Thank you, Cathy and everyone else, for this thread. What an education!
I'm so glad that we've chosen to get rid of our wire service. More importantly, I'm so glad when we got into the flower business four years ago I never relied on a wire service while I was learning how to market our flower business. (Mainly I didn't rely on the wire service because I didn't understand it and my business partner hated the concept from day one. He was influenced to hate it by the person he bought the business from).
That being said, I feel for all the flower businesses around the world that have grown up with wire services for decades. I can see why the decision to break loose from them can be detrimental (and possibly a blessing) but certainly no easy choice.
Reading all of these posts I'm trying my darndest to think of an alternative that individual florists can do and still be lucrative at the same time to all of us. I can't think of anything, but I'm going to keep thinking about it. I have the feeling that will all of this discussion you all have attempted to figure out an alternative and have not yet come up with anything that you see as being workable.
I have to say that my blood boiling wants to see these wire service corporations fall on their faces. I generally don't like to wish the negative for something because I know the ramifications of that can backfire, but I'm seething here reading this.
I'm so glad that we've chosen to get rid of our wire service. More importantly, I'm so glad when we got into the flower business four years ago I never relied on a wire service while I was learning how to market our flower business. (Mainly I didn't rely on the wire service because I didn't understand it and my business partner hated the concept from day one. He was influenced to hate it by the person he bought the business from).
That being said, I feel for all the flower businesses around the world that have grown up with wire services for decades. I can see why the decision to break loose from them can be detrimental (and possibly a blessing) but certainly no easy choice.
Reading all of these posts I'm trying my darndest to think of an alternative that individual florists can do and still be lucrative at the same time to all of us. I can't think of anything, but I'm going to keep thinking about it. I have the feeling that will all of this discussion you all have attempted to figure out an alternative and have not yet come up with anything that you see as being workable.
I have to say that my blood boiling wants to see these wire service corporations fall on their faces. I generally don't like to wish the negative for something because I know the ramifications of that can backfire, but I'm seething here reading this.
