a bit of good news from FTD - controversy invited

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sfox said:
Bloomz, got a love ya. Just like all liberals, you only look at things from your vantage point.
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Who doesn't?


sfox said:
God, it must be great to be FTD.
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Please see my Tough Life post in the clean jokes forum :rofl::rofl::rofl:


CHR said:
Guess I fit into that description...


P.S. And...oh, yeah.... doesn't the title of the post say 'controversy invited'? :>
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It did and I had to scold 2yla for throwing water on the fire - you know how I love to stir the pot!

But of course I wasn't speaking of you - your educated opinions are generally based on facts vs emotion.:blowkiss:
 
You mean the system that works with both FTD and Bloomnet?

Yes, my mother's shop has that Jaguar purring nicely :) I just prefer to think of it as propeller, not an anchor.

Ryan
 
Right ... that anchor is starting to look more and more like a grappling hook :)

Climbing onward,

Ryan
 
Bloomnet?!? You mean that 800-flowers spin off...

Infinite said:
You mean the system that works with both FTD and Bloomnet?

Yes, my mother's shop has that Jaguar purring nicely :) I just prefer to think of it as propeller, not an anchor.

Ryan
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You gotta be joking ... Now if you are just looking for hungry florist looking for anykind of order, any kind of way ... We'll then there you go. And 100 florist or whatever the number is now ... I have 800 in my direct system and NEVER look at it as an option.

Yes, I have switched Kool - Aid, however I can switch any time I want. So if you are calling Bloomnet a team, I don't want to play your game.
I just had to say, watch out when the recieving florist get smart, call their orders out, and turn off or return the Merc, for that is what I would do.
 
Ah YES, the learning curve is CATCHING UP !

HERO said:
You gotta be joking ... Now if you are just looking for hungry florists looking for any kind of order, any kind of way ... We'll then, there you go. And 100 florists or whatever the number is now ... I have 800 in my direct system and NEVER look at it as an option.

Yes, I have switched Kool-Aid, however I can switch any time I want. So if you are calling Bloomnet a team, I don't want to play your game.
I just had to say, watch out when the receiving florists get smart, call their orders out, and turn off or return the Merc, for that is what I would do.
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Hey HERO! Nice to see you back!

Suffice it to say that, the REAL FLORIST'S learning curve is catching up to all of DA SKIMMERS!

Just noticed a NEW BLOOMLINK member 2 miles south of our shop.

It is a KOREAN owned grocery store, who decided to hand paint the word FLOWER on their outside awning and on their door, add a cooler, and throw some flowers in a few buckets outside their location.

Obviously, they QUALIFIED to be a member of BLOOMLINK because they had BUCKETS to put FRESH FLOWERS in!

Having gone through a level 1, 2, 3, and 4 REAL FLORISTS, they are now resorting to a LEVEL 5 filler FLOWER BUCKET STORE, they BEE what THEY BEE!, ey? :rofl:

Good to see you back on FC Hero!
 
If you haven't looked at your clearinghouse statement yet for April, you might want to....my anger is beyond rage at this point. They are implementing a new program called "Delayed Response Program" that will be a nightmare in fees....

Just wondered on anyone else's thoughts about this.
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I think it's awesome and I luvs it - why would it be a nightmare in fees?

If you don't perform in a professional responsible manner you get fined - what's the problem?
 
bloomz said:
If you don't perform in a professional responsible manner you get fined - what's the problem?
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Here's the problem -

A florist receives an order 2 or 3 days or more before it needs to be delivered. They're out of the featured lilies or some other component of the design. They don't reject, since there are more on order due to arrive tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes and the entire shipment looks poor in quality. They've now not only missed the two-hour deadline and $10 penalty, they've hit the $20 level. They're in a rural area with no near-by wholesalers.

Are they now no longer professional?

This isn't some made-up scenario. It happens all the time.

The WS catalogs are too big for many stores to stock every flower in every color every day on the chance they 'might' get an incoming.

You can expect coverage in rural areas to shrink even further as small stores, with their small staffs and limited wholesale options, bear the brunt of these penalties.

After a few of the $20 penalties, senders won't have to worry about getting fast REJs - since there won't be anyone in the town to deliver their orders anymore.

Not to worry.... FTD will just shove something in a box and mail it. It's the florist members who won't be able to get their orders delivered.
 
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CHR said:
Here's the problem -

A florist receives an order 2 or 3 days or more before it needs to be delivered. They're out of the featured lilies or some other component of the design. They don't reject, since there are more on order due to arrive tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes and the entire shipment looks poor in quality. They've now not only missed the two-hour deadline and $10 penalty, they've hit the $20 level. They're in a rural area with no near-by wholesalers.

Are they now no longer professional?

This isn't some made-up scenario. It happens all the time.

The WS catalogs are too big for many stores to stock every flower in every color every day on the chance they 'might' get an incoming.

You can expect coverage in rural areas to shrink even further as small stores, with their small staffs and limited wholesale options, bear the brunt of these penalties.

After a few of the $20 penalties, senders won't have to worry about getting fast REJs - since there won't be anyone in the town to deliver their orders anymore.

Not to worry.... FTD will just shove something in a box and mail it. It's the florist members who won't be able to get their orders delivered.
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Interesting point. Time will tell whether FTD will give concessions for scenarios like this. I would guess that as long as the lines of communication were open and a legitimate excuse were given, the fines will not be assessed. We'll see how this plays out.
 
LJVF said:
Interesting point. Time will tell whether FTD will give concessions for scenarios like this. I would guess that as long as the lines of communication were open and a legitimate excuse were given, the fines will not be assessed. We'll see how this plays out.
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Voice of reason there - I'm sure there's all kinds of scenarios that can and will come to bear.

We can suppose and propose and imagine and predict, and worse case scenario it and call it an impending nightmare, but it is gonna be revealed. I remember scenarios of the opposite kind. Let's see, printer was out of ink and we never got the order? Waited that extra day for those Sunflowers that didn't come in good to be replaced and the birthday was yesterday? Here's one - my truck wasn't going that way today so I decided to deliver it a day late for the birthday (with no notice to us) Yes that one happened, recently. This isn't some made up scenario either. I can remember possibly more than a dozen times in the last few years I've had an order rejected after the delivery date for asinine totally non professional reasons.

I'm a proponent of this plan as it looks to me, and remember it goes both ways - I'm willing to deal with this from both ends as a sender and as a filler - we fill orders just like anyone else does. If you or I don't like It no one has a gun to out heads making is remain members.

I'm *fairly* confident that with orders properly handled, no one will be fined inappropriately.

But I could be wrong - I was that one time.....:tunes:

opinions vary.....
 
CHR said:
Tomorrow comes and the entire shipment looks poor in quality. They've now not only missed the two-hour deadline and $10 penalty, they've hit the $20 level. They're in a rural area with no near-by wholesalers.

Are they now no longer professional?
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Why should they reject. Send an ask message with an offer to substitute. Then give FTD or the florist a choice to allow the sub or cancel. If it's not FTD.com then forward.
 
CHR said:
You can expect coverage in rural areas to shrink even further as small stores, with their small staffs and limited wholesale options, bear the brunt of these penalties.

After a few of the $20 penalties, senders won't have to worry about getting fast REJs - since there won't be anyone in the town to deliver their orders anymore.
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I agree. I'm already seeing it happen (not because of the new TAX) with rejects on about 10% of outgoings so far this week. My directory is complete (VERY ;) ) and I'm seeing a larger decline especially in smaller towns where there once was a florist that either is no longer there or has simply dropped off the grid.

It's like I said yesterday, the reject function will become the most used feature of any platform, as shops won't take the chance of possibly not being able to fill...heck...I'm already trigger happy enuf as it is.
 
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David said:
Why should they reject. Send an ask message with an offer to substitute. Then give FTD or the florist a choice to allow the sub or cancel. If it's not FTD.com then forward.
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As a "filler" shop, I promise you, there are more and more FTD.com orders every day. And I am finding that people who know their recipients live in a harder to reach area are the ones most likely to use .com, or it's equivalent. And now you have a florist trying to get a quality arr, with an out of the way delivery, no room for substitution, and a possible penalty. So now you reject quick , only to get it back twice more, reject again. Then you have one of two choices:

The recip doesn't get flowers, the customers not happy, the florist is annoyed with busy work.(what's a reject cost?)

FTD calls florist, agrees to substitution, resends the order, order is filled,
recip has a lovely camera phone, customer calls with complaint, blah, blah, blah... florist is annoyed with lost money and time.

And this benefits the industry how?

The program has some merits, but I'm not impressed. Florists shouldn't set on orders, we should all fill to value, quality shops are on the decline,
there are many points we all agree on. But this is a "trickle up" approach and it won't stop the problems in the industry. Making the little people fall in line won't get the orders filled and it won't help with disappointed customers at the holidays, whose orders don't get there on time.
Realistic advertising and order collection would do this, appropriate cut off times for same day and next day delivery would do this, proper substitution policies would do this, and an honest listing of charges would do this. Simply reducing the amount of product choices available the closer you get to the holiday would do this. And these things are just as easy to implement as this new policy.

There's a reason this wasn't rolled out before the bigger holidays, and it's not customer satisfaction. It's money, and the more of it the better. When we get more compliance, and fewer shops, do you think they will take fewer orders? It would be nice to think this program was designed to help florists treat each other's orders better, but it's not for you, or me, or any of our customers. It's for FTD and FTD.com, and that's just disappointing.
 
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I wonder if the *new owners* will keep this little piece of technobabble...I can see a huge paper/electronic trail nightmare with a lot of he said/she said back and forth garbage...

Reject ON!
 
LJVF said:
Interesting point. Time will tell whether FTD will give concessions for scenarios like this. I would guess that as long as the lines of communication were open and a legitimate excuse were given, the fines will not be assessed. We'll see how this plays out.
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An educated guess having been a former FTD filler......they can't resolve statement problems now on a timely basis, there is no way they will be able to police this program effectively for the fillers. On the other hand, they will handle the program profitably for themselves.
 
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