1800flowers.com question

[flowerknife+us]

Originally posted by Dean
If 800-Flowers becomes successful with LFCs and it makes inroads into FTD.com's business I can guarantee you that FTD will respond.

As to the money making part. If FTD franchises these centers out to florists it wil be the florists that will have the expense, inventory, labor cost, etc.-not FTD.

Those logos on your van don't say FTD.com, they say FTD along with Smith's Flowers. Do you put FTD.com on you enclosure cards when you send out a .com order? Does you website link to FTD.com's website so when someone orders flowers from your website it goes through FTD.com and you get that local order back as a discounted order instead of 100% of the order?

FTD said it would never integrate VNS shops with FTD and it did. Everyone said FTD would never advertise in the yellow pages in it has. I remember telling florists to watch out for FTD to sell cut flowers direct to the consumer, cutting out the local florists, and they found it hard to believe FTD would ever do that. Again, all of these things were done WITHOUT consultations with local FTD florists before they were initiated.

FTD doing LFCs...it wouldn't surprise me.

Yes, I would love to be the only FTD shop in town. While I do fill FTD.com orders (haven't filled 800-Flowers orders in years), I would not fill .com's orders if I had to use enclosure cards with .coms logo on it instead of mine or have vans that only had .coms logo and not mine or all my internet orders went through ftd.com's website instead of mine.

I for one think FTD was on the right track with the 10,000 membership deal. They just went about it all wrong. Now they've taken a 180 degree turn.

Maybe there is a middle ground between LFCs and a local flower shop that would work for both the florist and the wire service or order gatherer. Or a new model that doesn't include a wire service or order gatherer that hasn't been thought of yet.

While I'm no fan of 800 Flowers they may be onto something here with LFCs. They had to come up with something because from all reports they are having a hell of a time trying to get orders filled through local florists. McCann is no dummy.

Your post confuses me. By all accounts, you give me the impression that your unhappy with an awful lot of the policys that FTD has put in place over the last several years. Then you state that you wish that you were the only FTD member in your market. Yet, Like 800fl. FTD.con has been systematicly removing product lines that used to be filled by its members,(you). Considering that FTD has been following in 800's footsteps for years. It won't be a big suprise to see FTD go the route of LFCs. Actually, I will contend that they have already gone that route. Only there called progrsive supermarkets.

As I look into the crystal ball, I see your wish comming true. Financing the converson, one order at a time.

 

[Dean]

If your in the wire service game, you have to belong to either TF or FTD or both. I chose FTD and dropped TF. Do I like a lot of what FTD does. Nope. I pick and choose the things in FTD that works in my shop and junk the rest. Is the money I'm spending with FTD letting them compete against me. Yep. Just like the money you spend with TF helps them compete against you-Flower Club, etc.

I used to have 40% of my biz tied up in incoming wires. Now it's 9%. Best thing that ever happened to me. My biz can stand on its own whether I'm in a wire service or not. Futhermore, I can compete with grocery stores, 800-Flowers, Flower Club, etc. How? Providing a better service and top quality flowers AND I'm competitive on price.