Airing dirty laundry

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ROBSWF said:
...The rebate structure alone is the root of the problem. ....
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The rebate is more of a symptom rather than the problem.

The problem is there are 25,000 florists demanding incoming wire orders from their wire service, and it appears they want those orders at nearly any cost.

The wire services are not paying huge rebates to the large senders out of the goodness of their hearts. They are doing it because the market dictates it. What would you do if you had 25,000 little monsters that said "FEED ME! FEED ME!"?

present company excluded of course :) ,

RC
 
RC in Dayton and Cincinnati said:
The rebate is more of a symptom rather than the problem.

The problem is there are 25,000 florists demanding incoming wire orders from their wire service, and it appears they want those orders at nearly any cost.

The wire services are not paying huge rebates to the large senders out of the goodness of their hearts. They are doing it because the market dictates it. What would you do if you had 25,000 little monsters that said "FEED ME! FEED ME!"?

present company excluded of course :) ,

RC
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RC touches on a part of the wire service industry that many do not see and I did not see until explained to me. Maybe we can elaborate in a future thread.
 
12 years

Of being told incomming wire orders were good for you is all it took. Servicing 1-800FLs was the start, then FTD, followed by all the rest.

When you don't fill for every Tom Dick and Harry. Filling incomming orders isn't much of a problem. There are fewer of them and at less face value.But the problems are far less as a percentage of the total as compaired with the way it used to be.

One can air their laundry without exposing the skid marks!

Just remind whoever you bring the subject up to that, in the end, You do the work and they charge you 20% more. It is a simple consept that needs little in the way of explination.
 
Why is it everytime the subject of rebates come up...

when end up blaming receiving florists!

Many seem to have forgotten why rebates were created. Smaller wire services created them to get florists to send orders through THEIR system rather than someone else. When you had 6 or 7 different WS, in some florist views, there was some logic to this marketing approach. Now that there are only two left that are currently offering them, the question should be asked again -why are they necessary?

If both WS agreed to drop rebates at the same time, on the same day and not bring them back, who would florists and OG send their orders through? The same WS, right? There is no longer a need to get florists to send orders through one WS or another. The WS told us that rebates were an incentive to get florists to pay their bills but current facts disprove that. So then, what is the advantage of rebates for the WS? They just can't trust each other to drop them.

I have said this before. Don't blame this problem on the receiving florists. The WS tell young florists incoming is good for them and helps get their designs in front of potential new customers. There are florists that still believe this.

Show me any florist that believes that rebates are profitable for the WS. In many cases they are making $3.50 on an order and paying $4 and $5 in rebates. THIS IS NOT ABOUT KEEPING FLORISTS BUSY WITH INCOMING ORDERS.

This is about keeping the membership on board. Keeping the wheels on the wagon. Many florists have already figured out they can go direct and save big bucks every month. The WS are just trying to keep these florists on board as long as possible to suck every penny out of them as possible. The big guys need the little guys to send to and as long as the little guys don't figure it out, the WS can get through another month. When you start getting gaps in areas and no one can send WS orders, then rebates won't be so inportant. It is about collecting the monthly dues and fees for as long as they can.
 
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Griff said:
They just can't trust each other to drop them.
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Yep, they have both said that to me. One other thought here, would be that **IF** they both dropped them at nearly the same time, I wonder if the Feds would look at it as colusion or price fixing?

Rebates are not profitable for the WS's they take from one to give to another to pay them. If (I know again) **IF** every florist paid their bill on time just once, it would put a world of hurt on the rebate game.

It's become backwards.... originally like Griff said they were buying order volume. Now days, in reality the rebate should go to the filler, or at the least be split between the two parties. Without fillers, there be no senders!
 
RC in Dayton and Cincinnati said:
The rebate is more of a symptom rather than the problem.
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Randy,

I should be a little clearer with my whole rebate problem. In the beginning when those rebates started, they were going to actual retail florists. Retail florists kept that money in the system. Re-investing those dollars in our industry. Buying more advertising, new truck decals, bigger or additional stores, more product and hiring more people. Our industry was growing back then.

Today the rebates for the most part are going to people that don’t even buy flower buckets. They are call center operations, the monies paid by the retail florists have been sucked out of the system. They choose to buy bigger homes, boats and fancy vacations. That money was needed or a least a portion of it to help the industry continue to grow. We now are seeing the effects of what happens when you keep taking money out of the register. Things dry up!!

I do hear you on your point that 25,000 shops are looking for orders. That hunger will never die, because most of these shops are so under-capitalized they cant afford to advertise for their own business. These types of shops also hurt the industry.

A florist service partner that requires membership that claims to be supportive and desiring to see the industry grow should require that any and all sending bonuses paid to senders be physical flower shops contributing cash flow throughout the system. Vans, store, employees, coolers etc. The outgoing sales and bonuses should be relative to the size of the over-all operation. This would discourage those scammers from opening a 200 square foot shop that never opens for business.

The troubling sign for the future is a new trend--- Once highly visible flower shops have chosen a new path. They are moving to warehouse locations, garages and into the basements of their homes. Not to better serve their customers, but to down size and cut costs. There is a saying that goes along with a move like this. OUT OF SITE, OUT OF MIND. This is not good. At a time when mass marketers and the wire services are increasing exposure of floral products to consumers, florists are making themselves more difficult to find. In my area there are about 20 shops within about a 25 mile radius. There are only 5 with marked trucks. The rest use personal mini vans. OUT OF SITE, OUT OF MIND. We have got to reverse this trend, successful florists of tomorrow have got to remain top of mind and will be required to remain highly visible.

If we keep making ourselves more invisible, pretty soon people will forget we even existed !!!
 
Hate to have to agree to disagree, but that article (not Ken's, the original AP article) did damage to our already declining industry. And I agree with it Ken's Article pretty much wholeheartedly.

Just because we got some Pirates on board that can't be trusted, are we looking to sink the whole ship???

Take it to the florists all day and all night but don't take it to the public. We're losing enuf now to drop shippers and TFTD, and we're gonna drive them there all the more by scaring the public.

That article was grabbed and run with by the new media in the same vein as "Why florists gouge customers at Valentine's Day" and I sure don't get why people can't see that. The media generally speaking is NOT our friends cuz they only want to report the bad news.

I think it shot us in the foot, with a shotgun, and selective toe shooting is not what shotguns are famous for.

I definately think Ken Young has an eye for the future. He looks to me like myself, a bit old to go looking for another job. Read it again, he agrees that these are important issues. Issues for florists, not the public. I don't know how anyone could think spreading negativity is good for our industry.sorry (not really) but that's my opinions on it.

so I'm hangin out here on my own, 's ok, always did consider myself lunatic fringe
 
The Article And The Problem

My take on this article is that word about retail florists problems with wire services is making the mainstream news outlets. Yes, it is bringing out the dirty laundry of the floral industry and maybe Ken's thoughts are partially right. But what Ken and SAF are both ignoring is the fact the there is a PROBLEM and that it is not being addressed by any floral organization.

If it wasn't for florists the issue would never surface. And yes, maybe the bad news is hurting the industry to some extent, but what about the best known BRANDS in this industry, ie FTD & 800FLOWERS, marketing to potential floral consumers non-floral gifts. No one wants to address the fact that in every quarterly financial statement that both FTD and 800-FLOWERS brag about how much the non-floral, direct shipped product sales are growing. What should be upsetting to florists is that these sales were made to potential flower customers. How can FTD's marketing of these non-floral gifts to floral consumers benefit, florists, wholesalers, or growers. Maybe that is a huge reason for floral consumption dropping. Oh, there are some people that say , quality is the real issue, or that convenience is the issue. Could it really be that the best known BRANDS in flowers marketing non-floral products is changing the US flower buying publics attitudes about buying flowers?

Why isn't SAF trying to help the floral industry with an issue of this size? Could it be that SAF has gotten so good at being political that it won't tackle the hard questions, just like the politicans on Capital Hill are afraid of tackling the hard issues facing this country! This issue is larger than what Ken thinks it is and larger than SAF thinks it is. Maybe that's why SAF is having a hard time trying to convince florist to join.
 
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that article (not Ken's, the original AP article) did damage to our already declining industry.
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Bloomz, I have to ask on what are you basing that statement? Has any customer mentioned that article to you? I have seen no follow-ups in the press even remotely along the same vein. It looked to me to be more of a wake-up call to the WS and Wall Street that 'business as usual' was no longer acceptable to at least one group of florists. Dissention in the flower ranks.

If you want to talk about damage to the industry, how about we discuss all the irreparable harm done by the Urbans, Artisans, Lovin Blooms and their similar ilk? (And you know who they are.) Customers lost that may never come back. Should we silence all those online complaints filed by customers against them?

How much concern has been shown 'to the industry' by turning blind eyes for not just weeks, not just months - but for years to their thieving.

How about all the diversion of flower shoppers to non-floral gifts by our alleged market leaders? Does that do damage to an already declining industry? You bet.

Instead of wanting to shoot the messengers, how about we target the real problems and address what we pretty much can all concede are the consequences of out-of-control affiliates.

I follow your thinking, understand your concerns but can't see how keeping 'our secrets' will change or improve the problems.
 
I'll sound like a politician here and reverse the question. What good has it done? Has anyone called and said "That article really opened my eyes?"

Those complaint sites, yes those are legitimate complaints, and those are about big time skimmers, but they're a handful. The ftdsucks site was ONE consumer who felt he got screwed. The ripoff reports from bacon are probably about 1% of 1% of consumers that he she it has had, they have hundreds of thousands of orders each year. I'm not minimizing or making excuses, they do suck. But there's bigger fish to fry than that.

How about all the diversion of flower shoppers to non-floral gifts by our alleged market leaders? Does that do damage to an already declining industry? You bet.
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Absolutely, and that is a way huger issue. And I think they (800TFTD) rub their hands together when they read things like that AP story, cuz they see a bigger picture than we do, regrettably.

Gonna re-post my new long soapbox from the fb since it will disappear over there when he archives, forgive me for being redundant if you read both boards.

Toto you for sure remember me as one of the #1 soapboxers around here. I used to send test orders then warn everyone in town not to fill them (didn't work, they got filled) I made lists and personally physically went into all the shops in 4 neighboring towns and tried my best to "educate" florists on not filling OG orders. Every floral show I went to (all of them) you would see me on the sidelines in the back trying to convince florists that we could stop this if we worked together. I rah-rahed Teleflora in their "we won't compete" deal just like you did with your "the New FTD" rhetoric. I talked til I was blue in the face trying to "help" (?) florists to not lose orders with all the examples and numbers and principles and all the stuff. I had a soapbox on my web site ALARMING and ALERTING the public ala Florist Detective, with cost breakdowns and examples and warnings. And after a couple three years (or more) of this, I finally saw nothing and I mean **NOTHING** happening except florists looking at me like I was a lunatic (well?). I put my soapboxz away and thanks to my wacky buddy Da Skin who told me "You AIN'T gonna change the world, quit wasting your time on it" I just tried to take care of business at home and changed my focus into trying to get back some of those orders for myself.

So now, point being, if you can't even educate Florists, who *supposedly* kinda sorta a little bit understand this business, how the hell you gonna educate consumers who, as that article succinctly put it, DON'T CARE about the problems we face, they just want their flowers?????????

You're right about the ship and the rats, but don't go shooting rats with a shotgun when they're running across your feet, just like you don't shoot firearms in an airplane, no matter who the target.

How long have Tom Meola and Rick Janus been doing deceptive cityname florist listings and how much success has their been in stopping them? (clue - not much, they're still in my phone book, about 10 years later now). THAT'S been probably the largest fight being fought by florists in many many states. That's the "big issue" SAF took on YEARS ago. It hasn't stopped them. So what do you do? I put my own cityname florist listing in my phone book and you know that isn't the name of my shop. Yes I wasted time with the letters to the Senators sh1t, nothing, nada, just a form letter lip service. But I get somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-100 calls a month from that number (I used to track it, haven't checked in some time, but it's still there). Which turned out to be much more fruitful than writing Senators.

Now a WAY WAY worse problem is 800TFTD taking the consumers from us. And you know what the *BIG* plus from the consumers point of view is??? THEY DON'T SKIM. They undersell and overpromise and blame problems on us, but they don't skim, and they have credibility in the consumers eyes. You scare consumers about all the ripoffs going on and YOU DRIVE THEM TO 800TFTD. 800TFTD has more orders between the 3 of them than (I think, no numbers to prove this) ALL WE FLORISTS COMBINED, and I think you can probably include all the non-florist OG's as well.

We all know fear is a great manipulator (look at our last election)

So let's scare them RIGHT out of trusting us so they can go with who they trust, 800TFTD, who consumers think we work for already. (side trip, does anyone think Quality Assurance fees are to make sure WE FLORISTS get our orders filled proplerly?)

And NEVER trust the media, they ain't looking for good news and the demise of disgruntled florists would be NEWS to them. Have we not seen the stories explaining "Why Roses cost so much on Valentine's Day" which, disguised as an expose or something, ends up being a "Why you get SKRUDE when you buy flowers on Valentine's Day" story. You should just buy chocolates.

I know I will get accused of being defeatist, but I think this is shooting holes in the boat when we should be perhaps building our own lifeboats?

O-K, off to bed to see if I get to have my second sleepless night with the new JB on da block.

opinions vary

blessings
 
OK Bloomz.....

bloomz said:
we should be perhaps building our own lifeboats?
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I hear your thoughts, and do see some of your points as valid. But the question is, what do we do? The wire services have chosen not to act. The florists have shown it is too difficult to get them all to flex their muscle.

One thing I have learned in my life, is that nothing EVER gets accomplished in a gripe session. Just a bunch of griping.

So what is the right thing to do?
 
So let's scare them RIGHT out of trusting us

Jb, could not agree with you more......I think Florist detective in it's efforts made an attempt to educate but missed a HUGE opportunity to do so in a positive manner. The public is not US......they do not really care.....they want flowers and the go for name brands.........the bigger the better. All the "expose" does is to make florists look awful. The missed opportunity here was to show that local florists should be the ones to use. Years ago I porposed that we all get a web site up, use doorway pages , yep doorway pages in other peoples backyard, and capture the heck out of online orders. As you remember, this was met with years of finger pointing and the whole idea was lost in the griping. I contend that if for example, Rob, you, Mark, Cathy, et al have doorways ( or what ever is the current term) in my area, ......and I will be there also..... the chances of a consumer using a big2-3 is reduced........The idea is to capture, capture , capture....get the business back, develop our own F2F NETWORK, ,market to the recip....yes it does work, but at least take it from the WS's.
All the negative links, posts etc have only made us look bad.There is not one reason for a consumer to leave that site saying " wow, I want to send flowers".........not one resaon....Maybe something more positive would get the job done. IMHO.....
 
Well...

Getting back to the story in Floral Management

Quote from the story-"The truth is that consumers don't care if florists aren't making any money because of increased wire service costs, commission structures or any of our other industry issues. All they want is a convenient purchasing experience and an assurance that they'll get what they ordered."

No statement ever made could be more un-true!! Consumers do not want to do business with companies loosing money and not successful at what they are doing. Consumers are clearly being mislead by these order gatherers. We all know that it is impossible to deliver for free. We all know that we cant promise 2 yellow gerberas, a pink rose, 2 stargazers & one stem of delph in every city. Yet these types of items are being sold online everyday. Are consumers really getting what they order ever?

Kens statement is what one would expect to hear from a company dependant on the way things used to be.(incoming wire orders). Hell it sounds to me like this could have come directly from a PR person from either of the big 2! Truth is tomorrows customer is going to be looking for the shop that will make the delivery. That is the power of the web. Giving the consumers the tools to make the best decisions based on what they are looking for. They are looking for creative and local selections, not to mention local pricing. The wire services thrust a national standard and pricing schedule on consumers when nothing could be further from reality. Selections and pricing vary widely from market to market.

An order gather marketing on line does not generate new sales. They are just shifting who the consumer would have ordered from. Of course wire services want to protect the old ways. That’s where they make their money. Flowers by wire, billing members looking for more orders.

The flower business does not need more brokers and middlemen. We are the only industry that has allowed this to continue. Florist to florist orders are one thing, we will always have a need by local customers to send flowers abroad. Could you imagine pizza hut allowing brokers, or Mc Donald’s? What is the purpose? There is none. These companies just add too much fat and it is paid for by the consumer. The trend in today’s business world is to maximize the values sold to consumers. This is what consumers are demanding. We do not do this by partnering with someone looking to get rich. Would you take on a partner in your business that always demanded more money and was never willing to contribute to the growth of sales? NO WAY!!!


So the consumer always looses. Because no company operates at a loss. Not even Ken. Their prices are higher than they would be if there was never a broker involved. No business can afford to work on all low profit margin items. Especially when the volume of those items are decreasing.

We can not turn our heads to this problem, and we would be very irresponsible business people if we were not making the best business decisions for our customers money.

Bloomz, I hear your passion. But allowing the crime of consumer fraud and rip-off’s to continue makes us just as guilty. Because we can never say we did not know what was going on.

Do we really need a flowers sent today, just flowers or companies like whosentflowers these days? Are they creating long term value to this industry? Are they creating sales, or are they damaging them?

This industry as a whole is not moving forward. Consumers being exposed to what is being delivered do not like what they are seeing. Our phone rings everyday with a new story from someone, claiming to have had problems when they used 1800 or FTD. These consumers are giving florists a second chance because they still believe flowers make a great gift!!!

Are we willing to let them down? Pretty soon there wont be enough people willing to give us, one more chance.
 
bloomz said:
What good has it done?
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Don't think anyone can definitively claim positive or negative results.

I do believe there's a nexus to be made by looking at some of the recent developments and the serious attention now being devoted to these problems by the WS.

Some are quite public, like the suspensions. Others are more subtle, like the removal of misleading information - bogus free delivery and products, phony markdowns - from some OG sites.

In the end, it's in the best interest of each company to firmly police their problem children because this story would be a lot uglier appearing in much higher profile publications. The only defense is that they are aware, have sternly warned, have given ultimatums (and followed through), and are actively following up on all allegations.

This should have been happening all along.
 
CHR said:
I do believe there's a nexus to be made by looking at some of the recent developments and the serious attention now being devoted to these problems by the WS.
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emphasis mine

I think that might be a bit naive. Lovin Blooms lost their rebates from FTD in early October. The Vancouver expulsion was in the works for at least a year. It seems a bit short-term to think an article in the fall triggered events that were already in process before the article was published.

It may take a year before we can accurately see what impact, if any, the article had.

Ryan
 
1. GROW your local business!
2. Remember ONLY florists can deliver SAME day. NObody, but NObody else can do that!

That is what I push. If you want to see a network of people who have similar businesses, then look at surplus.net. They hate BROKERS, too.

Judy
 
CHR said:
Don't think anyone can definitively claim positive or negative results.

I do believe there's a nexus to be made by looking at some of the recent developments and the serious attention now being devoted to these problems by the WS.

Some are quite public, like the suspensions. Others are more subtle, like the removal of misleading information - bogus free delivery and products, phony markdowns - from some OG sites.

In the end, it's in the best interest of each company to firmly police their problem children because this story would be a lot uglier appearing in much higher profile publications. The only defense is that they are aware, have sternly warned, have given ultimatums (and followed through), and are actively following up on all allegations.

Nothing would have ever happened had we not made our opinions known. The voices of dissent were minimunimized and inhindered and outrightly ignored for years. Now that the "minority" party is gaining press coverage. Getting their issues covered. the "opposition" party has the need to address the issues in the market of Ideas.

I have no doubt that the removal of these 2 Gatherers has a financial benifit for the "big 3". Getting rid of the compitition always benifits those who remain. But it also helps us. It does get rid of some of the on-line rif-raf the consumer has to deal with. It also renders the big 3 to a growing number of shops unwilling to provide distribution services to them.

Modern Military doctrine champions the shaping of the battle field. Creating kill zones while funniling the enemy into them. Utilizing the terrain to best accomplish the goal.

The vocal minority is shaping the battlefield. The enemy is creating the kill zone for us. The only question is if we have enough M1s on the field of battle when the orders come to fire?
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Infinite said:
I think that might be a bit naive.
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Maybe. :rolleyes: Wouldn't be the first time I heard or saw what I wanted to - instead of what was really there.

Of course the suspensions were in the pipeline well before that article. (It was published Feb. 11 and Urban was suspended Feb. 16, btw) No doubt, FTD hoped to rehabilitate rather than expel. Let's hope there are others under intense scrutiny right now.

I don't recall any operation being suspended in such a high profile way for a very long time. To have the two worst shown the door in such quick succession signals something.

Whether it was the article or the rise in pitch of consumer and florist dissatisfaction, change is moving in the right direction. Or am I naive to think that, too? :hammer:
 
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