Did you suspend your Mercury or Dove?

Did you suspend your Mercury or Dove this last week?

  • Yes

    Votes: 42 33.3%

  • No

    Votes: 84 66.7%
  • Total voters
    126
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I did not shut down dove.....I did not get any crazy headquarters orders this time around....just a few easily dealt with by rejecting...

I did shut down 800 for about an hour so I could analyze if I was at capacity....but then it went back on...I do not feel bad shutting off 800 because 98% come from 800, not f2f...I do feel bad turning off dove but have never had to...

Kev, I feel for you buddy, I too had a very bad anxiety attack on thursday night..I had a grueling day thurs and then had to go to market early early, had a pain in tha butt plant order and my aunts funeral to attend fri morning all before 930am...Had to be back in the shop at 10..all the stress of the reality of all that happening smoothly got to me and I thought I was having a heart attack...

the aunt funeral was the real stressor..She is the aunt that taught me the biz, I was very close to her for a lot of years, but do not like the person she became...very mixed emotions and part of the crazy family that we don't have much to do with(my dad's)...Wasn't sure what was going to go on at the funeral;, yada yada....

I too made it through and it was a wonderful holiday for me, as it sounds like for most of you. Congrats to all, no matter how you ran your business...
 
shannonlovesflowers said:
Lori,
well, the truly easy thing for us was just to shut it off. Problem solved. No, Hq doesn't follow these rules. I'm not arguing, I was answering a question put to me by Joe.

Bloomz,
thanks for noticing we are quality. like I stated before, As we are the only TF shop in town and we shut off our dove, and did keep our phones on, other florists could have called and we could see what we could have done for them then. We didn't stop taking deliveries until about 3pm. I think sometimes you need to know your limits.
If customers wanted to come into the store and pick something up, no problem, we had lots of stuff made for them to choose from. If they wanted something custom, then we would have to see what we could do at that moment. But I can't and won't push aside orders for people who had enough sense to order ahead of time for someone who doesn't think of their mom until the very last minute.
We did what we could do well. And I'm certain all of you did as well.
Click to expand...


Shannon, I am sorry you got a red dot, but you do need to chill...You do tend to take many things personnally...Not too sure you deserved a red dot on this occasion, but you were heading there...You are full of drama and kind of hijack treads alot...I sometimes want to ignore your posts as they are very me, me me and don't add much to the topic except for how good you are and how good you manage. i don't doubt that you are good or that your shop is quality, but sometimes your posts just end up sounding like la la la me me me....I I I....

Just an opinion and a helpful way to make your post here more meaningful and less red dottable.
Take it or leave it, your decision, no need to even respond...
 
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shut mine off on wednesday , may never turn the bloody thing back on, tired of forwarding @@@@ orders from order gathering scum, don't need the hassle , sold everything without any "special" help from FTD .
 
lori042499 said:
Shannon, I am sorry you got a red dot, but you do need to chill...You do tend to take many things personnally...Not too sure you deserved a red dot on this occasion, but you were heading there...You are full of drama and kind of hijack treads alot...I sometimes want to ignore your posts as they are very me, me me and don't add much to the topic except for how good you are and how good you manage. i don't doubt that you are good or that your shop is quality, but sometimes your posts just end up sounding like la la la me me me....I I I....

Just an opinion and a helpful way to make your post here more meaningful and less red dottable.
Take it or leave it, your decision, no need to even respond...
Click to expand...
oh Lori,
How can I NOT respond!
Give me a break, If I add something to a post it's because I'm expressing my opinion, and drawing from my experiences. If you take that as me me me or lalalala, so be it.

I certainly cannot draw from someone else's experiences. If it offends you that I stick up for myself and for the others that may have took offense to " don't call yourself a real florist" then so be it. I got several pm's on this one. not one of them telling me I'm full of myself. Navybrat also pm'd me and I feel we understand each other just fine.

If you choose to ignore me, so be it. All I did was respond to direct questions and defend my decision to shut off the dove. I never said anyone was less of a florist for their decisions. I am respectful of each and every person in here, but my opinion matters just as much as yours Lori, and so does all of the others who are too afraid to say anything at all because they know if they do they will be ganged up on just like I was.

At least there are people like Cathy and so many more who understands where I am coming from.

So me me me me me, and la la la la la la la if that's how you see it.
 
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Bloomz, many of us get your point about being responsible, and accountable to your fellow florist. In this thread, as well as the FTD penalty thread, you have valid points, that should be addressed. But shutting off machines is not the same as not accepting orders, there is no rule that sending shops can't call. Let's be real here and admit if you are still sending on Saturday you also need to be proactive and realize that your choices may be limited. Many shops aren't open on Sunday, and that makes Saturday crunch time. My idea of a real florist is one that doesn't screw with other shops or their customers by sending too specific a product, an undervalued order, and a lack of second choice, AT THE LAST MINUTE. While I'm sure you aren't doing that, many shops, but especially .com, just flowers, TFHDQ, are indeed doing that, and this is why many shut down.

I thought a real florist was one that took a look at today's economy, adjusted their orders and expectations accordingly, staffed appropriately, provided quality product, delivered professionally, took as many orders as they could handle, kept their promises, and treated their own and thier fellow florists' customers well. A standard we all could and should acheive. But just when I think I'm there, someone redifines the yardstick by which we measure a real florist?

Take a look at Washington, Pa in your directory and how many florist in this small town belong to one or both or all three wire services. Older population, heavy incoming town. And which one us should handle the seven FTD.com orders I received in the last 45 min. that say Happy Mother's Day? Today is Monday, does anyone really believe that these seven orders were placed today by 9:00 am? and say HMD? who gets that bad rap? Which real florist is standing up to take the hit for this kind of customer service?
 
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Just to add more fuel to the fire,
I received several calls from Kay's Flowers on Saturday afternoon.

Those were the only called in orders I refused.
 
I shut off Sat at 10 AM, turned it back on at 2pm. Wanted to be sure that all of the orders I had could be delivered before I committed to more. I am a small shop, just me, with some family members who helped out. But I've never been prouder of the quality that we delivered.

Best part...wire ins were down A LOT from last year and orders from my website were way up! Our own designs sold realy well and limiting my website selections gave me a much stronger control on my COGS.

This holiday was much better than I had hoped. Have to run the final numbers but we had a double digit increase and very little left over product. But dang, I am tired.

Mary
 
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Turn off the merc - absolutely not! We were open and taking orders from real flower shops right to the very end. We did not suspend, we filled every F2F order we got provided we had the product for it.

Our shop uses Mercury X technology (yes, we're a beta test shop) and I handle the majority of the call volume and almost all the merc orders at holiday times. I rejected absolutely every OG order we recieved that was undervalued (which was all of them). Our wire-service traffic was half of last year, our internet was double last year - I consider that a d@mn fine trade off.
 
Morning all. We kept the wire services on throughout the holiday. However, we did get a few dot com orders on Sunday for same day. We are not codified for Sunday delivery and no one was here to reject those orders. Got everything else delivered ontime.

I don't agree that you can't turn the machine off when you reach capacity. It would be stupid to take more than you can handle. Why would you want to deliberately alienate a customer?

One thing we aren't going to do is deliver the apology orders from Just Flowers or anyone else on Monday. They take orders for same day, all day Sunday, and expect me to send out Monday? No thanks.
 
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The way I see this thread and the ftd tax on timely rejects, is the lack of worker bees out there left to do all these gathered orders and f2f orders. The economy, on a daily basis, has also added to this scynario.

Less shops to take orders

Less employees needed for everyday=less employees for holidays

Less everyday orders(dove,merc,f2f,local)=more owners not willing to speculate on holidays

Less speculation=less product bought=take care of shops towns people first(100% money)

More 100% money=more shops getting smarter to discounted orders

More florists getting smarter=OGer's and florists(OGer's) working harder to make the easy money.

And thats a good thing.
 
This is how I feel about the whole shutting off the machines bit...

Every shop has a max amount that can be done, everyshop should know what that is.

The machines should be shut off when that max is hit...it is the responsible thing to do...

I suspend 800 when I can no longer complete more than 90% of their orders because of the recipes. There is no open order rule or else that wouldn't get shut off either.

I usually make it so that unless I run out of product I can deliver right up untill the end. I am a pretty low volume shop and can do that. When I ran a high volume shop I would have 2 delivery drivers per designer and it worked out well. I usually had 5-6 drivers, and sometime on the saturday I would have to start telling people that they had to pick up their orders and the machines would go off because any real florist is going to call first ad see if it can be delivered before sending it blindly over the machine that many florists don't even know how to use...

There is only so much your shop can do and if you project low and get caught off guard there is not much you can do....or if you are in small town america where extra help is not redily available what do they do...they do what they can and that is it..unfortunate but realistic...

Everybody has to do for their business what they need to do to run it properly. I personally would be pissed at myself if I couldn't handle all the business that came my way because of bad planning...I count on Mother's day and valentines day to make my bigger money, to do things to the shop(upgrades, catch up on payments, whatever) as most of us do...

I do understand how bloomz and Dianne feel, because it sux not to be able to get the orders out. But better to know you can't get it out than a whole bunch of fwoacs taking orders they can't fill or get delivered. Turning off machines because you don't want to reject small orders is just plain silly(aggravating that they exist) Most florists today will call first at crunch time but then send over the system so they have a hard copy...now how would you like to have a 150.00 order come over the phone, but because you don't have your machine on that florists moves onto the next...I've had it happen to me...in the past...
 
HAD to suspend...

Since we are in a large city, we get orders for ALL over the Delaware Valley at the last minute. Also, as was stated by others, come Saturday, we are open for our customers - not the OG's.

On Friday night, at 9:30pm I suspended, after 15 orders came over Merc. for all over creation. I suspended Dove at the same time, but resumed Sat. AM.

And, I do apologize to the REAL florists out there, BUT... if you needed something to go out of town on Saturday (i.e., customer placed order ON Sat. for deliv. that day) you're best to do it the ol' fashioned way and CALL the order out. We did, and got nearly every last-minute order filled.

We RESUMED Dove on Sat. morning around 10 am because TEL HQ seems to stop accepting or guaranteeing orders placed on Sat. Noticed this for two years now. We got only a few we couldn't do from TEL, but many that came were for our zip or very close by.

Unfortunately, FTD.COM doesn't work that way, so we had to suspend.

- H.
 
Things must be getting tougher for the OG's

We don't suspend ever but this weekend after we went home on Sat pm and through Sun we got a ton of OG's that we normally don't get orders from because of our policy, but they must have had problems getting them filled. Gee, it was more than 2 hours when we rejected them, try billing me. I did try something new, I forwarded it back to a send only by changing the ZA to a AA. I may next holiday suspend when we are gone and holiday is over. I hate to because I want to be available for the real florists who know better than to send a delivery at 6pm Sat night for delivery Sunday of MD.
Keith
 
We were frustrated with the number of recipe arrangements from the dove, had to reject some on saturday, it was annoying to spend the time rejecting, looking up recipes, finding the web numbers was a challenge, what ever happened to the good old days of selling the teleflora main specials? the ones we are hounded to purchase? Taking a look at saying by to Teleflora!
 
I suspended. Late Friday night, second time since we've been in business. I don't like to, but I know that many real florists will be calling to get orders out, not relying on the computer. We do - after friday, it's call out wire only. Numerous calls from tf.com, one from 800, none from JF & FU. Took quite a few phone wire-ins on saturday & sunday, from B&M's only. I ask every wire-in now "this may sound like a silly question, but are you a real florist, selling actual fresh flowers?" It's not foolproof, but it helps.

Right now, I am roughly estimating that our sales & deliveries increased at least 30% from last Mother's day. Tired, but sure am happy to be tired from being so busy!

can't wait till 6 o'clock to get back to sleep :)
 
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