A-OK according to Florist Detective...
When Order Gathering Does Work
Does order gathering have a legitimate role? Certainly. Some consumers want a one-stop shop to handle all their floral needs, regardless of location. Most local florists actually provide those services, by the way. 'National' broker companies as well as local florists may offer occasion reminder services, consolidated billing, frequent purchaser discounts and rewards programs. In these cases, the consumers are getting exactly what they ask for and expect.
A story about grateful supporters sending 4500 Valentine's Day roses to California Senator Barbara Boxer recently made national news. CoasttoCoastFlorist.com, an affiliate marketer that also operates a real flower shop in Sarasota, Fl, was contacted by an individual about the idea of handling these 'thank you' orders, which would be phoned-in from all over the United States.
The Florist Detectives wrote to the idea’s originator and inquired about how and why she selected a Florida-based company to handle a delivery in the Washington, DC area. She replied that she originally found CoasttoCoastFlorist.com by Googling for 'national florist' and that their ad was the first name in the search engine results.
The Boxer-supporter stated that she was very pleased with both CoasttoCoastFlorist.com’ s level of customer service and their ability to handle the consolidation of an order on this scale. There are very few companies that could handle the volume of calls - more than 1500 - generated by this project, especially during the busy Valentine's Day holiday period. In this case, the gathering of orders was an appropriate decision, both on the part of the idea's originator and the affiliate marketer.
Quoted from
http://www.floristdetective.com/wst_page18.html
