FTD-WalMart Deal Implodes?

[CHR]

I was working on a project today and went to WalMart.com to compare their FTD arrangement prices to FTD.com's and to local FTD affiliate florists.

Lo and behold, no FTD products on WalMart's site at all. There are still a couple drop-ship rose bushes with teddy bears from another vendor, but zip from the Mercury Man.

So I Googled "FTD WalMart" and found a couple message board threads that tell tales of woe from purchasers of FTD items from WalMart.com for Mother's Day, most notably this one:
fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/827758/ (please cut & paste this link in a new browser so there aren't any referrers from FC.)

Yes, you read it right:
The Pink Lily Bouquet (with a FREE vase according to one of the posts) for $9.92 + $9.94 shipping

or

1 Dz pink roses (no vase) for $9.92 + $9.94 shipping



And the best part is....

They were supposed to be florist delivered items.

Follow the thread and you'll see member after member posting the receipt of an email saying:

Unfortunately, there is no filling florist available in your recipient's delivery area. We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause. Please contact us as soon as possible so we can discuss other possible options.

FTD members, it's YOUR fault the flowers didn't get there.

(And we wonder why FTD has the new $10-20 REF penalty in place? It's the only way they can possibly make a profit on those kinds of orders.)

A few buyers did get deliveries:

mom just received her's and there are three short stems of lillies with 6 flowers and one small stem of filler in a ittie bittie glass vase.
nvm. a quick call to WalMart and they are resending another tomorrow. rep told me that they have received tons of complaints about the pink lily bouquets yesterday and today.

1st was a disaster- came with 3 single 4" lillys in a dickie cup YIKES! Florist said thats what you get for 9 bucks! She was a really nasty lady, FTD contact said "sorry" florist is nasty - we will refund your money

2) 2nd order never arrived to my mom in Napa- called FTD hold time exceeds 30 minutes, wal mart phone customer service a nightmare, could never get through after holding for 20 minutes.

3) 3rd order arrived in RI and was very nice, in glass vase & as advertised.
So one for three at WalMart. FTD refunded my second (san diego) bouquet.

mine was delivered yesterday and it was not as it supposed to be. i called and they were supposed to redeliver w/another florist today b4 noon. it's past 1p.m. and mom still waiting.
when i called yesterday, the rep mentioned that many people have called and complaint all day thurs. & all day fri. that the lily bouquet is not what they ordered and having to redeliver.

ok, this is a bad deal after all. the 2nd delivery of the lilies came after 3p.m. as supposed to b4 noon and it was still not what was shown on FTD. it came in a tall skinny round vase (about 1/2 inch taller than the last tiny vase). flowers are lilies but not the ones shown. it was a smaller lilies of a dark red color (not pretty). mom wasn't too keen but said it was ok. no way it was ok with me!

just got off the phone w/WalMart. the rep was really nice and apologetic. i told him i don't want another redelivery because mom can't wait all day at home for it. rep offered a full refund. he also mentioned that he has been getting calls all day on this lily bouquets.

It seems to all depend on the individual florist. My mom in CT said it was beautiful! She got 7 stems of lillies, plus a bunch of status and the block vase just as pictured. My aunt in NY got 4 tiger lillies (in full bloom at delivery) and 2 status in a small round red vase. I guess this validates the saying "you get what you pay for' or at least that you take a chance. I assumed being that it was WalMart and FTD that they'd be reliable. Live and learn.

One guy even went to WalMart to find the FTD bouquet:

btw, i just went to WalMart to see if they had that lily bouquet advertised, let's say, they never had anything like that in the first place. the place was like a zoo. tons and i mean tons of rose & flower bouquets for $10 and some in vases were priced at $30+. however, the rose and flower bouquets were half dead because they were picked over and were thrown all over not sitting in water (i wouldn't want them even given to me for free). and the made up vases weren't that nice either.

Was the price promotion the worst typo in the history of Mother's Day flowers?

Did WalMart just pluck a price out of thin air and try to force FTD to deal with it?

Did an idiot in Downer's Grove actually approve of this deal to goose the 'new customer acquisitions' numbers for M Day?

Did FTD really try and send these orders to florists for $19.99?

No matter how you slice it, this really isn't good news for us since the brand, synonymous with florists, looked sooooo bad.

And it's no wonder consumers think $35 is a top-of-the-line-bouquet when FTD/WalMart will sell them 3 stems of stargazers in a square glass vase for less than $10.

Lastly, is WalMart finished with FTD? They can lose life-long customers over these botched low-price sales. It's a far bigger loss over the lifetime of a customer for WalMart than it is for FTD.

Anybody got any inside info about this?

 

[Carrington]

No inside info I'm afraid but whoa ... not good. Will track it from here and see what I can find. Although Interflora not associated with Tesco a degree of similarity in message to consumer I fear as per my editorial blog on website. Hmmm. C

 

[sfox]

Pay attention

Pay attention to the comments made by the senders, they talk about "florists". The consumers are focusing on florists not on FTD. It's seems consumers feel that FTD is the "Boss" and the florists are the bad workers.

 

[CHERYL BAKIN]

Cathy:
Here on the east coast, we noticed about Nov/Dec 2007 that flowers seemed to be removed from the local Walmarts & Superwalmarts, just after Hills Floral Group filed for bankruptcy & then liquidation.

Seems that Hills (at least here) was the "filler" & "supplier" for the walmart stuff.......not sure, but somehow feel that they were also supplied the supposed "ftd" branded products.

FTD logo was no-whre to be seen in our local stores for MD. Lots of rose bushes, and a few cut flowers (bunches) -- nothing like they had before.

Cheryl

 

[Sher]

I was working on a project today and went to WalMart.com to compare their FTD arrangement prices to FTD.com's and to local FTD affiliate florists.

Lo and behold, no FTD products on WalMart's site at all. There are still a couple drop-ship rose bushes with teddy bears from another vendor, but zip from the Mercury Man.

So I Googled "FTD WalMart" and found a couple message board threads that tell tales of woe from purchasers of FTD items from WalMart.com for Mother's Day, most notably this one:
fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/827758/ (please cut & paste this link in a new browser so there aren't any referrers from FC.)

Yes, you read it right:
The Pink Lily Bouquet (with a FREE vase according to one of the posts) for $9.92 + $9.94 shipping

or

1 Dz pink roses (no vase) for $9.92 + $9.94 shipping



And the best part is....

They were supposed to be florist delivered items.

Follow the thread and you'll see member after member posting the receipt of an email saying:
FTD members, it's YOUR fault the flowers didn't get there.

(And we wonder why FTD has the new $10-20 REF penalty in place? It's the only way they can possibly make a profit on those kinds of orders.)

A few buyers did get deliveries:







One guy even went to WalMart to find the FTD bouquet:

Was the price promotion the worst typo in the history of Mother's Day flowers?

Did WalMart just pluck a price out of thin air and try to force FTD to deal with it?

Did an idiot in Downer's Grove actually approve of this deal to goose the 'new customer acquisitions' numbers for M Day?

Did FTD really try and send these orders to florists for $19.99?

No matter how you slice it, this really isn't good news for us since the brand, synonymous with florists, looked sooooo bad.

And it's no wonder consumers think $35 is a top-of-the-line-bouquet when FTD/WalMart will sell them 3 stems of stargazers in a square glass vase for less than $10.

Lastly, is WalMart finished with FTD? They can lose life-long customers over these botched low-price sales. It's a far bigger loss over the lifetime of a customer for WalMart than it is for FTD.

Anybody got any inside info about this?

This so clearly begs loudly for blogs by all of us educating the consumer as to who really is a florist and what defines a Real Florist....we lose more consumers daily due to the actions of "partnering" like this done by FTD and I am sure TF than we can imagine and many will never come back...somehow we need to come up with a term that defines them for what they are without sounding like sour grapes...good grab on the articles Chr...as usually I am convinced you never sleep!
Sher

 

[Lizi]

Someone on this board needs to come up with a clear summary of what a REAL florist is and then we need to all market ourselves in that way. I'm not clever enough with words to be the one to do that, but it is what we need. It's not FTD that gets the bad rap it is us. I ran into the same thing at MD and educated the customers to the difference between ordering from FTD.com, 1800Flowers and other internet order gathering sites. They were amazed to hear that not all florist are FTD or Teleflora. It is what has been burned into their brains for so long it just what they think. The REAL florist will have to ban together and stay strong. Why can't we start some kind of Florist Association here on FC? How would we go about doing that? What standard would we set for ourselves and how could we keep it inexpensive for the REAL florist to become a part of? The florist of today will have to keep changing along with the industry, and it seems to be changing on a daily basis.

 

[cherrie]

What about everyone joining Direct2 florist?

The mechanism is in place.
From what I can tell, they need members???

I think the way they price is awkward.
I realize that they include taxes.
I think that we, as members, would need to price out products so that the numbers seem logical with taxes included.

Ex - for me a $59.99 boka plus delivery $9.95 plus tax is $70.94
I would price it on the site at $69.99 or $71.99
Something that makes sense when the consumer sees it.

I would also think that they should probably revamp their site a little to make it VERY CLEAR to the consumer that this is totally the florists dollar and ALL of their money, except the 6 bucks, goes to the delivery of their arrangement.

To say that we should create our own sending network is easy, to do it is another thing.

As far as orders that I receive directly from florists, I try to do no tax, but many times the sending shop neglects to send me their tax exempt certificate. They don't make it easy.
Plus, I don't get asking for the 20 percent discount. I would never ask another shop to do this. As individuals, we are not a wire service, we do not have fees associated. We should respect on honor each other's clients and give them a great product for the dollars they spend.

My two cents.

I hope that everyone on her filed out the Teleflora survey.
I will never sell another container for Teleflora, at the expense of it costing me more to fill it ($49.99 delivered for that stupid pink vase with lillies and roses and alstro). Never.

 

[RJD]

CHR,

Why are all those FTD and WalMart links affiliate links in your first post?

 

[RJD]

Someone on this board needs to come up with a clear summary of what a REAL florist is and then we need to all market ourselves in that way. I'm not clever enough with words to be the one to do that, but it is what we need.

Because we're not all the same! Why don't you come up with a definition of what you are, and market yourself? Or, start a thread to try and define the term?

 

[CHR]

CHR,

Why are all those FTD and WalMart links affiliate links in your first post?

Looks like they indeed were. Not a surprise since all the coupon, discount and shopping comparison sites use affiliate links. That's how they get paid.

I re-checked today and still FTD products are completely gone from WalMart.com. The 'how to order' page is still there, but that's it.

Can you imagine being the CEO of United Online, and only two weeks after announcing your purchase of FTD, seeing your products gone from the largest retailer in the US?

 

[TOTO]

If $9.92, why not $5.92?

The only question left is: HOW LOW WILL THEY GO?

As SFOX pointed out, and the way their game was played, the consumers are left to believe that, DA FLORISTS failed them, and US WEE BEES were the weak link in this promotion.

I don't know about the rest of you WEE BEES, but it's one thing when a WS SKIMMER partners up, by making a choice to be in a FIGHT TO REACH THE BOTTOM, but it's a whole other thing when they try and drag the rest of us DOWN WITH THEM! I, fore one, have no intention of being an accessory to THEIR CRIME, before, during, or AFTER THE FACTS!

This link will be added to our website and I thank Cathy for her efforts!

 

[Kobe0007]

I saw this at mothers day. I am on FatWallet a lot (got a $200 MP3 player for $90 because of them). I was going to order the bouquet to see what it would look like but by the time I got there, Wal-Mart had removed it. Most people thought it was another pricing mistake. Earlier in the year, they had pre-orders for a Wii game and stated that the game would only cost $19.94 or something. After Wal-Mart found the mistake, they canceled everyones orders. I was surprised they didn't cancel these!