Just in Time......

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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Ontario
this IS wire service related.....
I have very close friends, basically, or specifically, almost exactly the same in every way but one......
Her hubby and I come from the trades, she and my wife come from business families, NOT related to the floral industry, and have wound up in the biz.
Sandie and I realized in the 80's that we need to go FULL POS, and we DID!!..pretty simple
Our close friends, are JUST NOW realizing they NEED to go FULL POS, IF they have ANY chance of selling their business when that time comes (not far away)
So she calls me today, pretty clear headed, and says that Teleflora is putting pressure on her. to get them on the Daisy/Dove system, with all kinds of offers, and altered "overheads"....this too is pretty standard...we've all discussed this subject, until we are ALL nearly nauseated!!
I will be looking over the "proposal offers" sheets that TF has provided them, with a keen scrutiny on the bottom line, and the "fairness" of TF's offer to go integrated POS.
Now , please notice that I HAVE NOT made ANY degrading, or disparaging remarks about Teleflora, so, since this is a HEAVY TF shop, I promised I would "bounce" the offer ambiguously here, on FC, to gain YOUR opinions, and experiences with TF's working POS system...as I have NO experience with it.
We've been independent from the get go!!
Once I've compiled answers, and opinions, I'm gonna print off the entire thread, and give it to her, for reading, and that's where I REALLY need you guys to lay it ALL out!!
Some shops here, have had wonderful stories to share about TF's Daisy/Dove system, some have had horror stories, I kinda need a wide breadth of input.
My FIRST inclination is to send them to Mark at FloristWare, BUT, they seem comfortable paying the TF bank for services......pros and cons please!
Thank you......
 
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I can't speak for Teleflora, but for someone who had the Wings system for 15 years and now have gone private (FW), I think or I should say I now in the years to come the importance of controlling your own data will be one of they keys to success. I do alot of crazy things and campaigns with my data, it needs to stay in the their hands!!
 
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Mikey, I know YOU know this.... but how many times have I said...

NEVER buy a wire service POS system.< PERIOD .........Independent is the ONLY good solution in today's economic climate.

Independent systems for the most part offer more, and cost less. And the BIGest thing is... once you buy a wire service POS system you are tied to them (basically) for LIFE. They control you, instead of you controlling them. You can't walk away if/when you choose to do so. And if you do, you're back to square one looking for another POS system.

The wire services make huge profits off technology by keeping florists tied to antiquated systems long after they are obsolete, they have inferior support systems to independent, they don't allow you to choose other vendors (like Advantage customers that can not change credit card processing) and are just plain bad business.
 
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I agree with bootcamp and boss. We looked into the Dove/Daisy over the summer and it looks great on paper. But we market so much to our clients we had to be able to access the data and send independent marketing pieces to them. With Floristware I can do this with ease, and it's my data, I know that they are never going to email to my names and take the customers from me.
Also if they have an independent credit card company now and they move over to the dove/daisy THEIR money is tied up longer. Some I heard get a check a month from TF or FTD for credit card purchases. This to me is crazy, I would rather have it in the bank earning interest and not in the pockets of the wire services.
 
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secretgarden said:
Some I heard get a check a month from TF or FTD for credit card purchases.
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This is something the shop owner set up. Last I knew you have a choice with the wires to get daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly deposits. At a point in the past, I got mine monthly to cover my wire outs which were huge at the time. One call, and it was changed to daily. They'll even allow (or used to) you to get 50% (or any % you decide) daily and bank the balance to cover orders if you wish.
 
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I use FAS. It was already in this shop when I took over, and in my little shop we had an old eagle system. The FAS system is head and shoulders above the Eagle, but I have not compared it to any other modern systems. I will say that technical support for FAS is awesome. I just call and say "I did so-and-so stupid thing" and they tell me how to fix it or fix it for me if i am busy.

I would never ever buy a WS system for a couple of reasons:

1)they overcharge you for hardware. TF offered to sell me a system with a main and 2 extra terminals for (i think it was) $13,000. I almost spit my my coke in his face when he gave me the price. Of course, they were going to finance it for me and knock off a few thousand if I signed up by the end of the week.

2)they will only give you technical support as long as you are a TF member (of course, members pay as much as FAS charges me for support). on one hand, it should not be in your long term plans to rely on a wire service for your business services. on the other hand, I think that teleflora (more than others) will be in serious trouble as local florists are moving away from wire services, and POS support reps will be cut long before POS sales reps are.

3)when teleflora gets really hard up for money, they will change their software or find some way to force an expensive upgrade just like they do with their dove plus advertising and new and improved design books.
 
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We have been daisy since the 80's and i will say that it is a good system compared to no system at all...BUT and this is a big BUT.... you can not market to your customers using a daisy system no matter what they tell you. there is no way to pull a simple customer list from the daisy system and upload it into an excel spreadsheet. there is also very limited accounting software included in the daisys pos, just receivables and some sales programs, but nothing that integrates with Quicken or Peachtree, so there is bookeeping entry that has to be done outside of the system. As far as customer support goes, they are pretty good about tech support and upgrades, but if I had to do this all over again, I would go independent, being tied to a wire service is limiting and costly, so if you have any influence, try and get them to go elsewhere.
 
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herndonflorist said:
there is no way to pull a simple customer list from the daisy system and upload it into an excel spreadsheet. there is also very limited accounting software included in the daisys pos, just receivables and some sales programs, but nothing that integrates with Quicken or Peachtree, so there is bookeeping entry that has to be done outside of the system.
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Not true :)

We used Daisy for 10 yrs, and I worked for TF installing / training / troubleshooting Daisy.

There is a marketing program that has some of the best filtering and data-mining of any platform. It can also export data to a CSV file.

Also, Daisy does offer both a GL export (formatted accounting entry for manual application to your accounting program) or a GL integration.



Mikey,

Are they really offering Daisy or Dove POS?
 
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I too ran Daisy for a decade or so... very reliable system, was sad to see it go...

Can't believe they're still offering it myself...
 
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RKF said:
Not true :)

We used Daisy for 10 yrs, and I worked for TF installing / training / troubleshooting Daisy.

There is a marketing program that has some of the best filtering and data-mining of any platform. It can also export data to a CSV file.

Also, Daisy does offer both a GL export (formatted accounting entry for manual application to your accounting program) or a GL integration.



Mikey,

Are they really offering Daisy or Dove POS?
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I'd say it's the DOVE Pos, but, in our conversation, she mentioned daisy, and I "think" it may have a reference to the older platform being "replaced".....
 
Our shop has been TF forever!! several years ago the Tf rep came in and told us that we needed to upgrade to the dove pos rather then the daisy we were using - they told us they would no longer support daisiy adn that we would be fined for not being credit card compliant and that the only way to become compliant was to upgrade. Our owner who painfully honest and petrified of th IRS and government finding her in the wrong signed the papers immediaty adn took on a ridiculous amount of debt to to do so. Then we found out we were lied to, they still supported daisy and we could have easily and cheaply kept our selves compliant with the credit cards. TF admitted we were lied to but said tough - we wer now in contract ad there was nothing to be done about it. We have found a much less expensive pos alternative in http://www.independentfloralnetwork.com/ or with quickbooks. As far as the system it self - we have had a lot ofproblems with it, the daisy was much more reliable. I can't understand how the system could beout as long as it has been and supposedly designed by florists for florists and yet have so many stupid problems that any florsit would have know would be a problem. POS support often just denies a problem exists. This is especially frustrating when it has to do with prossessing credit cards and affects our customers negatively. I would NEVER reccomend this system to anyone. And it is most definately not cost effective and it is nearly impossible to sort the report info in meaning ful and helpful ways. I constantly have to export the info into excel and then edit it and then sort it to find what I want and often it is just not findable. I could go on and on since this gets into a subject that gets my ire up with how much we paid tf to screw us.... Thanks for listening to my rant!!!
 
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Sabrinas said:
We have found a much less expensive pos alternative in independentfloralnetwork.com or with quickbooks. As far as the system it self - we have had a lot ofproblems with it, the daisy was much more reliable. I can't understand how the system could be out as long as it has been and supposedly designed by florists for florists and yet have so many stupid problems that any florsit would have know would be a problem. POS support often just denies a problem exists. This is especially frustrating when it has to do with prossessing credit cards and affects our customers negatively. I would NEVER reccomend this system to anyone. And it is most definately not cost effective and it is nearly impossible to sort the report info in meaning ful and helpful ways. I constantly have to export the info into excel and then edit it and then sort it to find what I want and often it is just not findable. I could go on and on since this gets into a subject that gets my ire up with how much we paid tf to screw us.... Thanks for listening to my rant!!!
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We try to keep FlowerChat "platform agnostic" - that is, we don't endorse one POS over another, etc, we just provide a venue to talk about the relative merits of each. IFN is one notable example of a system that I will clearly state I cannot recommend for any florist. We have banned them from this forum for improper behaviour, and while my knowledge of their POS relies mostly on second-hand reports I have had opportunities to review their web sites and they are very, very bad.
 
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I can't speak directly to the Iris network/or system, I only looked at it briefly. In the days to come the marketing module is the most important item you will need in a POS system. I found that in Floristware and it was reasonably priced (better than IFN) abd easy for all to use.

I had the FTD Wings system for 15 years (one of the first 5 on it) and just got tires of the fees and the "inadequicies" of the program. It was time to go independent for me in that regard. Up and running on 5 terminals, a few issues in the first month, all worked out and it's now singing..........................
 
Sabrinas said:
Can you tell me more about your concerns with IFN? We are not yet fully committed to their system, I need to find the best option before we can fully extricate our selves from the tentacles of teleflora
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I would TRULY NOT go that route, and IF you do, you'll be asking us why we didn't kidnap you first......
 
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