1-800-Flowers terminates agreement with Martha Stewart

CHR

CHR

Design matters
Nov 28, 2002
8,951
8,442
113
Anaheim
www.avantegardens.com
State / Prov
CA
A couple lines from a Business Week report about Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has me intrigued:
As for merchandising sector, the division had revenue of $11.8 million, up from $9 million. That included the results of an additional $2.2 million in revenue received from the early termination of the company's agreement with 1-800 Flowers.com.
Click to expand...
Emphasis mine. Interesting that 1-800 would have to pay to get out of the agreement. Perhaps the money was for royalty fees on the Martha Stewart branded containers (sold through drop-ship purchases and via local flower shops.)

I still see Martha's products on 1800Flowers.com and imagine it will take a while for them to unwind the program.

Anybody see or hear anything about an official announcement from 1-800?
 
  • Like
Reactions: herndonflorist, anytimeflowers and OB1
CHR said:
Interesting that 1-800 would have to pay to get out of the agreement.
Click to expand...
Interesting to me, is that 800Flowers would pay 2mil+ to get out of the contract, rather than let it expire. Perhaps the $2.2 is cheaper than staying in Martha's game.

I would imagine there was a minimum gain for her written into the contract, or a "fine" for ending it early.

Great find Cathy...
 
  • Like
Reactions: anytimeflowers and OB1
I can't help but wonder if there is something else in regards to Martha. I ran into K-mart a few nights ago in a desperate quest for two over-size glass vases. (did not find). But, there was no more Martha, and ALL of the housewares and home decor used to be Martha. Now it's Jaqueline Smith. 1800 may know something about Martha that we don't know.

Just another possibility.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Victoria and anytimeflowers
The Martha program was the beginning of the end for me and my relationship with 800-flowers...It seemed to me that when they signed me on to that program, they signed me off their regular volume...but Martha wasn't enough volume and what a pain in the huevos...you couldn'y sub one flower it had to be exact or you would get complaints and the arrangements were so dainty people were always unhappy, I replaced more of those @@@@ julep cups, because people didn't like the size once they got them...that proghram sucked, but again it is a situation where a reseller is selling a fresh product that may or may not be available from florists that may or may not have the proper skills or may be just tired of making discounted crap for no money and don't care about Martha and her reputation...I am so convinced that when you get a know nothing middleman involved you have very uninformed customers and they end up being unhappy because for people in general if informed of possible problems early on they have a much easier time dealing with any type of short comings of an order, but when told everything is rosy and will go perefectly and then it doesn't they get pissed...Customer service is in part making sure your customer is happy during the sale, but when you fall falt on the completion you may as well never even spoke in the first place...because all that hapiness is gone...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tom Carlson
lori042499 said:
The Martha program was the beginning of the end for me and my relationship with 800-flowers...It seemed to me that when they signed me on to that program, they signed me off their regular volume...but Martha wasn't enough volume and what a pain in the huevos...you couldn'y sub one flower it had to be exact or you would get complaints and the arrangements were so dainty people were always unhappy, I replaced more of those @@@@ julep cups, because people didn't like the size once they got them...that proghram sucked, but again it is a situation where a reseller is selling a fresh product that may or may not be available from florists that may or may not have the proper skills or may be just tired of making discounted crap for no money and don't care about Martha and her reputation...I am so convinced that when you get a know nothing middleman involved you have very uninformed customers and they end up being unhappy because for people in general if informed of possible problems early on they have a much easier time dealing with any type of short comings of an order, but when told everything is rosy and will go perefectly and then it doesn't they get pissed...Customer service is in part making sure your customer is happy during the sale, but when you fall falt on the completion you may as well never even spoke in the first place...because all that hapiness is gone...
Click to expand...


Preach on Sister!!! We are in the same boat. In the past, we have always had a good relationship with 800 flowers. Then the MS program started. We signed up in 08 and in 09 we started having problems.

People beatching about the arrangement sizes, 800flowers expecting you to find out of season items so that NO subs were used ever. And then, they had the nerve to send us a double shipment of containers that we never ordered. It took 6 months to get someone to take them back. One time, a rep told us the best they could do was to give us 20% off and that's it. We received them in April and the final box was picked up in October.

This year, when they tried to send me more containers (rep told me that the Martha program has a new rule that florists have to keep an EXTRA case of containers on hand) I said no freakin way and we want out NOW. IF we get any containers, we are refusing which happened and we did.

Since then, we have received a huge decrease in orders. We have reviewed all our paperwork, contracts, etc and there is NOTHING in them that states we can only cancel certain times of the year.

I am so glad that we said bye bye to the MS program. It was a huge PIA and not worth wasting your time for.
 
  • Like
Reactions: bootcampguy, BOSS and lori042499
Bloomnet appears to be moving heavily toward gift items that they own. This probably does not meet their new model since they obviously cannot own MS.

It was probably worth the money to dump MS since there are obviously so many complaints from still existing member florists, not to mention those <raises hand enthusiastically> who have cut all ties with bloomnet. Bloomnet may have justifiably felt that MS was causing poor relations with it's members as regards non-substitution policy with MS.

As for me, nope..........Bloomnet is the problem.
 
A side note---kinda long

I saw the presentation that Chris did at symposium this year right after I listened to a woman present on selling service and what makes service oriented business good or great...

To start I will say that the service seminar was very eyeopening and put my mind in a whole new place regarding what we all sell, we do sell flowers, but what we really sell is service and that is the intangible item that we can never seem to wrap our head around and explain to people that this costs money to create and it must be paid for hence the reason we are higher priced than your run of the mill flower kiosks, grocery departments and big boxes...now that being said the woman also said that your designs, freshness and appearance could all be a 10 but if your service is a 2, you WILL lose the customer..Your designs, freshness and appearance could be as low as 6, but if your service is always a 10 you will keep your customers...

She also went on to say that when engaging your customers, you must make it all about them....at the time of the sale and if after the sale they have some sort of problem as long as you focus on them and hear them and coddle them and their feelings you have them hooked...and now onto why this has anything to do with 800-flowers...

As a florist, 800-flowers is competition or a service provider to us...we buy a service from them we are their customers as well as their flower buying customers are their customers...Chris McCann's presentation was all about his adventures with the tv show...it was all about his company, his francises, his employees and his factories...Now this is where I had the major problem and was so glad to be out of their program, he was presenting to florists, he was trying to gain good graces with florists who may fill his orders or should have been, He was trying to drum up member florists. His marketing fell very, blatently flat because he missed the fact that he should have made us all feel appreciated as his customers and I left feeling glad that I wasn't wasting any more time with a company only interested in themselves and their brand...not that that isn't important, but from a customer point of view I don't want to hear all about you, I want to know how you are prepared to service me...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dior, terri, herndonflorist and 4 others
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back