How many have dropped WS this year.

Dropped bloomnet april of 2010 and tf may of 2011...Low and behold been seeinga profit every month since....and have the time and energy to worry about really important things like my health, marketing, giving my current customers good reasons to shop here....I don't miss their bs..I do miss the website automation and the already done for you holiday containers, but that is a matter of retraining the brain to start earlier and be organized better..Mafde it through Christmas just fine, even dealing with temporary partial blindness and didn't need to pull my hair out...
 
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We dropped TF this year, but picked back up FTD. TF always sent us tons of orders, whereas we found FTD to keep us light, and it seems we only get higher end orders from FTD, which were profitable. This Xmas, ws incoming was down tons (I think $6k), but (design) labor was down $1400, Delivery labor was down $1200, and cogs were down 23%, and, we were home at reasonable hours.

We don't take justflowers orders, and we have crazy high minimums for the wire services during any holidays, and that's broken down by zip code. We have in some cases been paid an additional $25 to fill an order because nobody else would.

TF called us this Xmas with a CC order, and then had the audacity to ask for the 20% discount. I burst out laughing!!!
 
Wow...63 years..that's a long relationship.

Also dropped FTD last year. Currently independent. I was also happy to sign up 1 1/2 year ago with them, now was happy to leave. Membership Fee had
started at $50, was $200 when I left!
 
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I just opened my shop a month ago and am starting TF this week. I have been very interested in reading all the joys of being wire free. I hadn't originally planned on getting involved, but they are offering a free period for newbies. I'm hoping it will help me get my name out there by delivering to people who might not know about me yet.
 
Sorry but it won't help. It will just dump orders on you that you loose money on.
I would call them and cancel and try running a year with out them. The get out part is hard and will in the long run cost you money.
 
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Bloom said:
I just opened my shop a month ago and am starting TF this week. I have been very interested in reading all the joys of being wire free. I hadn't originally planned on getting involved, but they are offering a free period for newbies. I'm hoping it will help me get my name out there by delivering to people who might not know about me yet.
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I trust you have read the fine print and you are able to escape their clutches before you pay for whatever is currently "free". Nothing is really free and you'll be paying to receive individual orders; penalities for not confirming deliveries back to them by their cut-off time and date; entries in the print directory; so-called quality assessment fee and a whole list of other things.

On FLowerchat and various facebook pages the general consensus seems to be get out of any WS control as soon as you can. I strongly recommend that you get out sooner rather than later...their "drugs" are powerful but do you no good.
 
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Flowermomma said:
Sorry but it won't help. It will just dump orders on you that you loose money on.
I would call them and cancel and try running a year with out them. The get out part is hard and will in the long run cost you money.
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agreed, The only reason you should be in a wire service is if you SEND more than 100 orders a month through the wire. If you are filling for a wire service then you are working to help your biggest competitor. Yes, TF may send you some orders, but you will barely break even on them.

A quick google search for a florist in East Stroudsberg, PA shows me 10 online-only florists who will be competing to KEEP CUSTOMERS OFF OF YOUR WEBSITE. They will send the order through TF, you will fill it, and they will get the credit for a job well done. The customer (who actually does buy flowers) will never be shown to you, and you will only have the contact info for the person receiving flowers (statistically a much less lucrative market).

FYI when a customer purchases flowers through a company such as Teleflora.com, FTD, Merrit, Wesley Berry, Just Flowers, etc. They will pay $15.00 MORE for the arrangement (via a service fee) than if they ordered from you directly. So, a $39.99 arrangement(including delivery) will cost the customer around $60. If you charge $9.99 for delivery and send a $30.00 bouquet (which is fair and honest), do you think the purchaser would feel like he got a good value after spending $60? I would feel like flowers were a ripoff, and in this case, they are.

Also, the cutoff date to be removed from the TF directory is March 1st, to be removed from the July directory. So if you stay in for a "free" six months, you will be legally obligated to pay fees until January unless you send in a qualifying termination letter before your time is up.

Also, filling wire service orders at V-day & M-day is a freaking nightmare. Your dove will spew orders continuously. They, much like everyone else, hire seasonal help and orders have misspelled addresses and missing phone numbers etc. You will then be stuck on hold, to wait for a middleman who then has to call the customer then send you a message (1 of 100) over the dove. You will need to have at least 1 person who does nothing but process your Dove orders. Extra drivers and designers.

To top it all off, all of your profit from local orders (real customers) will be tied up for 45 days because you had to pay for flowers for all of that wire work, but wait until the end of March to get a check from TF
 
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You'll be ok, especially if you add marketing material on every delivery that pushes your shop - not teleflora. Try to make follow-up calls to the recipient - establish a relationship. Don't get sucked into their website or POS, or containers. Also don't be afraid to reject or ask for more money for the lowball orders. BEST WISHES FOR GREAT SUCCESS! I love this industry and anyone willing to take a chance in this economy is gonna make her own luck.
 
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We dropped TF on March 1st last year and ran wire service free from that point on. We were up 12% over our Last Year number. We had only done 6k in wire outs the previous year and did 2k this year. So we made up that 4k + some to make our year up by almost 30K. Now we are a small shop but that is a huge increase in this economy. We fell short of our own personal goal by about 2k but hope to keep the increase going this year. This month is BAD, BAD. We are getting a ton of V-day prep done though so it's not wasted down time.

If you are not a big sending shop I think you should take a long hard look at the numbers this year and see what you can do without. We always owed money to the wire service because we did not receive enough to cover the cost of the little we sent. Most will tell you that sending a check means you are making money. Not when you are sending in 200 - 400 a month and only doing 6k in wire outs for the year, the math is off their somewhere.

The point of the story is that it has not hurt our bottom line. We were able to invest that 200 - 400 into our own local advertising, incentives to customers, and outreach. That has done more for our shop than a wire service ever would.
 
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I know of no shop that has dropped the wires and not become more profitable on the NET side... gross means nothing if the nets not there.

And remember, NO ONE, no wire service can guarantee the number of orders you'll get (unprofitable as they are) only the consumer dictates that!
 
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I have Visual Ticket as my POS and it has a delivery module in it. You can also buy the module for mapping your deliveries. There are others who have suggesed MAS, which I know has delivery tracking in it, Floristware, not sure about the delivery part though and I think Shannon went with Floranext. Those are a few to check on. Each vary by how many work stations you want to have and how many modules you want to buy. Visual Ticket may be the most expensive, I'm really not sure compared to the others. I think Floristware and Flosranext are the quickest to set up. You don't have much time to get to learn a new system before V-Day. All the best! :)
 
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Floristique said:
I need some advice I want to drop FTD right now before V-Day but I need a good POS ssystem with a delivery module...can anyone recommend one to me???
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Ok, get in the chair and we will start. I like www.floristware.com for POS, very affordable and does all that florists need to do. I would NOT doing anything prior to a major holiday, too much stress already. As for quitting FTD, just suspend your merc and then open the redwood forest book and on the last page in the blue section tells you when to get out. Example: We sent our letter in September to be out Dec 31. They are still mailing everything to the store, calling etc. but we are out. Good luck!!
 
Floristique said:
I need some advice I want to drop FTD right now before V-Day but I need a good POS ssystem with a delivery module...can anyone recommend one to me???
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MASdirect full POS system with an exceptional delivery management built right in.... scalable system to fit any shops needs...
 
I would not recommend Floristware, their order and report management systems are useless. We had it for 8 months, had a lot of headache with it. It is user friendly but not business orientated. With Floristware you cannot edit an order once completed nor save a half typed one if you have to do a quick walk-in sale. During busy times it was a total nightmare.There were other issues too but I don't want to write a whole book here. I would recommend the Floral POS. We pay $130 for 2 terminals, it has a built in delivery module that maps all your deliveries and everything is on one page. It is still being tweaked so not 100% but affordable and easy to use.
 
For Visual Ticket info go to www.floralsystems.com sold by www.websystems.com. I have 6 work stations that I pay for, alittle over $200 a month with the modules I have. Like I said it is not the cheapest but it is good and solid. I have it had for many years now. I don't own the delivery module as of now because we haven't had a need for it. If you call websystems you will talk to Tim the owner. You can mention me, Carol, Fancies Flowers, if you like. Boss knows about MAS. I don't know much about them. There are several good systems to choose from. Let us know what you decide.
 
I just got to thinking, with Visual Ticket it has the delivery info in it. I don't know if you were asking for a system that has delivery tracking in it or the mapping part. So to be clear, Visual Ticket has the delivery tracking and info built into the program. If you want a mapping feature than you can have it but it is an extra module that you pay for. Our designers put in their info when they finish an order, their initials, and the time it is finished. Then the delivery driver, when he is ready to take the order out for delivery, enters in his initials and the time auto enters that he left the shop. When the driver comes back he clicks on the order and markes it delivered and the time will auto fill or they can put in the actual time they got the delivery made. Also there is a place for notes, left with neighbor, etc. Makes it really nice when customers call and want to know about their order. Just standing at your terminal wherever in the building you can click and give him the info. No need to be calling around trying to figure it all out. I love it. I have a computer and Visual Ticket on it right by my back door where the delivery drivers work. I have a work station in the design room that the florists use all the time to take orders and watch what orders they have to do, specific times they need to be done, and to enter in the time when the orders are done. The florists and the drivers all enter in their info and we stay current, Ya! ;)
 
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