1-800-flowers Reports Q1

Status
Not open for further replies.
CHR

CHR

Design matters
Nov 28, 2002
8,951
8,442
113
Anaheim
www.avantegardens.com
State / Prov
CA
1-800-FLOWERS.COM® Reports Fiscal 2010 First Quarter Revenue


Gross Revenues down 20% from $135.4 million to $108.3 million for its fiscal 2010 first quarter (July - September)

- Consumer Floral - Sales down 16.1% from $83.5 million to $70.0 million
The Company stated that it has made significant progress in its initiatives to reduce promotional pricing and expects to see the benefits of these efforts, in the form of improved gross profit margins, beginning in its fiscal second quarter and throughout the remainder of fiscal 2010.
Click to expand...
- BloomNet
Revenues were $13.8 million, down 10.4 percent compared with $15.4 million in the prior year period, primarily reflecting reduced wholesale product orders from florists.
Click to expand...
- Gourmet Foods and Gift Baskets
Revenues were $24.7 million, compared with $36.8 million, primarily reflecting reduced orders from wholesale customers in DesignPac Gifts as well as the shift in the timing of some wholesale orders from the first quarter last year to the second quarter this year.
Click to expand...
Excluding DesignPac (wholesale gift basket manufacturer division) revenues were up 2%.

Overall, the net loss for the quarter was $7.3 million (.11 per share) compared to $5.3 million (.08 per share) for the period ending Sept. 08.

Conference call at 11 AM Eastern today.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Spookyflowers, Mikey the Flower Guy, TOTO and 10 others
It's interesting that their solution to declining consumer orders is to reduce discounts. Some marketing dweeb figured out if you charge more you get more per item. Unfortunately in this economy it also means you will probably sell fewer units.

They would do better to offer discounts to consumers and rip off the florists with higher prices for containers.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Eric S and bloomz
I don't think it's good news. Like it or not, I believe 1800flower.com's revenue closely mirrors the trend of our entire industry.

As I understand it, the implication of this "good" news is that our industry is rapidly contracting.

Jul-Sep 2009 (fiscal 2010) is almost 18% worse than the same period of 2008, which, if I remember correctly, was worse than 2007.

These declines are far worse than the retail sector's overall average. People are no longer buying flowers.
 
  • Like
Reactions: shannonlovesflowers, Mikey the Flower Guy, Eric S and 5 others
You might be right Goldfish, but I'm going with my old gut and it says, "folks are getting wise to 1800 dropship crap and they are calling florists direct. Something had to give. Now, for those of us that stick it out with easy to shop websites that are easy to find, we will make it. 1800 can switch 100% to giftbaskets, I think that would be just fine.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lizzie ann, roysecityfloristand gifts, Eric S and 2 others
Not just Flowers.......................

goldfish said:
People are no longer buying flowers.
Click to expand...

People are no longer going out to eat, especially to the high end restaurants. Even the Pizza restaurants are down big time and just about every other business selling discretionary spending products.

Thank you BIG GOVERNMENT for destroying our economy beginning with Carter's Community Reinvestment Act of 1977.

How the crash began by Mark Levin.

Mark recaps the entire sham and scam of we the people on his radio show of Thursday, October 22nd.

You can listen to it tomorrow and anytime after.

http://www.marklevinshow.com/sectional.asp?id=32930

Just hit your escape button when he book ad pops up.

And the same LUNATICS expect us to believe that they can fix the Health Care Insurance system after they've destroyed every other program they started.
 
  • Like
Reactions: avenuegardensflorist
BOSS's Quote of the day!

TOTO said:

And the same LUNATICS expect us to believe that they can fix the Health Care Insurance system after they've destroyed every other program they started.
Click to expand...
And so it goes....

AIG is passing out $20MILLION more in bonuses this week... with the governments blessing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TOTO
Just noticed there's a tab for 1-800-Baskets.com on 1-800-flowers' home page.

I hope y'all noticed that YOY 1-800's consumer sales of gourmet and baskets products were actually up 2% as opposed to flower sales, which were down 16%.

Are consumers trending towards food treats as gifts? Yes. It's has been cited in numerous retail tracking articles this year. 'Affordable treats.'

They're higher margin items, more controllable in the fulfillment pipeline and more 'brandable' overall. No wonder 1-800 has been acquiring food product companies over the last several years.

Additionally, has 1-800-Flowers contributed to consumer dissatisfaction with purchasing flowers as a gift? Maybe. Time and again I've been told by shops who fulfill their orders that the only way to make a few bucks is to short the recipes by a few stems. The margins are ridiculously thin and outside of major markets, fulfillment is uneven. Consumer reviews are not stellar.

I'm with Goldie - the continued decline in sales at the top (with the big national companies) does not bode well for traditional flower shops.

As we can see, 2 national companies have offered steep discounts to try to increase market share - FTD offering 25% off all purchases to USAA members and TF offering 20% discounts to AARP members. Neither deal will likely grow the pie and increase overall flower sales - and will probably just result in consumers shifting their dollars away from local florist direct purchases.

Does anyone believe these programs will increase consumer satisfaction with flower & gift purchases overall?

Thankfully, there are still plenty of flower lovers out there. I continue to believe the best path for our company is to offer products distinctively different than the widely seen product images from the national guys.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Flowerchatter03, mikec and TOTO
CHR said:
Are consumers trending towards food treats as gifts? Yes. It's has been cited in numerous retail tracking articles this year. 'Affordable treats.'
Click to expand...

not to hijack.

has anyone seen an increase in affordable treats in their store? Would this be a wise option to pursue for 4 quarter sales?
 
CHR said:
Does anyone believe these programs will increase consumer satisfaction with flower & gift purchases overall?
Click to expand...

I don't think so.

Offering lower priced points does increase the number of orders but with smaller sales and decrease profits. Thats a fact and I will be more the happy to share that with any shops out there.

I have been very concerned with our industry and I would love to see the bigger companies drop on their face. But we as florist have not done anything to make this happen.

If bloomnet members continue to fill 800flowers orders they will continue to help 800flowers survive and continue to dictate how much we should sell our products for. This is the problem with our industry on top of the misleading drop ship flower images that puts a black eye on all of us.

Valentines 2010 could be an opportunity if more shops would just stop filling discounted orders. It really needs to start somewhere and since this years Valentines will be falling on Sunday I think we could all make a difference by stop filling orders period.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FloralFantasies
BOSS's Second Quote of the Day!

Eric S said:
Valentines 2010 could be an opportunity if more shops would just stop filling discounted orders. It really needs to start somewhere and since this years Valentines will be falling on Sunday I think we could all make a difference by stop filling orders period.
Click to expand...
I'm game!

We won't be accepting any incoming for Saturday or Sunday(closed) for VD10, and in a good portion of the country, drop ship is dead because of not only the date, but the temperature as well...

Maybe if we start now we could get 10-15 florists to join the boycott... /sarcasm

Have a good weekend folks.... I AM OUTA HERE!
 
How much VD incoming do you get? We get none to 10 maybe? It's a very localized holiday. Drop shipping doesn't stop just because of the freezing temps here....FedEx still drops product on door steps/porches even at -10.
I wonder what 800 will either purchase next or get rid of next for their "partners" if they need to stop the bleed before it gets out of hand. But with the economics forecasters predicting slow progress, it may stay 800's hands for the moment of divesting non productive entities.
I think more and more bloomnet members are seeing their own monies going out the door to 800 - I heard a good many MFA members crabbing about them.
 
goldfish said:
I don't think it's good news. Like it or not, I believe 1800flower.com's revenue closely mirrors the trend of our entire industry.

As I understand it, the implication of this "good" news is that our industry is rapidly contracting.

Jul-Sep 2009 (fiscal 2010) is almost 18% worse than the same period of 2008, which, if I remember correctly, was worse than 2007.

These declines are far worse than the retail sector's overall average. People are no longer buying flowers.
Click to expand...

Gee! I wonder why. Let's see...

The typical consumer bought flowers from FTD first. The arrangement didn't look as full as the web picture. And he didn't think he got his money's worth.

So he tried Teleflora. The arrangement didn't look as full as the web picture. And he didn't think he got his money's worth.

Next, he went to 1-800-FLOWERS. The arrangement didn't look as full as the web picture. And he didn't think he got his money's worth.

In desperation he turned to ProFlowers. The flowers arrived in a box, were cooked in the August heat, and no all the flowers were immature buds.

In disgust, he gave up on flowers. After all, he tried buying from all the biggest names in the flower business. If they couldn't do a good job, then obviously flowers aren't worth buying!


All the best,

Bill
 
  • Like
Reactions: Eric S, mikec, FloralFantasies and 2 others
Well that settles it. I'm making more gift baskets this season.

Maybe a small mug arrangement with a decent sized gift just to get the flowers out the door.

I hate making gift baskets :(
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom
Back