If you are wire free, what's your wire fee?

[Taylors_Flowers]

This was touched up in a recent post, and for curiousity sakes I was wondering if anyone would like to share what their wire fee is to a customer if you aren't with a wire service.

When we first opened our shop, our former TF rep told us that $3.00 was an appropriate fee because that was what was common in our market area to wire an order out.

We are thinking of increasing that fee rate because, I think, with being wire free it does take a little longer to seek out a florist and place the order.

Thoughts?

 

[Kristine]

wow $3 when "they" all charge upwards of $11.95 or more.

but good questions. We're out in July and for the most part we will be giving out phone numbers. But for our corp accounts we will call them ourselves.

 

[Rhonda]

$6.95 if I call it out......free if they want a phone number

 

[anytimeflowers]

I charge $5, and send FSN. If no shop in that city with FSN, I will find one on the internet for free. If they want me to place the order with my cc, I will, again with the $5 fee. The point is to be sure that the customer feels that their needs were met and they in no way feel the amount to be exhorbitant.

 

[dlnfloral]

$10.00 - $5.00 for my store for doing the leg work,$5.00 for the filling florist. But I don't do a lot of "wiring out" so it's for a few select customers.If it's a customer I don't know I explain to have them call a florist directly and give them a shop's name.

 

[briparke]

We have been wire service free for 3 years now and charge $4.50 service fee + anywhere from $2.00 to $3.50 for the phone call. We have a lotof customers prefer us to phone for them.

 

[Spookyflowers]

I do $5 for a fee if it takes alot time. Still ask for the 80-20 split also. Have had a few lately who don't honor that anymore and some who only do 90-10 split. I also have told some I'll give them a phone # and they say you call as you know what to ask for and I don't.

 

[Kristine]

me. I'd rather give phone numbers especially when someone wants something specific. There is nothing worse than playing phone tag and being in the middle of it all. Especially for a select few who still live in the 70's looking for that $15 delivered plant

 

[concord]

$7 sending fee, but I do encourage them to call direct so they can talk to the filling florist and find out what they have fresh in stock.

 

[802pianoluver]

We charge $10.00 to take the order and to call the sending florist. We offer a free number if they don't want to spend that much on the flowers.
Most prefer that we call, but others are very appreciative when we give them a phone number so they can call the florist directly themselves.

 

[hollyflr]

$7.50 and I do not require the receiving florist to give me a discount. It takes me about 15 minutes to find a florist on google or mapquest and call an order out, I often tell the florist thank you, but you keep the 20%.

 

[BOSS]

$0.00

We simply give the consumer your phone number....

Leading the way into the floral future... we be Smith's~!

 

[twiggy]

I charge 5.00 - the customers that still use a florist to send are customers that want me to 'handle it' for them. They come to me because they trust my judgement and are possibly intimidated by the whole process. I wonder if the rest of the people are actually finding other florists on their own or are they opting for the easiest way and choosing the first .com OG they see online???

I gave a phone number out once-she didn't use it, but went to my competition and they 'handled it' for her. lesson learned.

 

[Lizi]

If we just help a customer find a florist we charge 0.00, if we take the order, find the florist and make the call we charge 7.00. Most customers just take the number, but we still have some customers that use cash only, so we handle it for them.

 

[nanvireega]

Wow!

No wonder none of you want to TAKE outgoing orders... you're not making any money on them. And you SHOULD be!

Like anything else in the business, everything you do not only has value & costs, but it should make you money!

We have never charged less than $10 s/c on US orders. The only thing that has ever changed has been the delivery fee we charge that goes to the outgoing shop and that has gone from $5 to $7 about 2 years ago.

We always cover additional delivery fees, if needed, as long as it does not exceed the $17 we collected because it is fairly rare that this happens. We ONLY go back to our customers for additional funds if a)the delivering florist needs more that $17 for delivery or, b)the delivering shop needs more to fill the order. On an average $50 order, we probably make about 7-10% at the end of the year on our outgoing orders.

Our customers appreciate paying REALISTIC prices, receiving some direction & advice from someone in the industry that they trust and having an advocate working for them to make their order successful! We have VERY VERY FEW complaints on outgoing orders... ever! This keeps our customers coming back to us becuase they are satisfied with the service we provide and the results we acheive for them on every order they place.

There is VALUE in providing that service and acheiving those results - and they are happy to pay for it.

It's kinda like dating: If you only think you're worth a burger at McDonalds, no one is ever gonna take you out for a steak dinner at Ruth's Chris ;-)

>>>They certainly are getting NONE of that from any .coms or OG's and they pay a much higher fee there!

 

[nanvireega]

BTW... our corporate customers do NOT pay a service charge at all... only whatever the necessary delivery fee is on their outgoing orders. We sold them on this because the s/c is higher from the .comers rivaling us for their business and it almost guarantees us ALL their business.

Business people understand that savings vs a 10-15% discount with a .com company.

We were able to reatin a good number of our larger corporate accounts because of this discount.

 

[floristshoppingcart]

Try $0 wire service fee. Connect to another local florist, transmit orders without any fees at all.

I am developing a system that brings the local florist a robust pos/shopping cart system, hosting (included), AR/AP, and a florist network for one flat fee (lower then all current competitors)

It will be live in mid July, I am currently taking suggestions or comments about the essential needs of florists. This software has been in development for about 30 days and we have been building the features based on what florists find to be important to them. We care about you guys!

Anyone interested to discuss may send me a private message.

 

[marigold]

This was touched up in a recent post, and for curiousity sakes I was wondering if anyone would like to share what their wire fee is to a customer if you aren't with a wire service.

When we first opened our shop, our former TF rep told us that $3.00 was an appropriate fee because that was what was common in our market area to wire an order out.

We are thinking of increasing that fee ra te because, I think, with being wire free it does take a little longer to seek out a florist and place the order.

Thoughts?

Are you kidding?
3.00?
seriously?
We charge 12.95 and we are not in a wire service.
And when we were...it was 9.95.
3.00?

 

[concord]

Try $0 wire service fee. Connect to another local florist, transmit orders without any fees at all.

I am developing a system that brings the local florist a robust pos/shopping cart system, hosting (included), AR/AP, and a florist network for one flat fee (lower then all current competitors)

It will be live in mid July, I am currently taking suggestions or comments about the essential needs of florists. This software has been in development for about 30 days and we have been building the features based on what florists find to be important to them. We care about you guys!

Anyone interested to discuss may send me a private message.

We
We are talking about what we do and should charge our customers for the service, not what we are charged. Even with a so called free transmission, as florists, we need to charge a fee to cover our time. We should not feel bad about charging for everything we do. Think about what happens when you have a phone conversation with your lawyer! (they charge a lot more than $6-10 just to talk.)

 

[duanermb]

We charge $9.99 for the wire fee and usually let them know that delivery will be between $10 and $15. We don't have a minimum for incoming, but we state a minimum of $40 plus delivery for a wire out. We prefer to call out and make sure the customer is going to get what they are asking for, but don't do as many call outs as we used to because we are integrated with FW and FSN now, so I guess we aren't really wire service free any more.

Oh well it was great during MD although I did send out some last minute orders via phone to some friends from FC during MD! (One customer doesn't want to use a credit card and comes in every holiday to send $200 - $300 worth of stuff to his mom and girlfriend out of town)

We never give out phone numbers for many of the reasons stated above. (That customer up there works for a local radio station. You never know who you are turning away by giving out phone numbers)

We make about enough each year to pay for our FSN membership, website and other services, that's about it!