FloralSource & $15.00 rebates

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carol

carol

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Aug 15, 2003
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new hampshire
greensandthings.com
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NEW HAMPSHIRE
So who really owns this?? I just got a fax saying they would pay me $15.00 rebate for my first 10 orders to offset the joining fee??

About us says "This website is owned and operated by a consortium and the cooperation of flower companies that seek the represent the interests of local florists."
(I like the grammer??)

and the site is hosted by Sunflowers tech, in co-op with Extra Touch Florists and Southern Retail Florists!!!

I thought these were the guys crying bitterly about rebates in the industry and how they were going to bring down the big guys for doing it.. and now they are trying it??
 
800Flowers and $10.00

Hmmm... not sure on the FSI deal Carol, but I do have paperwork stating that 800 will pay $10.00 for your first 10 orders....

Last I knew, Andy Williams and John Carruthers owned it, and Art Conforti was pushing heavily...not sure if he's part of Southern Retail or not...give me a ring if you'd like to chat more about your question...

I'm not so sure the companies you mentioned are **all** in co-op with FSI...

Seems that there are some "issues" popping up, judging by the phone calls I have received this week, and the folks making them...oh and the one I have not received raises a big red flag with me too....
 
just checked localfrlorist and it's all the same site, they just use a different URL prefix.
 
Not sure what you'll find. This is what I got for my town.
I'm shown listed as well as a "diatribe" in a bigger box with a listing in the bottom of the box for the "unique and different shop" in the next town over.
http://www.localflorist.com/searchflorist. cfm I don't belong to his "directory" as a matter of fact, I believe I refused his offers not once but at least three times when he called me.
Ah ha!! When I clicked on this link I pasted here, it went to Artistic Flowers not what I saw before........sneaky isn't he!
Went back again and did the search for my zip code, here's what came up
Millinocket Floral Shop

class=\"card selected\" tab=\"sd:0\">
Website: www.millinocketfloral.com
Hours: Open Weekdays 9am-5pm; Sat 9am-12pm
Payment Accepted: Discover, MasterCard, Visa
Description: Full Service Florist serving Millinocket (04462) East Millinocket (04430), and Medway (04460). Millinocket area's only FTD Florist. Since 1974, fresh flowers, plants, Satisfaction Guaranteed Always.
Provided by the business owner
')], { maxWidth: 325 });}},{id: 'C',lat: 45.625589,lng: -68.575835,image: '/mapfiles/markerC.png',infoWindow: function() {this.openInfoWindowTabsHtml([new parent.GInfoWindowTab('Address','
Main Street Floral & Gift Shop
67 Main St
East Millinocket, ME 04430

(207) 746-0044

and the web address is my old Teleflora site url-guess I know where he got that from now. And the shop listing on the bottom...not me!
 
wildflower said:
just checked localfrlorist and it's all the same site, they just use a different URL prefix.
Click to expand...
Not exactly but they do have overlapping shop listings.

localflorist.com is operated by Sunflower Productions, which hosts the FSI (FloralSource) templated websites as well as the sites of the ExtraTouch group. The directory results primarily consists of those sites although I believe they accept listings for a fee.

localflowershop.com is operated by Art Conforti of Beneva.com. That site also lists the FSI templates as well as a number of paid listings by independent florists. Users searching in cities where there are no subscribers are presented with a page that looks like this. Localflowershop.com has recently been redesigned, adding hospitals and mortuaries to their search. The site has been moving up in Goggle's results in searches for 'city-name florist' lately.
 
The silliness of all this

The question everyone should answer to themselves, is why would any WS be willing to give $15 rebates even if it is ONLY for a short time. It does not matter whether it is $4.50 or $8 or $10 or $15 an order. Any reasonable florist's first questions should be, where does that MONEY come from and WHY are they willing to pay it to me to just get on THEIR system? The truth be know, they are looking for SUCKERS and W C Fields was right when he said there is a sucker born every minute. What Mr Fields didn't know was many of those suckers became florists!

Why am I being so cruel? Because it is florists that have created these problems and many fail to face up the the consequences. There are only two reasons why florists join these alternative WS. First, is to get more incoming orders. They can't generate enough business on their own, so it now becomes the responsiblility of others to do it for them. They are also the first to b**** when the orders are too small or too far away or too infreguent in nature to satisfy their needs. Many of these same florists never send orders through these systems either so the basic order traffic HAS to come from questionable sources! And then they complain when they find out WHO those orders are coming from.

The second group which already belongs to one or all the WS also joins these alternative networks as senders that either have already found coverage problems or are trying to protect themselves against future gaps in coverage by finding florists that are no longer with WS.
The problem is they can't send enough orders through these new systems because these alternative systems also have large gaps because membership is limited and so is the technology. Hense the drive is always on for NEW membership with the simulation of larger rebates and the new ones that join are primary there to RECEIVE ONLY. So they just end up replacing the ones that drop the system becasue of lack of incoming. Silly isn't it? It is like a dog chasing it's tail. Hense you end up with the unscrupled senders and nieve receivers and both are unhappy.

If you think the marriage between FSI and some of their membership is ironic, you might want to take a look at Fabulousflowers.com. This is an OG site of all OG sites. Look very closely at some of the participates in these state and Canada listings. I'm sure you may recognize some of these florists. As most of the pictures on these sites are all WS inspired, there is only ONE intention - to create a discounted order for someone. I especially like Art's presences in several states, as well as some others florists. If any of these florists were to tell you they had no knowledge of this site, it would be interesting how the linking was accomplished and where the order goes if they knew nothing.
 
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Bill -

I agree with much of what you said about the rebate/redistribution issues.

Just to clarify about the fabulousflowers.com site, it's likely the florists and OGs listed there don't 'know' they appear there. That type of site simply calls pay-per-click ads (in this case Yahoo's Overture) and shows them as 'results'. The webmaster earns money for each click on one of those links, regardless of whether a consumer purchases from the listees or not.

Creating sites whose primary purpose is present PPC results are nicknamed MFAs (for Made For AdSense) and they are choking search engine results with spam.

I *think* the fabulousflowers.com site violates YPNs TOS because it doesn't clearly show the links as ads. To report them to Yahoo, you either have to be a current advertisers or send them a snail mail.

That type of site is a newer beast so I hope the explanation makes sense.
 
Cathy, I'm the first to admit that I really don't understand everything that is going on in the internet these days and this is part of it. Someone has to be paying that per click cost, correct. Who is that? The florist who owns the site??

He is an interesting aspect of this site. If you search at the bootom of the page for Genoa, Il florists, <Jerry's town> you will get 5 florists, none of which are located within Illinois. The same happens when you search South Elgin, Il <my town>. Always 5 shops are listed as flower shops within these towns. If you search Millinocket, Maine, you get the same 5 shop there as you do in South Elgin - the very same ones.

ONE feature that is consistant with all these listings is that whether the web page bought up is FTD or TF and personally designed, there is an obvious lack of information to tell you where this business <florist> is located. They may tell you they are a family buisness for 30 years or as one says, fifth generation florist. The consistant factor in all these sites is "smoke and mirrors" as to their true location. They may offer 10% discounts or free local delivery or NO SALES TAX - I especially liked that one. So are we saying that florists who originally were trying to take advantage of consumers by getting them to give them orders by deception are now being taken advantage by a Webmaster who has found a way to CONSOLIDATE all of these "aggressive" marketing people on ONE site and has found a way to charge them by the click and without any resulting order -------- COOL!

I do have some problem with this in that if you do searchs long enough, you seem to find the same flower shops and directories listed time and time again. And as some of these listing are florists that post on these boards, you'd think the per click cost would become an alarming dollar amount very quickly.
 
Localflorist.com has a worm??

I went to localflorist.com and searched for a shop in my area. Clicked on the map to see exactly where the listed florist was located and immediately received a warning from Nortons that a worm was blocked from my computer. I went back to the site and the same thing happened.

Details: Attempted Intrustion "ICC Profile TagData Overflowr"
against your machine was detected and blocked.
Intruder: spe.atdmt.com(69.225.175.88)(http(80))
Risk Level High
Protocol: TCP

???
 
Griff said:
So are we saying that florists who originally were trying to take advantage of consumers by getting them to give them orders by deception are now being taken advantage by a Webmaster who has found a way to CONSOLIDATE all of these "aggressive" marketing people on ONE site and has found a way to charge them by the click and without any resulting order
Click to expand...
The listees may very well get orders from the clicks. It depends on how well the MFA site is placed in results and how gullible the surfers are.

PPC advertisers can opt to be listed in the SE's sites only or to be included in the content publisher network members' sites (like fabulousflowers.) IMO there's much more chance for click fraud in the publisher network than on the main SEs and the ROI is much lower. Some of the PPC programs allow you to bid lower amounts for the publisher group clicks.

Advertisers are concerned about low quality PPC placements so Google has added ways to prevent ads from showing on specific sites. They also have a way to report inappropriate program use from each ad block. (Click on the 'Ads by Goooooooooooogle' link under each and follow the links.)

HTH
 
Chasing ones tail

Yes, 12Buck, that is one of our major problems. Chasing our own tail. Florists continue to listen to the same old song and dance from various sources. It is like reading an old book time and time again and hoping that the ending will change this time. Silly rabbit.

It doesn't surprise me, however, that there has not been more of a stir over this lastest website that was pointed out. Maybe it is because you know some of these FLORISTS ORDERGATHERS that own those sites. Maybe they are good friends or just convention acquaintances and you do not wish to offend. However, it makes no sense to try and tell other florists that they should REJECT orders from some OG's and always accept orders from REAL florists. If anyone takes the time to look closely at these "florist" sites, they will find that most are just as misleading as the unscrupluous ones. These are REAL FLORISTS that are ordergathering anyway they can and then sending those discounted orders through your favorite WS.

I will spare you some of the details of my research over the last 2 days, but you would be amazed at some of the things you can find here. However, on the down side, the younger generation is not doing any favors for their parents business. And this is the work of the younger computer generation. This is just my opinion, but when you create these OG sites, you are condeming your company to many more years with the same WS that put you in the hole in the first place. You can't cut the cord with the WS technology to send orders, you are financially addicted to the compensation and you can't redecorate your web pages without the WS photo work. You need standardized pictures to send the orders. Hense, it doesn't matter what the WS do to you or your company, you CAN'T LEAVE!!!

The WS continue to compete against you for control of the initial order. THEY need the order to send to florists that owe them the most money. You, the florist, on the other hand, must try and find a florist who will still fill the order to value. As many of already admitted, this is a declining market. And as the OGing continues to drive more florists either out of business or out of the WS, you will have even less of a choice of who is going to fill your order, let alone who will be able to fill it to value.

And Cathy, I still can't figure out how pay per click ever comes about. I stumbled across this site by accident. I haven't been able to find it through any of the search engines. Even if I look for Florists in Illinois, nothing like this appears. I can say that it is a fairly new site. If it is this hard for me to find it, how is the casual consumer going to find it??
 
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