FTD's New Selection Guide.....

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Mikey the Flower Guy

Mikey the Flower Guy

It's a GREAT DAY to live, and love!
Nov 10, 2002
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Dundas, Ontario, Canada
www.hamiltonflorists.com
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just received our new guide, and I must say, it's a piece of "art" in itself.
It entails all those things that members have been asking for...I'm very curious about the design of the centre rib "hinge" on the main guide....it's pretty unique and ingenious...sort of like a "rolling hinge".
No-nonsense designs and almost accurate SRP's...for many of the selections...
Mike
 
Selection Guide better be TOP NOTCH

The one thing that the WS's always do is publish a Selection Guide with brilliant and beautiful pictures(studio). It does give a wow to the customers. Heck they should be providing "the best photo selection guide" for the paying members anything else would be hazardous to THEIR BOTTOM LINE and the members too.
 
And what price are you paying for such a wonderous item, if I had to pay for the last one , which was opened no more than once a week other than holidays it would have cost about $5 per opening , not justifiable in my store and we will not pay for this latest waste of paper either that or we will resign .
 
I think the new FTD Selection guide is great!

The book is good looking and easy to use, the SRP's are much better.. I'll bet we only change about 20%.. We use the book alot, since we have FOL it has the same (or will have when updated) images so my customers are looking at the same pictures.. we put the CD on all the PC's in our store with the updated prices so when someone is on the phone we can easily key in the code # or the name, or part of the name of the bouquet and easily find it
My designers can look at the image & recipe on the screen as they design it..

I strongly encourage my customers to order from the book because then the delivering florist has no questions (and no excuses) about what is ordered & what it should look like

I use some of these images on my reminder postcards, and holiday mailings so I can seamlessly enter orders without the extra steps to find out what was ordered

Our country has become very Standards educated (eg: ISO 2000... ISO 9000) and my customers want to know what to expect.. If they want something unique than we handle it differently, a description or call to the delivering florist to find out what is available..

In the past year I have had 3 brides order off the website (picture book) because they could not come home before the wedding

So... I use this tool often,, and extensively,, and therefore it is very cost effective for me. I am a traditional (if there is such a thing today) florist and I depend on my shop making money for me to get a salary

Sure it costs more than the design knife I am working with but lots less than my van, my store sign, my inventory (which is smaller because I have this 'virtual inventory' tool) and any of my coolers.

Every florist is different.. but it sure works for me.. and to all you non wire service people,, I understand it and all the rest of the "tools" from the wire service did not fit into your business plan.. but that doesn't make this a bad thing for those of us that it does work for..
'
 
Great for you Carol , but it is much of a help here and a total waste of our money. If it works for you thats great, I don't think that every other year it is neccesary to keep an FTd department in a job by putting out a new guide, if you have a captive customer (FTD members) then you will find a way to suck more money out of them (NewGuide). This is a cash cow that doesn't do me one iota of good . Don't carry their containers and don't need this guide.
 
theflowersmith said:
We just got our new selection guide, too. In the past, it's taken me so long to put prices in for customers and designers. Please share your ideas as to the quickest or easiest way to do this. :tread:
Click to expand...
I also see this as a long laborious task that I dread. I would also like any hints in simplifying this job.
 
Pricing selection guide

There are several ways to do this.. I prefer to price each picture and then adjust the mark-up rate to the price I require. but you can also just increase theoverall mark-up for the entire guide & it will adjust the 'store prices' higher by the %.. or you can go in and change each individual item's price to yours and this will change all the prices according to the recipes/ I like to individually look at the pictures to make sure someone didn't leave out something noticable.. but didn't find any this time
BEST OF ALL.. after doing the new prices on my PC I just copied off some files and replaced these files on all the other PC's in the store so they all have the same prices as my computer.. this way we are all on the same page and now when a customer calls we can see the picture & correct price immediately on any PC or in the picture book or in the workbook..
Oh how I like technology that actually saves me time..
Oh.. and I can print off these prices and fax or email to FOL to make sure they have my current prices for my website..
So I am really using this TOOL alot
 
How do you "price" everything ELSE Patty??....

so tell me....is it NOT a bit of an arduos task in pricing ANYTHING in your shop??
Apply the same "principles" that you currently use....IF you DON'T price other items in your shop, then don't price out the selection guide.
Mike
 
When the TF book came out last fall we priced everything with the cd selection disk with our flower costs per stem on the entire directory. This way it will show the real cost of the arrangments for your shop not some made up SRP. Too many folks take the SRP and stick with it but that will only lead to more discount work from you.
 
Mikey the Flower Guy said:
so tell me....is it NOT a bit of an arduos task in pricing ANYTHING in your shop??
Apply the same "principles" that you currently use....IF you DON'T price other items in your shop, then don't price out the selection guide.
Mike
Click to expand...
Pricing an arrangement for the cooler or filling an order is ONE at a time and takes a couple minutes. The WHOLE selection guide is how many arrangements? Very time consuming, that's all. With the TF guide just coming last year and our new wedding selection guide I had to price, I am just selection guided out, ya know? It's not difficult to do, just time consuming.
 
Handy to have Einstien on staff

Has any one noticed the very strange numbering that is taking place in this new book? I do not have it in front of me but trying to find some of the items when you get an incoming order can be a bit of a hoot.

An S29 item in the corner of a page that has two S24 items. I saw a page that was S14 stuck between two pages of things in the S20s

I also noticed this rather bizarre numbering in the B section.

If there is an equation that will simplfy this please share it with me.
 
You Members will figure it out...

You will master that Plan someday. Maybe the Directory too? or the Selection Guide?

See you members have no idea what is going to be printed until you get your copy of the book. After the fact you realize that you wouldn't ever offer that product to anyone.

When I'm at the OFC 2004 this year I'll let you touch my "Stick" and LUC Hands Off! LOL!

Patty, you and Neil need to" cop a ride" in our visit to Canada in October...Two Michigan Florist Flowerchatiees at the Falls?. Oh what fun...better than talking here on this board...
 
Blue Oyster Cult said:
See you members have no idea what is going to be printed until you get your copy of the book. After the fact you realize that you wouldn't ever offer that product to anyone.
Click to expand...

Waaahhhh - Cry me a river.
 
Hey Doug.....

seems the whole book is somewhat out of wack.....the numbering is almost random....didn't notice it at first...
Nike
 
just curious.

Do you find that the srp is using with a 20% labor cost and the containers are priced out at the largest quantity buy in..


Just a comment made to me by a fellow florist priceing out her book.
 
Mikey the Flower Guy said:
seems the whole book is somewhat out of wack.....the numbering is almost random....didn't notice it at first...
Nike
Click to expand...
As a tool that is supposed to be used daily, it will unfortunately cause confusion. I am very confused as to why this was adpoted.
D
 
YEAH.. the numbering is part old & part new

they should have been renumbered but did not do that (maybe because of .com not wanting to re key stuff).. but since I am using the disc on my PC i just enter the name or part of the name or the item number and it pulls up immediately.. I do not anticipate using the workbook much.. this year.. the PC is much easier to use..
 
I must have been a Luddite in another incarnation.

carol said:
they should have been renumbered but did not do that (maybe because of .com not wanting to re key stuff).. but since I am using the disc on my PC i just enter the name or part of the name or the item number and it pulls up immediately.. I do not anticipate using the workbook much.. this year.. the PC is much easier to use..
Click to expand...

Never bothered loading the disk before. I decided to drag myself into 21st century. I quess I'll have to work with the pricing aspect because all my arrangements are over $1000.00. Looks good but probably wont fly.
 
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