how do you send??

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genie

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Jan 19, 2005
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Doniphan,
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Missouri
Fortunately my shop sends 3 times the orders that we receive. I love it like that. My question to you who slam the wire services (they deserve it) is
how do you send your orders. I am the only FTD shop in my town, have Mercury & a pos system--we are lazy? spoiled? love the convenience of typing a few words & sending the order on it's way. If I were to be ws free all these would have to be called out with a c.c.
Please--some info on how you do it. I'm not sure I want to be ws free.
I am a top 1000 sender, buy no ads, no extra listings, don't even list my toll free # because that costs extra. Being a one member town I get dirt cheap dues, don't buy anything from them except sometimes close outs & on a rare occasion a holiday container. I get a rebate every month for sending that usually covers all my fees. :newbie
 
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genie, you are one of the few shops for which FTD membership probably makes sense! Watch your statement.....:FTDme
Rock on...............
 
Good for you Genie. We were the only member here for many years, had the small town monthly etc but were still hammered with low sending fees, reciprocity fees, QA fees and after over 30 years told them bye. We send lots during holiday months but non-holiday not so much. I'm still playing with Teleflora's trial membership but they have two other shops here that produce garbage (even worse now that one has new owners) and if they continue to keep them, I'll be WS free. How I'll send? I'll either pass along 800 numbers or phone numbers to shops I've used in the past or will send by credit card.
 
Rock said:
genie, you are one of the few shops for which FTD membership probably makes sense! Watch your statement.....:FTDme
Rock on...............
Click to expand...

Rock, I know what you mean. I go over the statement with fine tooth comb. Since I don't purchase their many money makers there isn't much on the statement, but I check each item. As to the statement--my husband (who isn't a florist) & I were at a seminar last year. He heard a comment that piqued his interest. he heard one florist say to another, Oh, I don't check our statement, that's what I pay them for--meaning the wire service. He asked me about it--Oh, how I wish I had heard them talking because I would have given them a ws 101 lesson. We rarely get charged for purchases in error, but other shops almost every month make mistakes, like sending an order merc & then making a claim in an rec. I'm sure most of these are honest mistakes, but you have to check off every charge. Another mistake (in our favor) is that several months after the order (a call in) the other shop has never claimed it.
 
How we send outgoing

We have been wire service free for over five years. We send out 50 to 100 orders in non holiday months thru Fasnet and IFA. This costs us .25 per order that is sent electronically which includes orders that can be faxed. Orders that have to be telephoned cost us $1.00. Our actual cost for Aug was .34 per order and Sep was .38 so you can see that the great majority are sent out electronically. We type the order into our FAS system and send it thru Fasnet. We have an electronic directory as part of the FAS System. We get only 2 or 3 IFA orders back in any month and also our web site is integrated through FAS so our web orders also come up on our FAS system. We pay .25 for each incoming order weather IFA or from our web site. As a FAS user we do not pay the $25.00 monthly fee to belong to IFA. The outgoing orders are all processed through our credit card.

We don't get any rebates but we don't have any wire service monthly fees and no inferior and overpriced containers to worry about. Sure we lost incoming volumn but we don't have to deal with underpriced orders and other problems I read about here.
 
Genie, Why don't you try e-mailing some orders every month and see how it goes? If you're top 1000 sender I'm sure you've got a good database of preferred shops. I'm sure all of these shops have e-mail.

Are you planning on keeping the POS? Not sure of the accounting end of it, but this is my thought...Type in the order as you would on POS/Mercury using the customers preferred payment method, complete the sale so a ticket prints out. Instead of wiring it out at this point, do a 'ticket search', pull the order up on your screen and e-mail it. Receiving shop will then have the complete ticket. You'll just need to give them your credit card info to charge it to. I would make sure they send you a confirmation that they received your e-mail.

You can then hang onto the original hard copy to keep track of your credit cards, or start a separate file in excel which would tally them up as you go.

Use a card with frequent flyer miles and take yourself on vacation every year.
 
mona said:
Genie, Why don't you try e-mailing some orders every month and see how it goes? If you're top 1000 sender I'm sure you've got a good database of preferred shops. I'm sure all of these shops have e-mail.

Are you planning on keeping the POS? Not sure of the accounting end of it, but this is my thought...Type in the order as you would on POS/Mercury using the customers preferred payment method, complete the sale so a ticket prints out. Instead of wiring it out at this point, do a 'ticket search', pull the order up on your screen and e-mail it. Receiving shop will then have the complete ticket. You'll just need to give them your credit card info to charge it to. I would make sure they send you a confirmation that they received your e-mail.

You can then hang onto the original hard copy to keep track of your credit cards, or start a separate file in excel which would tally them up as you go.

Use a card with frequent flyer miles and take yourself on vacation every year.
Click to expand...

Easier said than done. You can't "complete" a sale unless you show some method of payment somehow. This would not be good on the accounting end. Messy.
 
Mona - you mean you email them your customer information as well?
 
Davemisch said:
We have been wire service free for over five years. We send out 50 to 100 orders in non holiday months thru Fasnet and IFA. This costs us .25 per order that is sent electronically which includes orders that can be faxed. Orders that have to be telephoned cost us $1.00. Our actual cost for Aug was .34 per order and Sep was .38 so you can see that the great majority are sent out electronically. We type the order into our FAS system and send it thru Fasnet. We have an electronic directory as part of the FAS System. We get only 2 or 3 IFA orders back in any month and also our web site is integrated through FAS so our web orders also come up on our FAS system. We pay .25 for each incoming order weather IFA or from our web site. As a FAS user we do not pay the $25.00 monthly fee to belong to IFA. The outgoing orders are all processed through our credit card.

We don't get any rebates but we don't have any wire service monthly fees and no inferior and overpriced containers to worry about. Sure we lost incoming volumn but we don't have to deal with underpriced orders and other problems I read about here.
Click to expand...


We also have FAS and IFA. Do you have trouble finding coverage for certain orders? The IFA network is expanding, but there have been times when they couldn't place an order for us.
 
swtpea said:
Easier said than done. You can't "complete" a sale unless you show some method of payment somehow. This would not be good on the accounting end. Messy.
Click to expand...
You'd complete it with customers credit card, then give receiving florist your credit card. But as Bloomz pointed out, that would then pass along my customers info. It sounded too easy as I was typing it out...Oh well, back to the idea board. You're right. messy accounting.
 
to complete sale...

How about putting Gift certficate as the method of payment, and at the end of the year realize that this was a wire out and apply it correctly at the end of the year. This way you can complete the sale, just not send it as a wire out.
 
Sending through FAS-IFA

AMB said:
We also have FAS and IFA. Do you have trouble finding coverage for certain orders? The IFA network is expanding, but there have been times when they couldn't place an order for us.
Click to expand...

IFA is the only way we have to send. Sure there have been times when they couldn't get an order through but it has usually been some out of the way place where the wire services can't get to either.

The ability to get orders through has certainly improved over the years. Do the Fasnet staff try harder because we send a good volume and they know we have no alternative? I don't know the answer to that, but we are satisfied with their service.

For Christmas we have an outgoing special "Out of town Christmas orders placed by Dec 12th will be transmitted for a $1.00 service fee (regularly $5.00)".
 
Davemisch said:
IFA is the only way we have to send. Sure there have been times when they couldn't get an order through but it has usually been some out of the way place where the wire services can't get to either.

The ability to get orders through has certainly improved over the years. Do the Fasnet staff try harder because we send a good volume and they know we have no alternative? I don't know the answer to that, but we are satisfied with their service.

For Christmas we have an outgoing special "Out of town Christmas orders placed by Dec 12th will be transmitted for a $1.00 service fee (regularly $5.00)".
Click to expand...

In our experience, the FAS/IFA team always gives maximum effort when placing orders, without regard to sending volume.

I like your "outgoing special" idea - let us know how it works out for you.
 
Outgoing Special

AMB said:
In our experience, the FAS/IFA team always gives maximum effort when placing orders, without regard to sending volume.

I like your "outgoing special" idea - let us know how it works out for you.
Click to expand...

We have done this outgoing special for about 15 years. It really works. We mail a John Henry custom flyer just about Thanksgiving time to about 10,000 active customers. The people who are sending multiple orders really appreciate it. We also do a poinsettia special. A 6.5 inch branched plant grown here is $25.00. We used to offer free delivery if ordered by Dec 12 for delivery by Dec 16 in our greater Buffalo delivery area. Since delivery went to 7.00 last year we are saying save $5.00 per local delivery and pay only $2.00 delivery per plant. The people ordering several plants get their order in early.

FAS System has been working fine all day as usual.
 
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