael J. Soenen. “We are optimistic about the upcoming Mother’s Day holiday and believe we will continue our momentum.”

The web now is the dominant ordering platform for FTD’s consumer segment. In Q3, the web accounted for 91.3% of all consumer orders compared with 88.2% in the third quarter of 2005. “We are pleased with the continued growth in our consumer segment and believe we are well positioned heading into Mother’s Day, our most important holiday of the year,” Soenen says. “We remain focused on adding new marketing programs and broadening our products to help drive revenue growth.”

Overall the web represented 54% of total Q3 sales of $128.6 million compared with 48% on sales of $124.9 million in Q3 2005. Consumer orders during the third quarter totaled 1.2 million compared with 1.1 million orders during the same period last year, says FTD, No. 44 in the Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide to Retail Web Sites.

Average order value decreased slightly to $62.18 in the third quarter from $62.84 during Q3 2005, which was in line with management expectations, the company says.