help me with some New shop decisions

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hello. im so glad i found this board!
i am going thru my first startup. i was going to buy the flower shop that i work at but after alot of time and finding a WONDERFUL banker, he helped me realize how bad an idea it was. i can start up a new shop for half the money! i wish i could, but i had to seperate my emotion and do whats best for me. i am young without any children with good credit, why would i want to be in such debt on my first day open?
im going to start off very small-flowers and plants and the usual add ons-
cards, balloons, and select plush. no wire service, quickbooks pos and accounting software and 1000 sq foot of space.
instead of putting all of my $ into wire services, i will advertise more.
with all this planning-am i still crazy to start up a new flower shop?
the market is good, there is another shop in town but its really really ooollddd and "dusty." they dont carry much loose flowers and their style hasnt changed much since 1970. i want a cool, hip, style that hangs with the trends yet keeps the old ladies happy too.
blah blah blah, i would welcome any advice. thanks!
btw. is the woman who is getting out the business in missouri-do you still have your cooler?
 
where the heck??...

is Eudora anyway??
I think the BEST TIME in your life to take these kinds of chances is when you are young!!
I think the WORST TIME in your life to take these kinds of chances is when you are old!!
So long as your "banker" has opened your eyes to the start up failure rate, and so long as you have the financial staying power, and so long as you have the financial skillset to run a business, THEN, I'd say you have a bright future in this biz!!
Enthusiasm can be contagious....if your town is growing, and IF your town contains the demographics that you are looking for, and you don't "split" the business between yourself and the "other" dusty shop, then BOTH of you can co-exist, and make a living!!
IF I might be so bold.....ANYONE that asks me for this same sort of advice...I almost ALWAYS tell them it's advantageous to buy an existing business, over a new startup, but, NOT ALWAYS!!
This is one of the TOUGHEST BUSINESSES you can possibly choose, it's gonna require ALL of your inner strength, and vitality, and ALL the common sense you can muster....it's a great business to be in!!
 
Thanks for the reply!
The woman who owns the shop that I work in bought a new shop in a much busier town so now her old shop (the one i work in) has really languished. She hasnt paid much attention to it in 4 years, doesnt advertise and hasnt reinvested her money on anything in it. Its the only shop in town, so I dont think the customer list was worth a whole lot. I wasnt going to keep the name or the location, so there really wasnt any reason to pay all of the goodwill she was asking for. it only makes money because its the only one in town. after investigating the tax returns she wasnt taking any money home from the shop, it was more of a satellite shop to help the other one in the bigger town from flower emergencies.
eudora is in ne kansas. thanks again.
angela
 
Hi Sher,
its $9.99 per zip code. I have several cause i service alot in the area. you can get one or as many as you want., and you get the exclusive.
you come up as the top wedding florist in that area, the bride is propted to call your shop. Cool deal! oh yeah a one time fee for the set up, was $49. but i booked alot so its totally worth it! thats whay i gor so many zips go to the site and see i have the zip 33486 ( and 10 more) but you can see, fill out a quote and i will be the only florist showing as the wedding florist to call.
 
Frank said:
I wonder what happened to Edward? We haven't heard from him in a while.
Click to expand...

Frank, the last time I spoke with him, he had decided to not purchase the shop.something to do with the terms of the lease as I recall..his wife is still working with the present owners....he is in the comic book business and it does a whole lot better than flowers...go figure!
Sher
 
its $9.99 per zip code. I have several cause i service alot in the area. you can get one or as many as you want., and you get the exclusive.
you come up as the top wedding florist in that area, the bride is propted to call your shop. Cool deal! oh yeah a one time fee for the set up, was $49. but i booked alot so its totally worth it! thats whay i gor so many zips go to the site and see i have the zip 33486 ( and 10 more) but you can see, fill out a quote and i will be the only florist showing as the wedding florist to call.
Click to expand...

Welcome Million.

Wondering how long you have been a member of topweddingflorists, and are you associated with it in any way?
 
i have the service for 6months love it, and my friend started the sight, now i beleive in it , (gotta see to believe, friend or no friend) so i 'm thinking of helping her promote in spare time.
 
Ok...I gave it a whirl and got a email offering a listing for $10/zip. What kind of traffic is it generating for you? I find it a little hard to believe that such a small site could be bringing in that many leads, but hey who knows this *is* the information age...

Do you have a list of other happy campers?
 
This thread is stickied, but I don't see any posts since 2006. We bought our shop in October 2007 and would love to hear current comments on getting started. I have to admit we didn't have any floral experience when we started. But the opportunity was there and it was too good to pass up. Was it a mistake? After 8 months it's too late to ask that question :)

The old owner was very successful for 20 years, but towards the end she was just tired and ready to let it go. She stopped cultivating new business and relied on WS. We got rid of one bad employee and got a wonderful designer. Our business consists of both of the big bad WS and some very good house accounts. We've already dropped the FTD web site. I've been able to put the FTD products on the TF site. I've read all the opinions on using the WS. I'm interested in the other available services such as IFA. Has anybody had any success with these other services? What about some of the directory sites such as locateaflorist - are they worth the money?

Since we took over in October, we've been in the busiest part of the year. Now that MD is over, we're looking at more improvements. The shop had a real garage sale feel so we're trying to fix up the appearance. Has anybody had success offering gift items?

Hope it was okay to restart this thread! I look forward to hearing your comments!
 
Just found this and had to bump

CHR said:
$2500 in 'sales' would equate to roughly 45 incoming orders at an average of $55.

The cost on each of those orders (flowers, supplies, labor, delivery) would add up to well more than your estimated $500-600 dollars. Industry average is 30% in flowers/supplies, 20% in labor and $7.00 or so per delivery which totals out to $1565.

Take out the 27% WS commission/clearinghouse fees and $1 per order 'receiving fee' and your $2500 is reduced to $1780. Subtract the $1565 estimated cost and you have $215. IIRC that doesn't even cover dues or Mercury, let alone the full page ad.

When we quit FTD in 1999 we figured we needed to fill $30,000K in orders to break even with all the base dues and fees.

The money in wire services is on the sending side, not the fulfillment side (despite feeling busy) so most florists agree that one wire service is plenty ( or one too many, depending with whom you're talking. ;) )

Here at FlowerChat we have a Wire Service Cost to Overhead Calculator you might want to run your numbers over. The results will probably surprise both you and the present owners.

About those websites:

A customer searching for your shop in Google today will be offered a link to what used to be the shop's FTD hosted site. (see result #3) Follow the link and *bam* your customer is offered links to your competitors and to FTD itself.

Any florist that uses an FTD subdomain instead of their own URL - and then leaves FTD's webhosting program - suffers the same fate. No redirect to your own domain is offered AFAICT. Existing shop customers that bookmarked that URL may very well think you've gone out of business.

I can't find the Teleflora-hosted site in the first three pages of that search either but did locate it at the bottom of this page. It's a boilerplate template that has all the problems outlined here.

Uh*huh. All those hosting fees for 'results' that are currently working against the business.

As to the POS system, it sounds like Eagle. We have a user's forum here so you may want to ask other members for opinions on specifics about it.

You're asking the right questions and will get a range of answers. Bottom line is to understand the numbers, smoke and mirrors. Sounds like you're well on your way. :)
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This is one of the reasons Cathy Rocks people !!!!!!!!!!!! OLD THREAD !!!!
 
I believe Infinite is correct that the agreements with the wire services terminate when the business is sold, therefore think about it before you agree which (if any) to participate in. Keep in mind that customers are far more sophisticated today than they were 10 yrs ago and with a good website and some good marketing you can come up in searches online reducing or eliminating the need for any wire service.
Our CPA required a monthly spreadsheet to determine what, if any, merit there was to retaining wire services and we determined that for every dollor a wire service sends to us-we are reimbursed approximately $0.34 after all charges from that same service. The loss of gross income is of little consequence when you should be focused on the net profit of the business (that's what you actually get to keep!)
As for the which wire service to keep you may want to keep in mind; FTD is in the process of being sold to an online company (estimated to be completed in August 2008) and their CEO said (I paraphrase) that the shareholders are the most important thing to consider. While that may be the case, it should send a clear message to florists and FTD customers as to where their priorities are. As for Teleflora, after a few years of being hounded to try them again - we took advantage of their free trial from January to May and were not impressed. The ongoing monthly orders were not nearly enough to justify the expense (had it not been free) and the bulk of the orders we received over Mother's Day were rejected as they were for $30 including delivery. Again, hardly worth the effort and certainly NOT contributing to the bottom line.
Good luck and remember to make new mistakes instead of the same ones any of us have already made!!
 
I am a shop owner w/over 8 yrs of trying to decifier wire service charges. My background is a professional management of other companies w/floral design background of 20 years PT. I will tell you I was w/TF & FTD & paying over $1800.00 monthly for all the services, website (TF) 24 hrs service, etc. this does not incl. the 7% commision for wire service fees. You are correct in assuming you do not need both services & when you become the owner you will have to apply for membership in the wire service. I always thought that all orders were good if you know how to manage your resources, not true in this business. If you have a good business without the wires then get rid of them & capitalize on your 100% business & get more house accounts or corporate accts. I eliminated FTD this May, 1800 flowers 3 yrs ago, & now I am getting rid of TF. The fees are putting me in the red every month. I can do less work & make the same amount of money or more by not keeping them. I am in the process of creating my own website to feature my own work & not the WS cheap orders. If you market yourself right you will be much better off not carrying all their products & keep things a little more higher end. My current ticket sale average is $92, which is unheard of in this business according to the WS, sure it is if you don't sell yourself correctly. Goodluck!!!
 
Hi,

I'm going over my TF statement. I know I read somewhere in these forums that I can get rid of Zip Also Served By charges.

Another local florist here told me I can get rid of the Facility Directory Listing.

What about these:
Exp Dove/Dir Combo Listings
Red Card Ad
Toll Free Listing
Card Ad - 1 1/2 Inch (we got a credit for this one)
Directory Fee

And does anybody subscribe to all of their publications? I think that Floral Finance pub is 4-6 pages and they charge us $35.

TIA!
Lynn
Mary Clark's Florist
 
MaryClarksFlorist said:
What about these:
Exp Dove/Dir Combo Listings
Red Card Ad
Toll Free Listing
Click to expand...
A question for you: Why pay money to get more discounted business?

Why advertise your toll free number to florists that most likely will Dove you the order anyway? Toll Free numbers should be for your customers who are paying you 100%.

I'd advise every wire service member to strip their directory listings to the bare bones and save the bucks...
 
That's why I was asking what these thing are for - I'm trying to get rid of as much as possible. I like to ask here because if I ask TF, they'll tell me i can't survive without them! We dropped coop advertising before Christmas and they called us twice a day telling us we'd never get another order.
 
Directory Ads

You can cancel all of your ads because you really don't need them. You will be listed in the Directory just because you are a member. No one really uses the directories though because most shops are getting automated with either POS systems or Dove Network. For years I have dealt with all the costs & right now I am at a breaking point paying for all these so-called reasons why I can't live without them...you will be much better off use your hard earned $ for local advertising for 100% business. I have cut everything & now getting rid of last WS (TF) & when I get my own website finished they will be gone too. Goodluck!:SUI:
 
MaryClarksFlorist said:
That's why I was asking what these thing are for - I'm trying to get rid of as much as possible. I like to ask here because if I ask TF, they'll tell me i can't survive without them! We dropped coop advertising before Christmas and they called us twice a day telling us we'd never get another order.
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don't listen to them.. use your commen sense. just because you are new to the floral industry doesn't mean that you were born yesterday, right?

When I was thinking about opening a shop i definately had my doubts about the WS.. I looked at what they had for sale (the new pos or flowers or containers) in their directorys and all of it was sooo easy to order "Just put it on your clearing house statement" made me think of that country song.. I sold my soul to the company store!

anyway I couldn't find ANYONE who was suspicious like me and started doubting myself "well.. I am a newcomer ..maybe I'm overlooking something.." but I started doing some research on my own and came across the florist dective and that lead me here to flower chat!
I came across many who were using their common sense!


and now here I am with a shop that is doing fine and in the black without someone else making the calls about what to offer and what times to be open and what flowers to carry! wooo hooo!!!

keep asking all your questions..be encouraged there are many here that have gone through what you are going through!
 
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