Remember, this is the company that used to close their TV commercials with the slogan: "Teleflora - the gift that comes with flowers."
First thing this morning TF makes me ill..long rant...
- Thread starter lori042499
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- May 3, 2006
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Yup, but now they are trying very hard to make it hard for members to be members without their silly gift containers....that is where the problem lies, holidays-OK, babies-OK, special occasions_OK, everyday, people just get sick of the gift containers, they end up at yardsales for 25 cents...or at Christmas tree shops for a buck...save the florists, BAH!!!!
BOSS
FlowerChat Administrator
The beginning of the end.... the end of selling "flowers" that is...
They make no money on stems... the make a ton on containers, technology and directory advertising... we took ourselves out of their game, and got back to what got us here... FLOWERS~!
There is no way you would look "small" without a wire service. We have never even entertained the idea of having one even though the WS reps come in here constantly trying to sell us on the idea. When customers want to wire flowers, we give them the phone numbers for some local florists in the area they are sending to and educate them on how much money they will save by calling direct. Every person I've ever done this with really appreciates the information. Everyone likes to save money and to hear that they lose 30-40% of their money in fees...who would want to do that? There have been one or two (out of a hundred) who say "well, how do I know what they have?". To which I say "ask them". Or, I pull up the florists website at my shop so they can write down what they want and then call the order out. Everyone really appreciates that we are looking out for their best interests rather than trying to profit on their outgoing order.
As far as the website thing, you are way better off with an independent website. The WS websites don't look personalized to your shop. They look exactly like the website of a bunch of other florists. As far as the search engines, you don't need the wire service for that as much as they might like to act like you do. Any website can be optimized for search engine placement.
As far as the website thing, you are way better off with an independent website. The WS websites don't look personalized to your shop. They look exactly like the website of a bunch of other florists. As far as the search engines, you don't need the wire service for that as much as they might like to act like you do. Any website can be optimized for search engine placement.
bootcampguy
Well-Known Member
Well, I guess I fell asleep at the "tulips" and missed about 20 posts. Lori, you will only look small if you "portray" yourself as small. As long as you have a way to "fill" the service of sending out......no worries. At the Orlando bootcamp, I had one shop there doing over 500,000 a year and "no wire service".............no one he has to split with at all. He did admit he had some challenges with it, but the extra income made up for any challenge. I'm glad he was there, he opened my eyes, I was thinking like your husband....................back to the tulips
Mikey the Flower Guy
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just so this thread does NOT become a WS bashing rehash, MY perspective is somewhat "tarnished"!!....I HAVE NO USE for a wire service, yet, am a member of FTD!, I have NO USE for FTD "branded" containers, yet, I buy them AND sell them. I have NO USE for paying for wire service overheads, and yet, have found that FTD CONTINUES to hold a higher "value" to my business, than any of the others, YET, as hard as I try, FTD STILL continues to give me the best bang, for my depreciated buck......"containers" DO NOT need to be bought, the selection guide, CAN be turned away, you CAN become a shop WITHOUT the necessary technology, you CAN remove yourself from the "receiving" side of the business, I'm having a "problem" with all this rhetoric!!
The net is absolutely INUNDATED with sites willing to take orders FOR, AND re-sell orders for ALL the major airlines, hotels, restaurant chains, auto companies, insurance firms, appliance companies, etc.etc., and THEY TOO, probably HATE carrying "references" to "other" peoples businesses, or "promise" to match or beat prices, BUT, they do, AND THEY MUST!!...it's called business, it's hard, it's nasty, it's NOT your friend, and it's NOT for the faint of heart!
Wire services are if for the fight of their lives, MOST will tell you, BEHIND YOUR BACK, that YOU, the "independent" florists, are a pain in THEIR backsides, so, in order for THEM, to put up with YOUR nonsense, they WILL do what's BEST for THEIR business, and, IF you don't like it, QUIT (four letters, starting with a Q)
The florist "business", is probably the LAST of it's kind...most small and medium sized independent florist businesses, have either ALREADY been closed, or, may very well be, on that precipice of closing, due to lack of competitiveness!
Many florist businesses HAVE ALREADY made the jump to the 21st century, many years ago, saw this all coming, and changed BEFORE it was fashionable to do so, leading a small pack of renegades AND radicals, built that new wheel, it STILL does the same thing, but different!
I'm sorry to say, for ANYONE caught in this "recurring" plight, that florists largely DID NOT CHANGE, CANNOT CHANGE, WON'T CHANGE, and the end result WILL NOT CHANGE!!...many florists are done like toast, cannot even admit THAT!!
Seeing the florist for the trees, has NO bearing on today's buying consumer, and perception is EVERYTHING!!...a familiar and "comfortable" shop MUST also be cutting edge, and be willing to partner or die, OR create it's OWN brand that is ESSENTIAL to it's customers.
Sadly, many florist shops cannot adapt to ALL of the above, which are the "MINIMUMS" for survival today!!
YOU signed up to be a "partner", you DIDN'T "like" it then, and you DON'T like it now, and you NEVER will "like it" so, the answer is clear as mud!!
The net is absolutely INUNDATED with sites willing to take orders FOR, AND re-sell orders for ALL the major airlines, hotels, restaurant chains, auto companies, insurance firms, appliance companies, etc.etc., and THEY TOO, probably HATE carrying "references" to "other" peoples businesses, or "promise" to match or beat prices, BUT, they do, AND THEY MUST!!...it's called business, it's hard, it's nasty, it's NOT your friend, and it's NOT for the faint of heart!
Wire services are if for the fight of their lives, MOST will tell you, BEHIND YOUR BACK, that YOU, the "independent" florists, are a pain in THEIR backsides, so, in order for THEM, to put up with YOUR nonsense, they WILL do what's BEST for THEIR business, and, IF you don't like it, QUIT (four letters, starting with a Q)
The florist "business", is probably the LAST of it's kind...most small and medium sized independent florist businesses, have either ALREADY been closed, or, may very well be, on that precipice of closing, due to lack of competitiveness!
Many florist businesses HAVE ALREADY made the jump to the 21st century, many years ago, saw this all coming, and changed BEFORE it was fashionable to do so, leading a small pack of renegades AND radicals, built that new wheel, it STILL does the same thing, but different!
I'm sorry to say, for ANYONE caught in this "recurring" plight, that florists largely DID NOT CHANGE, CANNOT CHANGE, WON'T CHANGE, and the end result WILL NOT CHANGE!!...many florists are done like toast, cannot even admit THAT!!
Seeing the florist for the trees, has NO bearing on today's buying consumer, and perception is EVERYTHING!!...a familiar and "comfortable" shop MUST also be cutting edge, and be willing to partner or die, OR create it's OWN brand that is ESSENTIAL to it's customers.
Sadly, many florist shops cannot adapt to ALL of the above, which are the "MINIMUMS" for survival today!!
YOU signed up to be a "partner", you DIDN'T "like" it then, and you DON'T like it now, and you NEVER will "like it" so, the answer is clear as mud!!
You won't look small with no wire service. We quit in January and have not had one person mention WS.
You can promote send orders in your shop very simple and then get onto the internet. Go to Google, enter "florist" or "flower" and the city or zipcode where you need to send. A local business listings will render at the top and you can scroll down through local florists in the send area. You can review their websites to check for quality of the respective florist's work. You can send a picture via email to the shop if your sender is very specific, or if they want a TF bouquet all you do is tell them. Then you can pay by credit card, and deduct a send fee. The filling florist actually makes money, you make money and the customer will get better bouquet and service.
WS is just activity for most shops. Make some efforts to promote your shop in other ways that are more in your control.
You POS comment... whatever you do don't sign a TF POS contract. They require you to be a member of the WS as a condition of their POS payment contract. You are "Locked in" for the term of the contract.
Business conditions being what they are I suggest not to be locked in on anything if possible.
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I already have the dove pos, but am looking into outside pos because once I leave tf it is basically rendered useless...as for sending, tf has such holes in thier membership that I have had to send over 40% of my wireouts the last 5 months independently, simply because I don't trust them to find a florist to fill for me, so I am already doing this...
I know what has to be done, I just must deal with it, do it and be done with it...
Being 800-flower free for 3 months now, I can see that the money I have has btter staying power than before...so once tf is gone, I am sure I will wonder why on God's green Earth I have stayed for so long...
IMO, passing someone off to someone else is not good business. How many times have you heard the exasperation from people who went into a government office and got the run around.
When people come to you for service you should do your best to accomodate them, afterall they did take the time to make contact with you for a needed service. It is worthly of your time to address their need... not pass them off on someone else when you are in the business.
You might think about it
- May 3, 2006
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at one point in time, I had 2 shops in town that had no wire service and sent 2-3 people up here a week because they wanted to pay cash with a local florist and have them take care of the order....I won their biz and the other shops lost it....you take a great chance not trying to help them while in your store and just giving them a phone number of another florist without finding out the reason behind why they came to you in the first place...
You can lose them because they feel brushed off, you can lose them because they are intimidated by the floral sale and feel comfortable with you and now you have sent them away, they cannot use cash over the phone so you have not helped them one bit...florists in general are notorious for developing a black and white view on sales and services and forget that in order to help the customer in not so black and white circumstances they need to spend time and find out why they came in for their services before just blindly directing them in one route or another, our ideas, policies and practices sometimes directly collide with what we actually sell in the first place which is service, we just need to learn how to sell it better and realize that flowers are an addon to the primary sale...
I don't agree with this on so many levels and I don't give people "the run around". I educate them and tell them honestly that they are bound to have a better experience by calling direct. I really believe this and that is why I sell it this way. I can't sell them an idea that I don't believe in and I don't believe that it makes any sense for me or them if I take an order for another florist. I don't know what they have in their cooler, I don't know what they have available to them, I don't know the prices at their store, I don't know how much they charge for delivery, I don't know what day/time they can get the order delivered, and most of all I don't know if they are going to do a good job. If they do a bad job, it reflects bad on me and I don't want to take responsibility for that. I am a perfectionist. I have a hard time even trusting another designer in my shop to make an order for my customers so why would I so easily trust another florist across the country to do it? I really believe that it's better to call direct. I understand that everyone has a different clientele and maybe others don't agree with the way I handle wire orders, but don't say I'm giving bad service because it's not like that. It has nothing to do with them "not being worthy of my time". It is quite opposite of this because I will take as much time as needed to explain things to them and teach them.
When we first opened I actually did call out a few "wire orders" for people until I had a bad experience with it. A guy ordered yellow roses for his girlfriend and I took the order and called it out to another florist. Then he called me screaming because there was a hint of orange on the petals. If someone ordered yellow roses at my shop I wouldn't send anything that had any orange on it! The florist wouldn't replace the roses because they said that there wasn't any orange on it except maybe on a few outer petals which the girl could just peel off. So I end up having to refund this guy because he is my customer (and he's threatening to say bad things about me) without having any recourse with the florist. This incident made me wonder why I would sell stuff for another shop when I don't know any more about them than the customer does.
My policy now is just to be honest with people and let them know that in my opinion, it is better to call direct.
Why on earth would you have the impression that I just "blindly direct them" without talking to them about why they came in? I said that I educate them. I will spend as much time as needed talking to customers about ANYTHING. My cell phone number is even on my website in case they need to talk after hours. My entire life revolves around my shop and my customers and giving the best possible service I can. I believe that teaching people to call direct is the best customer service rather than leading them to believe that they are getting just as much value when they wire flowers. And when they hear about the fees associated with wire orders (the wire charge, the percentage that the sending florist gets, the percentage that the wire company gets, etc...) they are very thankful that I've taught them a better way to do things. I don't just give them a few phone numbers and send them off. I show them how to find a florist and I even let them use my computer to look over the other florists website if they need to.
If they only want to pay in cash, then I don't even know what to say about that. Maybe most of my customers are a younger generation because I've never even heard that one. How on earth do you get by these days without ever using a credit card? I must be in some sort of modern time warp because this sounds so crazy to me.
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This was not an attack against you...I don't know you or your business...I don't know how you treat your customers...This was a broad spectrum statement about many many florists and how they do business...not anyone in particular...Your practices are your practices, if they work for your biz and you are confident that it is not a detriment then it is your perogative to hold onto those practices. All I was saying is that in my town, many a customer has been blindly sent to the competition wit detriment to theirs using this practice, someone employing this practice may or may not even realize they have teed off a customer and lost their business...Take the info and learn from it, think about the possibilities or ignore it, it matters not to me...just don't take a broad statemnet so personal...hence the reason I say florists, as a group, usually this is quite clear to people I mean many florists or broadly florists not all not just one, but as a group!!!
duanermb
New Member
That was quite a rant, but to put my own spin on it...
He (I think) means PARTNER with them, or die. I have always thought you should consider the fees as a marketing fee to get in with the wires, not an arbitrary fee you pay to get orders. If you partner, you do business the way they do. This includes order gathering as we have heard about in other threads. By allowing outright frivolous order gathering, they are TELLING YOU that you should be doing it too. By paying the money to them, you should be using every resource they bring to you including putting their logo on your vehicle, and promoting it to every customer you have. Use all of it to your benefit. If you don't like doing business that way, don't be part of the network.
He also said, "CREATE YOUR OWN BRAND AND DO IT ON YOUR OWN", which is pretty self explanatory and perhaps a better decision...
What if 10,000 TF florists all gathered orders like the big boys... Hmmm, wouldn't be much cash left in it then would there?
Mikey the Flower Guy
It's a GREAT DAY to live, and love!
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Thanks Duane.....sorry I missed you and Buffie!..YOUR shop has "perception" AND value.....YOU'VE made the hard decisions, and YOUR shop will be the beneficiary!
However, so many shops retain membership in a WS, then proceed to beeatch to anyone that will listen, about the evil empire that the wire services have "built", on OUR "unbranded" backs, so, "partner" WITH them or die, or Build your OWN, and take the same chances that MANY of us have done, run your business WITHOUT the "impacts" that a wire service has on sooo many shops!
By the way, "order gathering" is something that florist shops have done for eons, so, IF you DON'T want to be, OR subscribe to it, DUMP THE MECHANISM/VIRUS that enables the devious ones, and your OUT of the picture!...or get your "anti-ws serum" shots, and fight back!
Mikey the Flower Guy
It's a GREAT DAY to live, and love!
- Nov 10, 2002
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