Florists For Change

[Doug Munro]

Oh, come on ... that was funny!!

Don't think so...............I didn't think Doug would go that low! Posts like that are not called for.

Funny, I have witnessed every possible cheap shot taken on this board towards "perceived OG's" & WS's yet never a suggestion they " are not called for". Maybe I will start using that term, it has a nice hint of superiority to it.

 

[steve]

I did not care for the remark myself and frankly most of what Doug writes I take with a grain of salt. Having said that I don't know much about what you actually do until you said you had 40 stores I never knew that and certainly with 40 shops that is covering a rather wide market area and thus giving you a wide area to cover via the internet and to me legitmently so. As each of those operations deserve a web presence. We all are bascily order gatherer's within our market and that is as it should be. I am in Burlington VT if I start putting internet listing on the web to make it look like I am in Albany NY 150 miles away that is when I am as deceitful as the names that are most often thrown around here.

 

[BOSS]

There's UNethical and ethical... simple as that, and that's where I draw the line in the sand when it comes to gathering of orders/marketing...

In my book, Doug's on the ethical side....

 

[bernie]

Everyone works hard at their job... sometimes we get frustrated and say things we really didn't mean...

Stay focused. I think we are not that upset at order gatherers as we are at the fact that they are hurting the whole industry> not so much by order gathering, but by the simple fact that they distort the true cost of a consumer sending an order. They insert a profit for themselves that is not based on anything except that they can get away with it. We need to find a way to stream line that position in our market to benefit the consumer, where we all get our paycheques from.
In the future all orders will be by internet... florist to florist orders will slowly cease to exist... we all know that. What will happen is that a person will either send flowers to whever they want too by internet, or if they are not capable of using the internet, may use a florist. We will then send it to a florist for them through that florists web site and charge a fee for doing it. There will be no comission paid to any floristss
The system is changing to that end. Thinking about what it will look like in a few years, we must recognize how we will fit our own business model into that paradigm. Yes we will still need to be organized to a form that is best served to us by a entity that is group oreintated.

What that form will take is our best discussion.

 

[Matrix]

I've also noticed a somewhat illogical hatred towards the OG's or anyone who may resemble one (I don't know Doug but this last exchange is prompting my post). It seems like nobody really disagreed with my last post. One person confirmed that on a $50 bouquet, an OG makes $33 and change. If this same OG were to make 13$ and change, there would be probably 1/10th the animosity. So that's basically the entire ball of wax. Someone is making more money than you, and it causes accusations to fly that one person is or isn't an OG. What is an OG? A person who used the web (legally and pretty intelligently) to make more money than you. So take that money back! Have your meeting in Vegas, and figure out how florists can unite, agree on a platform, and change the splits. You sound like a group of intelligent people, and you sound pretty dedicated. What you aren't though, is unified.

But I don't see it as productive to hate people who succeeded at e-commerce in the e-commerce age. Channel all that energy into reaching your own goals, and forget about the other guys. And btw you NEED those online orders, and you'll need them more and more every year moving forward. I think I agree with another previous poster who said there probably aren't more total orders. But if the number of total orders did stay the same, one thing is certain: more of them came/will come via PC/smartphone with every month that goes by, and the people who keep up with this will flourish. Pun intended

 

[steve]

Matrix what you don't see is that these order gatherers will use my business name in their ad on the web and come up under a search for my business. what you don't see is that they also use the name of our cities and towns and represent themselves as a local florist with a web site that has a home page that says welcome to (town, state). Thus they hi jack the order from the real local florist. What you don't see is they charge the customer $15-$20 handleing fee which they keep. They most often do not charge enough for the product and they never collect a delivery fee . In the end the consumer paid far to much for a product that could have been sold and delivered by a local florist. Bottom line is order gatherer's increase the cost to the consumer while adding zero value for that increase cost and at same time are damaging the floral business reputation with the consumers across this country.

 

[jamie]

Why when there is a disagreement about something I say that I am suddenly painted as an order gatherer (BTW, I don't necessarily see all OG's as bad things) when the reality is that we have over 40 retail locations and a large portion of the orders we generate go directly to them. In fact that is The very reason we started a web site and call center years ago, for the benefit of our stores. The bottom line is that in most cases the average retail flower shop does not have the time or resources to compete on line. If you were to ask any of our stores what they think about the orders we generate they would tell you they thinks it is a great thing.

So get off your high horse, because in theory we are 40 times the florist that you are.....lol

Actually. I have 2 stores so you are only 20 times the florist I am.

I noticed that you didn't dispute what I said. A considerable amount of your business relies on other shops filling orders for you. You obviously have quality control issues on outgoing wires or you wouldn't be so vehement about shops not filling to value. If poor fillers were the exception then you could simply blacklist the culprits. That's what I do. You have a serious problem because no matter what happens you will have trouble getting quality fillers. The wire service is a 20th century technology that is now broken and corrupt and will not easily be fixed. I don't have that problem because outgoing wires is a sliver of my business and I won't really notice it once my wire service contract is up. Also your outgoing wire profitability depends heavily on automation. If you have to pay someone to actually follow up to make sure that the customer got what they paid for then you are losing money on labor.

That being said, merchants don't "generate" an order through SEO or PPC advertising. They intercept a customer who is already looking for flowers. The wire service business model makes this possible. One of the major reasons that PPC is so @@@@ expensive is because of competition from national OG companies who have outrageous processing fees. PPC is an auction and the national marketers are driving the bids higher. If they had no way to get their product delivered then the cost of PPC would go down because demand would go down.

If you advertise in a related or non-related media avenue like a Home Decor website or a Homebrew magazine THEN you are "generating" an order because people are not thinking about flowers, but you divert there attention. "Generating" a customer is very expensive, and if you successfully do that then I applaud you.

What those bottom feeding, scum sucking, low life, lower than low, piece of trash, pie thieving OGs are doing is standing in the driveway of our online stores with a big sign that says "$5 off your order today" Even though they charge $15+ for processing.

I hope I am not unclear about how I feel about order gatherers. This includes B&M based order gatherers such as Wesley Berry, Merrit, Broadway Florist (mission velajo, CA), Gift Tree, and all the smaller ones. If a shop name pops up when someone google's "florist Chattanooga" then the only websites that should be listed are the ones who have vans running here. If that offends anyone well I guess we just can't be friends.

FYI Doug, I am not implying that you are like any of those shops. I don't presume to know what type of business you run. I do assume from your posts and the attacks that you make against everyone who disagrees with you that you are benefiting from the status quo.

 

[Matrix]

Matrix what you don't see is that these order gatherers will use my business name in their ad on the web and come up under a search for my business. what you don't see is that they also use the name of our cities and towns and represent themselves as a local florist with a web site that has a home page that says welcome to (town, state). Thus they hi jack the order from the real local florist. What you don't see is they charge the customer $15-$20 handleing fee which they keep. They most often do not charge enough for the product and they never collect a delivery fee . In the end the consumer paid far to much for a product that could have been sold and delivered by a local florist. Bottom line is order gatherer's increase the cost to the consumer while adding zero value for that increase cost and at same time are damaging the floral business reputation with the consumers across this country.

Hi Steve. Thanks for replying to my post.

I've been reading these threads for several months, and did talk to a florists about all the points you mentioned. So I am aware of them. Maybe I can comment on some.

Using your business name is certainly beyond unethical. I'm not even sure how it's legal, because I'm not entirely sure if they're just pumping money into google to get some of the words in your company name to direct to them, or something else.

The concept of Hijacking the order is slightly antiquated imo. The web transcends geography. The entire point of it is that I can be on a beach in Costa Rica, doing work for my employer in Cleveland. "Boston Flowers" doesn't need to be based out of Boston. It simply needs to provide a service to people in Boston. The idea that an e-commerce application needs to represent a very specific location to me is flawed.

Their handling fee is their handling fee. They're charging what people are willing to pay. Yesterday I bought a pillow at a department store for $16. I bought that same pillow at that same store a few months before for almost $50. I was willing to pay the $50 the first time, and I was delighted to pay less the second time. But the flower industry isn't the only one that can see 30-50%+ gaps in what you pay for any product.But I can't blame them for that, can you? If you could charge $20 more for the exact same arrangement, and your customers would gladly pay, would you hesitate to charge it? Probably not. The one thing that is very unique about the floral industry is that it's actually more expensive to buy online than in person. You rarely see that elsewhere.

The concept of the consumer paying far too much for a product is still up in the air for me. I can buy my produce at the supermarket. I can buy better quality produce at a little local stand in my city, pay HALF, and support my local farmers. I do a bit of both to be honest. One offers me better hours, better selection, and some convenience. One offers me a vastly better product at a better price. I consider both to be a part of the economics of that industry.

I think it's important I do add two lines

1) I buy all my flowers for my girlfriend with a local florist
2) I actually have a bigger problem with the so-so quality flowers at my supermarket, which I lament the most since I know just how special a real arrangement is for a person when you offer it

Anyway hope I've not landed myself in the OG camp. I'm in the internet camp, which obviously we all are if we're posting in this thread, on this site.

 

[Matrix]

What those bottom feeding, scum sucking, low life, lower than low, piece of trash, pie thieving OGs are doing is standing in the driveway of our online stores with a big sign that says "$5 off your order today" Even though they charge $15+ for processing.

I hope I am not unclear about how I feel about order gatherers. This includes B&M based order gatherers such as Wesley Berry, Merrit, Broadway Florist (mission velajo, CA), Gift Tree, and all the smaller ones. If a shop name pops up when someone google's "florist Chattanooga" then the only websites that should be listed are the ones who have vans running here. If that offends anyone well I guess we just can't be friends.

I completely agree that anyone using the kind of tactics you discussed like $5 off to then charge $15 more is just wrong. I really didn't know they did that, because frankly I don't buy from OG's. That's food for thought.

I am however curious about the second sentence. Why does having vans in that city make it ok to call yourself "Chattanooga flowers", but not simply having that as a coverage zone? I suppose the better question is, just how much of a presence does a company need to have there before it would be ok for you? 1 employee? A server? A full store front? What if it was just a warehouse? I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm actually interested in this at a level that's probably higher up than just flowers. On a more global level, what makes a company able to use a city name to sell its merchandise?

Btw sorry if this is a big derail, I just find this very interesting.

 

[jamie]

Matrix what you don't see is that these order gatherers will use my business name in their ad on the web and come up under a search for my business. what you don't see is that they also use the name of our cities and towns and represent themselves as a local florist with a web site that has a home page that says welcome to (town, state). Thus they hi jack the order from the real local florist. What you don't see is they charge the customer $15-$20 handleing fee which they keep. They most often do not charge enough for the product and they never collect a delivery fee . In the end the consumer paid far to much for a product that could have been sold and delivered by a local florist. Bottom line is order gatherer's increase the cost to the consumer while adding zero value for that increase cost and at same time are damaging the floral business reputation with the consumers across this country.

Almost perfectly stated.

I would add that they take this customer's money having no idea whether or not this order can actually be filled. They will lie to the customer who asked if he has called Killian Daisy Floral Design. They wait until the last minute to tell the purchaser that they cannot complete this order. Many times they wait until AFTER the delivery time to notify the customer or do not notify them at all. They will blame our shop even though we had no hand in the order for non-delivery. They have 100 people who are able to take the order, but only 1 person who is trained to take a complaint, so the customer with a problem is held on-hold for a long time (3 hours+ at FTD.com for mother's day complaints) while they think they are actually talking to someone at a LOCAL SHOP.

So I don't consider these people any better at eCommerce than me. I consider them able to perform a legal "bait and switch" which I choose not to participate in.

 

[BOSS]

"Boston Flowers" doesn't need to be based out of Boston. It simply needs to provide a service to people in Boston. The idea that an e-commerce application needs to represent a very specific location to me is flawed.

I'll respond to one of your points... and I must say I disagree with the above...

Case in point: http://www.wesleyberryflowers.com/flowers_midland_MI.html

Notice the URL for one thing, secondly notice the top center box and the beige boxes with red text down the center nearer the bottom... "WE DELIVER TO"...

They DO NOT, yet these types of pages, (Weasley Berry has 176,000 alone) are endorsed by the wire services... the CONsumer really has little way of knowing. Unethical at best...

 

[steve]

Matrix when it says local boston florist that is a big problem and if your livelyhood was on the line you think so too!

 

[Doug Munro]

Actually. I have 2 stores so you are only 20 times the florist I am.

I noticed that you didn't dispute what I said. A considerable amount of your business relies on other shops filling orders for you. You obviously have quality control issues on outgoing wires or you wouldn't be so vehement about shops not filling to value. If poor fillers were the exception then you could simply blacklist the culprits. That's what I do. You have a serious problem because no matter what happens you will have trouble getting quality fillers. The wire service is a 20th century technology that is now broken and corrupt and will not easily be fixed. I don't have that problem because outgoing wires is a sliver of my business and I won't really notice it once my wire service contract is up. Also your outgoing wire profitability depends heavily on automation. If you have to pay someone to actually follow up to make sure that the customer got what they paid for then you are losing money on labor.

That being said, merchants don't "generate" an order through SEO or PPC advertising. They intercept a customer who is already looking for flowers. The wire service business model makes this possible. One of the major reasons that PPC is so @@@@ expensive is because of competition from national OG companies who have outrageous processing fees. PPC is an auction and the national marketers are driving the bids higher. If they had no way to get their product delivered then the cost of PPC would go down because demand would go down.

If you advertise in a related or non-related media avenue like a Home Decor website or a Homebrew magazine THEN you are "generating" an order because people are not thinking about flowers, but you divert there attention. "Generating" a customer is very expensive, and if you successfully do that then I applaud you.

What those bottom feeding, scum sucking, low life, lower than low, piece of trash, pie thieving OGs are doing is standing in the driveway of our online stores with a big sign that says "$5 off your order today" Even though they charge $15+ for processing.

I hope I am not unclear about how I feel about order gatherers. This includes B&M based order gatherers such as Wesley Berry, Merrit, Broadway Florist (mission velajo, CA), Gift Tree, and all the smaller ones. If a shop name pops up when someone google's "florist Chattanooga" then the only websites that should be listed are the ones who have vans running here. If that offends anyone well I guess we just can't be friends.

FYI Doug, I am not implying that you are like any of those shops. I don't presume to know what type of business you run. I do assume from your posts and the attacks that you make against everyone who disagrees with you that you are benefiting from the status quo.

Jamie,

It's interesting that the entire first paragraph of your post describes how we operate our business and the problems we have due to our methods and yet on the last paragraph you make the statement that you don't presume to know what type of business we run.

Having said that, lets address your concept of "intercepting an order"....in a nutshell isn't this what every retailer strives to do? I suspect that there is not a soul on this board that would not "intercept" a fair share of their competitors business if they had the means to do so.

As for the advertising tactics of some on line merchants, sure some cross the line however offering a $5.00 discount while charging a $15.00 processing fee is not unethical or dishonest as long as it is not hidden from the consumer. Do you advertise all your pricing with Delivery included or is it an additional charge on top of the prices you quote.

This board tends to focus on perceived evils of OG's and WS's almost exclusively, unfortunately this means that little attention is paid to many of the other issues that face our industry. Sure there is some lip service paid to poor fulfillers and under-filling but generally when these topics come up they are quickly excused as something that the fulfiller MUST do because of the WS's.

Trust me, The wire services do not have 100% of my support as I believe they could make a number of changes that would be beneficial to the industry as a whole. By the same token I don't believe they are the sole cause of all the woes that befall this industry. Earlier in this thread I brought up the fact that over 60% of consumers (depending on whose stats you use) buy their flowers from grocery stores or big boxes, this is a number that scares me. It is a very clear indication that the local mom & pop shop is going the way of the local butcher, baker or candlestick maker. As I recall a survey I read for Valentine's 2011 indicated that online purchases of flowers from national companies only accounted for somewhere around 10% - 12% (basically the crumbs falling off the table).

When all is said and done the success or failure of any business still rests on the shoulders of the actual operator, after all there are still a few butchers and bakers around. What I have suggested and will continue to strongly recommend is quit looking for scape goats and just get on with business.

As for our business, what we really try to do as a company is provide our owner/ operators with every possible advantage (including "intercepting every order" we can from their competitors) we can.

 

[bernie]

Does anyone use google maps to find a local florist??? I see discussion above about order gathers. If I need a florist, i just go to google maps, type in the postal code or town of the recipent and the word florist or flowers. Up pops the closet local florist. OG'S bypassed.....
Teach you tech savvy customers the way to do it, you may loose their florist to florist orders, but we will all gain if we all do it.

 

[jamie]

one last thing then I am going to lunch.

Matrix,
I believe that the best way to serve a customer is to actually serve him/her. My statement about having a van in that area means that unless you are going make the arrangement then don't advertise here.
I know some companies will, but they are doing a disservice to the customer because they are injecting themselves into a middleman position that is completely unnecessary and extremely expensive. There is no solution for this business model to survive in an honest and profitable manner. It is a flat out fleecing of the customer.

I believe that unless the flowers from your cooler is going to end up in the hands of the recipients then you do not need to advertise for those orders. If a customer sends flowers to many different places in the world and only wants to deal with one merchant then we should be available and make a profit, but that is not where the bulk of "wire out" money comes from.

I have no problem with grocery stores because we don't sell the same product. If you are selling grocery store quality products then you are in trouble.

Also, you should really do some market research. Order flowers for your girlfriend at valentine's day this year from Just Flowers, then order flowers for your Mom from FTD.com on Mother's Day. Let's see what was advertised, what you actually paid, and then see what you get (if you are lucky enough to get anything at all). BTW you will want to create a dummy email address for this exercise so your real email doesn't get spammed.

 

[jamie]

Jamie,

It's interesting that the entire first paragraph of your post describes how we operate our business and the problems we have due to our methods and yet on the last paragraph you make the statement that you don't presume to know what type of business we run.

Having said that, lets address your concept of "intercepting an order"....in a nutshell isn't this what every retailer strives to do? I suspect that there is not a soul on this board that would not "intercept" a fair share of their competitors business if they had the means to do so.

As for the advertising tactics of some on line merchants, sure some cross the line however offering a $5.00 discount while charging a $15.00 processing fee is not unethical or dishonest as long as it is not hidden from the consumer. Do you advertise all your pricing with Delivery included or is it an additional charge on top of the prices you quote.

This board tends to focus on perceived evils of OG's and WS's almost exclusively, unfortunately this means that little attention is paid to many of the other issues that face our industry. Sure there is some lip service paid to poor fulfillers and under-filling but generally when these topics come up they are quickly excused as something that the fulfiller MUST do because of the WS's.

Trust me, The wire services do not have 100% of my support as I believe they could make a number of changes that would be beneficial to the industry as a whole. By the same token I don't believe they are the sole cause of all the woes that befall this industry. Earlier in this thread I brought up the fact that over 60% of consumers (depending on whose stats you use) buy their flowers from grocery stores or big boxes, this is a number that scares me. It is a very clear indication that the local mom & pop shop is going the way of the local butcher, baker or candlestick maker. As I recall a survey I read for Valentine's 2011 indicated that online purchases of flowers from national companies only accounted for somewhere around 10% - 12% (basically the crumbs falling off the table).

When all is said and done the success or failure of any business still rests on the shoulders of the actual operator, after all there are still a few butchers and bakers around. What I have suggested and will continue to strongly recommend is quit looking for scape goats and just get on with business.

As for our business, what we really try to do as a company is provide our owner/ operators with every possible advantage (including "intercepting every order" we can from their competitors) we can.

If someone called my shop and said "Is this Joy's Florist?" I would say "No" If they said "Do you deliver to Athens Tennessee?" I would say "No but I can get that taken care of for you for a small service fee"

Do I charge a separate delivery? Yes, but only if they get it delivered. Are you insinuating that is somehow deceptive? I don't advertise "Delivery Included" I don't send a $50 peace lily out of town without a delivery fee attached. I don't purposefully DECEIVE anyone. My customers can trust me although it takes many of them a while to get used to such a novel idea.

Doug you can't defend OGs who intercept orders. They are indefensible. They are not running an honest business. You seem like a pretty sharp guy, you know how the online flower purchase works. A customer decides to shop for flowers online. If they are naive and shopping by price, the odds are pretty good that they will get sucked into FTD.com or Just Flowers or someone else who tries deceptively to lure customers with low price points. The customer is then flooded with options so they invest a considerable amount of time shopping for "just the right" arrangement. They finally choose something (probably cheap), refuse the up-sells, type in their information, type in the recipient's information, ponder "just the right" card message, type that in, choose to pay, put in their credit card information hit "confirm" then they see a "processing fee" that could be as high or higher than 50% of the cost of their flowers. There was no mention of that before. The customer feels miffed, sometimes outraged, but they still place the order because they have already invested half an hour or more into this process. Then they see what they actually get considering the money they spent, and it adds insult to injury.

The whole process is designed to get them to invest time and energy into the purchasing process, to get emotionally involved before the other shoe drops. That way they will feel like they will lose more time by continuing to shop for a more honest option. It is a sales process that we all use every day on the phone and in person, but most of us do not abuse it to fleece our customers because we want to continue to do honest business with them the next time they need a florist.

Sure, this is the customers own fault for trusting that an online merchant would actually run an honest business. I just don't want to make my living that way, and most of the people on this board probably don't either

 

[Doug Munro]

This thread is going around in the same circle that this board as a whole tends to ....."Real" Florists versus the "Dark Side"(evil forces arrayed against them). As I am trying to get some work done so that I can take a week off starting Thursday ( yes , even those unjustifiably accused of being OG's get time off), I will relate something that occurred today that proves there is still a sense of humor on this board.

Just minutes ago a package addressed to me arrived at our office, as I did not recognize the sending company and knew I had not ordered anything the package was put through a rigorous set of safety checks, x-rayed, chemical tests swabs, and submerged in water (the same ones that all suspected OG's use) prior to opening it. The actual opening of the package was delegated to a junior staff member and was performed at a safe distance from the building while I took refuge in the company panic-room (something that many suspected OG's have installed). Thankfully the package proved safe (which saved us rehiring a junior staff person) and turned out to actually be a gift from an individual on this board.

Here is a picture



Thank You Ryan, I will wear it with pride

 

[theRKF]

Here is a picture

View attachment 15148

Thank You Ryan, I will wear it with pride

Looks awesome!! Have you been working out?

 

[Doug Munro]

Looks awesome!! Have you been working out?

No I haven't been working out, must be the sheer weight of all those orders I am supposedly handling.

 

[Matrix]

one last thing then I am going to lunch.

Matrix,
I believe that the best way to serve a customer is to actually serve him/her. My statement about having a van in that area means that unless you are going make the arrangement then don't advertise here.
I know some companies will, but they are doing a disservice to the customer because they are injecting themselves into a middleman position that is completely unnecessary and extremely expensive. There is no solution for this business model to survive in an honest and profitable manner. It is a flat out fleecing of the customer.

I believe that unless the flowers from your cooler is going to end up in the hands of the recipients then you do not need to advertise for those orders. If a customer sends flowers to many different places in the world and only wants to deal with one merchant then we should be available and make a profit, but that is not where the bulk of "wire out" money comes from.

I have no problem with grocery stores because we don't sell the same product. If you are selling grocery store quality products then you are in trouble.

Also, you should really do some market research. Order flowers for your girlfriend at valentine's day this year from Just Flowers, then order flowers for your Mom from FTD.com on Mother's Day. Let's see what was advertised, what you actually paid, and then see what you get (if you are lucky enough to get anything at all). BTW you will want to create a dummy email address for this exercise so your real email doesn't get spammed.

Hi Jamie. I had an interesting flower shopping experience the other day here in Ottawa (900 000 person city). The short version is after 2 florists that had no website, one that listed the wrong number, one with wilted flowers, I finally came across one that had what I wanted. This after driving around for almost 1.5 hours. My experience there was not a pleasant one. And one where better web presence would have made my life so much easier. Florists and OG's have flaws, nobody is doing things perfectly right. I do however root for the florists because I believe in passion in everything a person does, and I suspect the average florist is just more passionate about things in general.

As for the concept of middlemen and their place in our economy, they are everywhere. In my experience from the other day where I drove around like an idiot for 1.5 hours, I would have much rather used a middle man. I buy hotel rooms from websites that act as middlemen all the time. They're convenient for me.

We have two competing stores in Ottawa, Shoppers drug mart and Walmart. Walmart has everything at a fraction of the price from Shoppers. Yet I often go to Shoppers because of their location, or their hours, or just because I happen to drive past it. I'm paying some 20-25% more at Shoppers, and by choice. Is Shoppers scamming me? If an OG's website is easier to find, easier to use, is it scamming me the client? Landing on a website to me is just like driving past Shoppers. They built that Shoppers on the best street corner in my part of town, and they decided to have the best hours. They pay a lot of money to make themselves that prominent. They charge more, and people pay it.

Where I think you and I meet in the middle is that I HATE the idea of people paying for more, and getting less. And if every experience through an OG is like this, than obviously the system is completely broken. Like I said I would never order my flowers any other way than direct from a florist, because it's simply what I'm in the habit of doing. That said I'm just not prepared to completely discount what OG's do on the basis of profit margins and geography. Something in that doesn't quite sit right with me, although clearly I'm having issues properly expressing it. I have to think about it a bit more.