FTD.com arrangements

[BigBloomers]

Hummm, seems to me that we need to look at the real cost here. A $29.99 ws order from FTD.com is going to give you $20, then minus the cost of the roses even at $4.80 leaves you with $15.20. Take out the delivery charge which should be at least $6 and you now have $9.80. Take out the labor charge on this, and lets not forget that labor is not just the designer, it is also processing the roses and you have what? maybe $4 left? All of this for a bunch of wrapped roses that are not going to impress anyone because they look just like the roses you can buy at Safeway. IF you include a vase, even a cheap stock vase, then you can deduct another $1 or $2 bucks off of this and now you have wasted your time and roses and cooler spance for a whopping $2....... Now I am one of those people that believe that you can build your business by using the wire services wisley. However, I do not belive that taking cheap rose orders is a wise use...

Jim

Orders with a vase are $38.99...not arranged. Processing roses costs $.07 a rose...that includes filling the bucket, etc. And designing a wrapped? Hah! I have the driver do these....If you're designing a wrapped $30 rose bunch, you are crazy! We mostly buy them pre-wrapped with filler included...ANYONE can pull off the plastic, toss into some pretty cello and stick the card in. No design necessary. No skill necessary. Takes less than 5 minutes start to absolute finish. Takes up 2 proconas in the cooler. If we're short on cooler space, they're the first to get kicked out. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say it's a $1's worth of design time. I'll definitely give you the $6 delivery. So even if I have a slacker on board...or if cello costs more this week or whatever, we still have $7. And again....that still sucks. But I see a LOT of florists filling real ARRANGEMENTS for $30 and making a lot less profit because of the whole "I'm a skilled florist with creativity (pride) thing" goin on. What I'm saying is I'd rather have a high school kid wrap than have a designer making $14 an hour put together cheap carnation arrangements just so we can consider ourselves talented florists. Labor is what will kill me around here...so the less often I have to have one of my designers in, the better.

But I can see where you're coming from...If you really are having a designer arrange these, and processing perfectly, etc...The you will lose $$. The way I see it, for $29.99 delivered, they'll get just one step better than the grocery store...they won't be DOA. That's it. Embarrassed about the quality issue? ...Take your name off the enclosure. lol tee hee.

Oh, and who care if they're impressed or not? I thought the general consensus was that recipient marketing is a waste of time because people that receive flowers don't send them... HEck people that SEND them don't even remember WHO they use! I had a woman call today ranting about how we charged her cc. I said that's impossible unless she ordered something. She said, no way have I ever ordered from Big Bloomers. The I pulled up her order...from a week ago. Oops she said...I forgot that I sent flowers. Yeah, people don't remember unless you run them over with you van...That's why all of our logos are on the undercarriage.

(And that's why we want our vehicles out on the road...repetition...getting our name out there over,and over)

 

[jbarb]

"Oh, and who care if they're impressed or not? I thought the general consensus was that recipient marketing is a waste of time because people that receive flowers don't send them.."


Sorry,but I have to disagree. I never sent anything out of my shop that the customer would not be impressed with. I don't care what it was. Any attitude other wise is an invitation to going out of business. We built our entire customer base on marketing to recipients building both a local and an out of town customer base. My rolodex is full of out of town customers that used us once and were so pleased with the response that they got from the person that they were sending flowers too, they gave us their credit card number to keep on file. Our incoming wire service business dropped to about 5% of our total while direct sales climbed expotentially. One of our principles of business is that we never sent out flowers that looked like something you could buy at the grocery store.

 

[BigBloomers]

One of our principles of business is that we never sent out flowers that looked like something you could buy at the grocery store.

That's awesome...

There was a hint of sarcasm in that line 'o mine...I truly feel the same way about our stuff (that is, customer direct orders...or even "florist designed" ftd) ...But I can't say that for all the ftd recipe stuff, cuz I think almost ever single one of the recipes stink...and the bulk of the designs are completely talent-less. If you saw our event work and our personally created everday designs, they're very nice...But the ws stuff is typically garbage right from the get go...and that has nothing to do with us. So again, I'd rather send out an UNdesigned gift, than a cheaply arranged gift...no one can accuse us of being a crappy florist if the stuff wasn't meant to be arranged in the first place....Hence the preference for wrapped over vased or baskets.

Oh, and some neighborhoods do better with the "grocery store" look. If you're in a town with a lot of traditional values...or blue collar...or a significant amount of elderly...there's a good chance you'll do a lot better with "baskets of cheer" than with a tight cluster of poppies and mimosa in art glass. Some neighborhoods still like cheap, long lasting, and traditional...And very nice shops here put those "grocery store" arrangements together very nicely (whether they like to make em or not is a different story ).

So recipient marketing from FTD.COM INcoming orders works for you? What kind of results do you see from marketing to that select group?