Approximately how many WS orders do you deliver on average per month at your store

How many WS FILL ORDERS to you complete each month on average per store

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domineaux

domineaux

New Member
Jun 9, 2009
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Costa Mesa
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CA
Just thought it might be information worth sharing among shops that are receiving WS orders.

Since we dropped WS in January I will not particpate, naturally.

If you have more than one WS it probably makes the most sense to pick the number of orders from the WS providing most orders
 
Even though I "jump from wire service to wire service" (not, been out of TF for 3-4 yrs and back in with FTD 1.5)........I will say that I "cultivated" customers for a bit before I dropped FTD after over 30 yrs........... MOST of my orders continue to be from "out of town"..... My cash (Visa, Mstr, Disc) sales have multiplied well over 6 fold in the past two years. Wire service is almost a "non entity" here in this small town. I defer to cities, large urban areas etc.....
 
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The information provided by the poll might be an eye opener for some.
After we reviewed our average number of incoming fill orders and the value of those orders we determined it would take over 6 times the orders we were receiving just to break even.
The WS want you to ignore those monthly subscriber fees and concentrate on the percent you pay for orders.
It is important to divide all the orders per month into all those non-commission WS fees to see what each order cost per month in addition to the percentage fees to sender.

My little Excel spreadsheet to evaluate your WS profits is free.
Click on the link in my sig below and you can download it.
It's really simple to help you focus on possible profits or losses from WS.
 
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Eric download the little spreadsheet and play with it.
It's not a penny pinching tool, but it will give you a good perspective on your WS business.

We were doing between 6 and 8 orders per month on TF last year. No way we were making money.
 
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Since I stopped filling for tf.com my orders have dwindled to next to nothing....back when I filled for everyone, I was getting 20-30 a month, going crazy, getting hives and fixing or replacing a good numebr of orders...now that I don't fill for any ogs, not one that advertises in my town, if they don't deliver here..I only get 5-10 a month, last month it cost me 50.00 per order just to acquire each one incoming and outgoing....whoa, yowza, that juat doesn't work at all...this was a particularily bad month, but still 50.00 acquisition fee on all orders outgoing and incoming, not worth it...that money could be going to lots of better places..
 
BOSS's Quote of the day!

lori042499 said:
last month it cost me 50.00 per order just to acquire each one incoming and outgoing....whoa, yowza, that juat doesn't work at all...
Click to expand...
It does for the wire services~!~!
 
Eric S said:
I just checked my tf numbers 32 orders in the past 6 months.
Click to expand...

OMG! Eric, I feel for you, having to stay on because of a POS. Man, last year I was doing 30-40 TF orders some months and that was with another TF shop in the area of maybe 25,000 pop. But once the orders starting dwindling, I knew I had to get out. You can't pay $15-16 to get an order and make any money.
Dom, this should be an eye-opener.
 
24 in July, a slow month......0 og's, I've become very happy at terminating my final OG, that we still looked after!! You know, "nurturing" ALSO applies to shop to shop orders!!
 
I'm afraid to post the number, but reviewing for a new plan Oct. 2010...........even though we are called "cheery pickers" we still do way to many...............
 
My number depend on funeral work some months very few funerals and other months alot. Some of my funeral orders have been over $100 orders where as local people don't want to spend any money very cheap.
Have noticed lately the OG's don't want to give up delivery charges if its and out of town delivery. Rural area and sometimes orders are going over 20 miles one way.
 
Spookyflowers said:
My number depend on funeral work some months very few funerals and other months alot. Some of my funeral orders have been over $100 orders where as local people don't want to spend any money very cheap.
Have noticed lately the OG's don't want to give up delivery charges if its and out of town delivery. Rural area and sometimes orders are going over 20 miles one way.
Click to expand...

I think you need to take a look at why consumers are ordering with the other companies besides your website. You are in the middle of all of those OGs. Probally time for you to step up and do some PPC against them.

Also I would really take a hard look at what Superpages is doing against you. PPC for your shop name is going to be the least expensive term to bid on. Kinda like what we do.
 
conchandler said:
OMG! Eric, I feel for you, having to stay on because of a POS. Man, last year I was doing 30-40 TF orders some months and that was with another TF shop in the area of maybe 25,000 pop. But once the orders starting dwindling, I knew I had to get out. You can't pay $15-16 to get an order and make any money.
Dom, this should be an eye-opener.
Click to expand...

So you stoped with the WS and look at the results in your area. Just do a little PPC in your area and those OG and WS guys will drop down.
 
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It was costing me about £6 per order and considering alately most of the orders were around £20.00 excluding delivery and as I only send out about 4-5 orders per month these orders were costing me dearly especially if they wanted particular items and it wasn't same day delivery. I to some degree felt an obligation to fill the order so I had to buy extra stock for one delivery. It was a real pain in the rear. I have now drop the WS last month and am looking forward to a rosey future. I do still use eflorist (formally teleflorist) to send as when I was a member I had very few problems with them. My own website does so much more than the WS orders.
 
I didn't participate in the poll as we are with FSN (not sure if most consider that a real wire service). We fill very few orders from them...we mostly have it to send orders out. However, when we were with FTD, it wasn't so much about what we filled as what we sent out. Of the 5 stores, the two who sent the most outgoing made money with the wire service. That's the key to being profitable with a wire service. Our other three stores had different levels of incoming, but none of them were profitable because they didn't send a lot out. Over the past couple years it had become evident that our outgoing orders would be diminishing as more order gatherers popped up and more florists had their own websites to capture their own local orders....so we bailed.
 
Eric S said:
So you stoped with the WS and look at the results in your area. Just do a little PPC in your area and those OG and WS guys will drop down.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Eric. I think changing our domain from TF (treehouseflorist.com) to FSN (thetreehouseflorist.com) may have affected the SEO. Hope to learn more at Ryan's webinar next week.
 
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