Cover Story: In Full Bloom

Having come a long way from its modest beginning as a chain of floral shops in metropolitan New York, 1-800-Flowers.com usually has set trends, not followed them.

Whether it was the foresight to be, reportedly, the first company to incorporate a toll-free phone number into its name in 1986 (the company was originally called Flora Plenty) or to anticipate the impact the Internet would have on modern-day businesses by being the first merchant of any kind to process an online transaction on AOL in early 1991, this integrated marketing powerhouse has kept innovation at the heart of its growth.