Am I right or wrong? "F U Flowers"

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Pandalou

Pandalou

Active Member
Aug 19, 2005
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Santa Cruz
www.ferrariflorist.com
State / Prov
CA
Received an order via FTD (from you flowers). I used to only get "FUFlowers" from Teleflora, now FTD has them too, but I digress.
I received an order on the 19th for an FTD arrangement. $38.99.
I have a $9.95 delivery charge, plus they wanted 1 mylar for $5 and 3 latex for $1.50 each. That brings me down to under $20 for the flowers. We sent an arrangement that was more than the $20. Now F U Flowers says the customer is unhappy and there were no roses. We explained there was less then $20 for the flowers and we fill to the value of the order.
Now they want to change the amount I get from $38.99 to $22.00.
They think I should have sent them a "ask" telling them that there weren't going to be any roses. I don't have time for this. Every order I get from them is challenged. We do beautiful work! They said they have a picture of the non rose arrangement. I told them to send me the picture and I would discuss it with them after I see the photo.
Boy do I dislike these people.
All this time, energy and aggravation is not worth the $38.99.
Sorry for going on an on.
What should I do?
Sharon:wallhead:
 
we don't accept from them anyway but did the order state specifically roses? or roses added?
Easiest to just reject, forward somewhere, or just say no.
 
I think I will just reject them in the future. Not worth it. The FTD recipe said two spray roses.
Sharon
 
Stop filling for F U Flowers!

So you'll be out the flowers, probably have to refund the customer (them) the order, and deal with the aggravation. Even if you don't have to agree to a price change, you're still out the time value just due to aggravation.
 
Just say NO!!!!

V
 
Ditto to all the above - just say no, or no thanks if you're inclined to be polite.

It your shop's reputation that gets the black mark - not theirs.
 
Am I Right

Hi,
I have managed to find a way to stop receiving orders from From You Flowers.
I've been rejecting their orders for months. I also do not accept orders from Gift Tree, Wesley Berry, and any order that I process that I recognize to be from an order gathering. I study my city's listing on google, to recognize the predators.
If we continue to fill their impossibly low dollar amount orders, they will continue to send them to us. We have to stand up and refuse their orders.
I don't care if another shop takes the order. I don't want it.

We aren't losing money by refusing their orders, we're being smart.
 
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We fill about 1,000 incoming orders per year. Not that many, but still a significant number. We get less than one complaint out of 1,000 wire-ins we fill, none about the arrangement (always about the late delivery). I think we have been mostly trouble-free, when it comes to filling wire-ins.

OG orders are tricky to fill, because what the customer ordered is a specific image, and there are certain expectations because of that.

Traditional "fill to the value" strategy may work for designer's choice, but doesn't work too well when we are dealing with an image. So we pay attention to three attributes of the image.

First, the size. I think that's actually the most important factor for OG orders. If available, we always look at the picture to make sure the dimension of the arrangement. If the picture is not available (often the case these days), we use our standard formula for the dimension vs dollar amount. For example, even the cheapest arrangement ($30 range) should still be at least 12" tall.

Second, the color. The customer picked that image, most likely because of the color. We often substitute flowers, but never the colors. This is usually not a problem, because most OG orders are in mish-mash colors. But some of them have a unique hue.

Third, focal flowers (such as Lilies, Roses, etc). We don't substitute those flowers for obvious reasons. People think they are expensive flowers, so if you substitute roses with, say, lizzies, they might get upset, even though lizzies could well be more expensive than roses.

Lastly, and most importantly, if we believe we can't duplicate the image as close as possible, we just reject. That's why we end up rejecting >50% OG orders.

I understand you don't like cheap OG orders; and we don't either. At the same time, once we accept the order to fill, it's our responsibility to make sure that we can do it right.
 
First... DO NOT FILL for OG's...it's THE only way to curtail their reach.

Secondly, FU will remove you from their database and stop sending to you if you contact them, in fact so will FlowersSentToday, Just Flowers and most of the others, at least they did for me when I contacted them directly and explained that I would not fill, I would not reject, I would not even notify them in the future, it was their gig to stop sending...they all did.
 
cherrie said:
I've been rejecting their orders for months. I also do not accept orders from Gift Tree, Wesley Berry, and any order that I process that I recognize to be from an order gathering. I study my city's listing on google, to recognize the predators.

If we continue to fill their impossibly low dollar amount orders, they will continue to send them to us. We have to stand up and refuse their orders.

I don't care if another shop takes the order. I don't want it.

We aren't losing money by refusing their orders, we're being smart.
Click to expand...
Well said. Amen. Those OG orders aren't opportunities to gain new local customers, they're bottom-line bleeding complaints waiting to happen.
 
It was From You Flowers, I was surprised when the order was for an FTD arrangement. Not sure how that works but I will call FTD tomorrow and talk to them.
I called the recipient and told her I understood there was a problem with the arrangement. I will resend her arrangement tomorrow, I wanted her to be happy. Without saying too much to her, I just said I won't deal with the company that we received the order from in the future.
I also told all the girls that we won't accept orders from OG's in the future.
I will call "From You" tomorrow and take my name off the list.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Sharon
 
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I use to get 2 or 3 orders per day from FU Flowers, through Teleflora. I tried calling them direct several times with no success. I tried calling Teleflora and they couldn't or wouldn't stop them so I just kept refusing them. I had the same problem with FTD and Wesley Berry and a few others. Then I found a way to stop getting orders from ALL of the OG's. CANCEL your wire service!!!! There's nothing I like more than searching the web and see my competitors with an FTD or TF website. If my competitors are filling their orders then two things are likely. 1) if they are filling them according to the recipe, they are probably losing money, which is OK with me. 2) if they aren't losing money, then they are likely sending underfilled arrangments out the door which will likely cause complaints from the customers, and recipients will generally not be impressed with what they receive.
 
I have to admit... and I'm so ashamed...
I caved and agreed to give TF a "free trial run" again.. I dunno what the heck I was thinking.. :wallhead:
Well, actually, I do ... I wanted to see if what they were saying about my missing lots of orders coming in to my town was true. I won't "SEND" through them right now, so I won't have a confusing bill, and I can actually see if I really am missing business.
Well, it's been a month. I've received 2 orders. Hmmmmm Good thing I don't have any fees to pay!

Pandalou, you are RIGHT.
And I think you should have actually told your recipient what happened. I don't think it would have been stooping low at all to explain to them that you are so sorry they received an order less than what they expected, that you will make it right because you care about her as a customer.. and that "Things like this often happen when orders are placed online with an OG instead of dealing directly with the florist."
 
It is still amazes me when we have talked about this subject time after time and we try to find the right solution.
SOlutions have been talked time after time....Just say no to them....they are like drugs....You know the answer but why are you guys still filling for them!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stand up for once...it is your store not theirs!!!!!!!!
Luc
 
Luc,
You are right. Going on three years I finally had a profitable month (October of all months). I guess I figured I needed to take OG orders because of the money. I realize that is pretty dumb but when you aren't making money I didn't want to turn down any orders. I will turn them all down now. Lesson learned.
:eek:face

Sharon
 
FU Flowers, Block them!

Hi there, I have had several problems from these guys, the last Teleflora seminar I attended, my rep told me you can block flower shops you don't want to recieve orders from. So I called Teleflora and they took care of it. Just have them blocked, you will be relieved and they won't waste your time or paper. Let's take them out of our industry, they are ruining our customers that enjoy ordering, sending, and recieving flowers. good luck
 
Good luck is right.
 
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