charges for del and service fees

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petal picker

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I would like to know what some of you are charging your customers for delivery charges for orders going either Teleflora or FTD and your service fees. Right now we charge 7.50 for del and 5.00 for a service fee. I am thinking of upping that but wonder what others are doing. I always hate to up charges but boy my bills are all going up. I have to make some changes.
 
We used to charge $7 delivery and $5 service but raised that to $9 delivery and $5 service just after Christmas. We didn't want to be like Teleflora and FTD and give less delivery then needed. We found many florists who charged $9 like us for delivery, so it only seemed right to up our charge for them. My only concern is that the $14 total for fees other then flowers is going to scare some people away.
 
What are your competitors charging?

How much time does it take you or your staff to reconcile the WS report(s).

All too often an open ended question such as yours will elicit alot of responses that may not be practical for you and your community, market, overhead, etc.

FWIW, you are about where I am with these fees.

joe
 
I have a shop in a small town in Minnesota. My local Del to schools and funeral homes is $3.00. My intown del is $5.00. My out of town is $7.00. To outlying communities is from $10.00 to $15.00. My wire service fee is also $5.00
 
Hmmm
We don't charge a service fee....Are we the only ones?

We tell them we can check on delivery fee if they want to wait, or just add it to their charge. For towns we're familar with we usually know the delivery charge of our favorite shops. For towns weren't not familar with I do like to look at their sites prior to sending an order.

We charge $8 for rural deliveries. Very seldom charge for intown delivery. We are small town America here.
 
ummmmm.....I had to charge a $45.00 delivery fee today, and the customer was more than happy to pay it....for whatever reasons, most florists seem to fear the "D" word.....
I'm NOT being sarcatstic......NOBODY OFFERS FREE SAME DAY DELIVERY!!
 
When I am sending out of town first thing I check is minimums and look for the little delivery truck.
When I call the order out nothing peeves me more than someone telling me that TF or FTD didn't get their delivery charge changes put in the book yet. After over 33 years with one or the other WS, all my changes have been immediately included in the very next book.
I charge a $6.95 service charge which gives me a cushion for added delivery charges if the filling shop objects to what they list for same zip or same town delivery.
 
Rhonda at work said:
When I am sending out of town first thing I check is minimums and look for the little delivery truck.
When I call the order out nothing peeves me more than someone telling me that TF or FTD didn't get their delivery charge changes put in the book yet. After over 33 years with one or the other WS, all my changes have been immediately included in the very next book.
I charge a $6.95 service charge which gives me a cushion for added delivery charges if the filling shop objects to what they list for same zip or same town delivery.
Click to expand...


I had submitted changes twice in succession with TF and they did not chage my info. It does happen...I finally got the nubers updated this last book...
 
Zero Wire Fee Here!

Seasonals said:
Hmmm
We don't charge a service fee....Are we the only ones?
Click to expand...

No, you are not the only one. For many years now, we charge no service fee to wire out. It is something I learned from other florists here on FlowerChat!

We do collect a $9.99 delivery fee, which we in turn give to the filling florist.

By not charging a sending fee, we have a "competitive advantage" that we use to grow sales.
 
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We charge 7.50 delivery / 7.50 service fee on outgoing wire orders.

Our same/future day Standard delivery charge is 10.95 (by 4pm Bus, by 6pm Res. delivery) Funeral deliveries get there by whatever time they need to be there.
Cut-off for same day is 2pm

Our same/future day Express delivery charge is 13.95 (any "by time" they choose between 10am and 1pm)
Cut-off for same day is 9:30am

We get very little negative feedback (that I hear) on any of these. Our salespeople are instructed to let me know if a customer balks at delivery/service fees.
 
Seasonals said:
Hmmm
We don't charge a service fee....Are we the only ones?

We tell them we can check on delivery fee if they want to wait, or just add it to their charge. For towns we're familar with we usually know the delivery charge of our favorite shops. For towns weren't not familar with I do like to look at their sites prior to sending an order.

We charge $8 for rural deliveries. Very seldom charge for intown delivery. We are small town America here.
Click to expand...


We gave up the service charge quite a while ago.
Did much better than we did when we were charging it.

Delivery ranges from 8.00 to 15.00 and if you want a timed delivery it can go as high as 24.99, non holiday. ( Thanks TOTO )

Our coverage area, which is half of Long Island, can bear no less than that.
 
Frank said:
No, you are not the only one. For many years now, we charge no service fee to wire out. It is something I learned from other florists here on FlowerChat!

We do collect a $9.99 delivery fee, which we in turn give to the filling florist.

By not charging a sending fee, we have a "competitive advantage" that we use to grow sales.
Click to expand...

Competitive Advantages are good Frank !!!!
 
Frank said:
No, you are not the only one. For many years now, we charge no service fee to wire out. It is something I learned from other florists here on FlowerChat!

We do collect a $9.99 delivery fee, which we in turn give to the filling florist.

By not charging a sending fee, we have a "competitive advantage" that we use to grow sales.
Click to expand...


Frank, thank you for making my point.

You recognize your competitior and are competing against them.

Now, the delivery fee (this isn't directed at you Frank) is just part of the flower order. The receiving shop is going to 73 pct of that as well so I normally don't break that part out when sending. I just tell my customer that they will incur a delivery charge of 7 or 8 or 9 dlrs for the delivery and add that to the price of the flowers.

joe
 
When my customers balk at the cost of an outgoing order, or have a low price point, I automatically drop our sending fee, and give the filling florist as much as I can. We normally ask for 10.00 sending fee for out of town.
 
We've been charging a $7.99 service fee for a long time. As for the delivery fee in the destination city - well since we are only affiliated with Florists' Interlink there is no way to look it up all the time. Many cities especially smaller towns have to go through headquarters so we have to guess.

The range has been $5-$12 and that is a big range. It's a judgement call with each and every order. In this biz I think wire outs are my biggest (well I just don't like them very much - I'll just leave it at that). Most of the time we add on $8 for delivery.

Our local delivery charge is $6.95 in our city which just under 2 miles square. The next cities outside of ours are $8.95. It keeps going up as the cities get farther up to $14.95.

Just the other day we had a very good business customer (right next door to our previous location down the street for 15 years) want a dozen roses boxed delivered to a city that is borderline del/wire depending on how much they spend and how busy we are. I used our boxed roses price and charged $24.95 delivery. I did that as I tried to wire it and not only could they not guarantee that day but not even before Christmas so I had Neal deliver it even though we were very busy. This guys's wife just died a few weeks ago from recently discovered cancer. I graduated with her and I am only 51. We did all the family and business flowers and even missed church that Sunday morning so Neal could get them all there on time. It was very far but all those orders warranted us delivering them rather than wiring them. Ok, now for the clincher. He absolutely would not allow us to call ahead. It was over 25 miles one way. It was bitter cold and in that area neighbors are far away. his secretary called me and said to deliver them and if not home to leave them outside and he would take full responsibility. Fortunately they were home like he said.
 
For about a year, we dropped the WS Service Charge. Then we instated a $5.99 WS charge.

I have not been able to identify ANY effect on our sales. Maybe we should increase it?!

Our Local and WS delivery is set at $8.50, but we often increase it on fone or walk-in orders IF the area or conditions dictate. For example, Santa Fe & Albuquerque NM are always $15 delivery charges. (We got zapped a couple of times. Apparently the area is so spread out. Or maybe the gasoline comes in via mule team?)
 
So then it looks to me that most here don't have a way to tell the customer what the filling florist require while they are the phone.

See when we are taking orders we just pull up the sending florist info and tell them the florist in the area require this much for delivery and this much for roses, arrangements, funeral flower you know what ever they are looking for.

I mean the information is there why not explain it to them? It just dosen't make since unless most of you are looking through the Wire Service Phone Book then I could understand not having the info while on the phone with the customer.

Maybe thats why we do see an increase of sending?
 
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