Marketing Games WSs Play....

[BOSS]

Folks, remember... it's ALL about order volume...

Nothing else matters, deception, ethics...none....

 

[lori042499]

All it is is spin...That whole we will do it now and worry about it later mentality...Because all of the ws got so used to flower shops not paying attention, and so many still don't, they let it be done until someone catches it, then the appease by taking it away. Most people are not as diligent as CHR in these matters, she trolls the internet tirelessly in search of these ads and reports them, I couldn't even pretend to be that passionate about the losing battle she fights, I should be, we all should be, but alas for many many reasons we are not...as a unit of many we would have a better and bigger voice and be able to gain control, but as singular voices it is a losing battle, for every one ad that gets caught and taken down 10 or more are out there and during the holidays when we have even less time to police, there are 20 times more stiking while the iron is hot....

 

[FANCIES]

It seems to me that the OG are getting more desperate in their competition with one another. It's crazy out there is the sea of advertising. Just for me, I am advertising in the Rapid City Journal in the obits section. I pay for a banner ad that is suppose to show up on the top & the bottom on the first page on the obits. That along with 2 ads in their paper a week & 60,000 impressions a month on the obits page is costing about $300 a month. I hardly show up at all on the obits page! I guess 60,000 impressions is not very much. Than I am paying another $200 a month for 1 spot on the obits page for my name & banner to show up if a reader HAPPENS to click on one picture that is in the center of the fist page of the obits. Than when a reader clicks on a name of a deceased it goes to another screen & at the top it says to send flowers & in the middle of the page & the side are more choices of them to send flowers. OF COURSE THE TOP SPOT THAT IS THE MOST VISIBLE IS ALL SOLD OUT TO FTD! No surprise there! The rest of the spots are TF, Blooms Today, FTD, flowers all over, and MORE! New order gathers that I haven't even heard of before. THEY ARE ALL OVER THE PLACE! I can't even get away from them in my home town paper. It is so disheartening, a person sometimes feels like not trying anymore. I spend so much money to try & keep my name out there but I know I am fighting a loseing battle, but forward ho I go! Have I said enough? Do I need to go on? And on and on. Gotta get to work! Enough for now!

 

[NicoleAtTF]

Nicole -

Did you see the 'free shipping' coupon link posted on Teleflora's own Facebook page by an affiliate? It even includes a coupon code to be used on Teleflora.com.

As Teleflora knows, the 'free shipping' claim isn't true.... at all.

Oh! I hadn't seen it - thank you for bringing it to my attention. I'm deleting it now. It's unfortunate, but I've been so overwhelmed with new responsibilities here that I haven't had nearly the time I'd like to monitor that Page. I check it every two days or so, and that was one was just posted yesterday as far as I can tell. Thanks again for the heads-up.

 

[bootcampguy]

.....THEY ARE ALL OVER THE PLACE! I can't even get away from them in my home town paper. It is so disheartening, a person sometimes feels like not trying anymore. I spend so much money to try & keep my name out there but I know I am fighting a loseing battle, but forward ho I go! Have I said enough? Do I need to go on? And on and on. Gotta get to work! Enough for now!

My heart goes out to you and I feel your pain. I've put something in the mail for you. I felt for years I was running in circles. WE ALL NEED a support system, a place to vent, talk and re-energize. We can win, we have to use their own marketing schedules against them. The other issue, based on a 10% (profit/budgeted store) if your spend $300, then you need $3000 in sales before you are making money, so you can see unless you're in the top spot (10x more traffic) you're losing.......My profits for 2008/2009 (soared) when I quit doing anything other than "personal relationship referell marketing". You are the brand for your city and you need to market that. Gene Simmons recently re-invented the Indy Race and called it "We are Indy". Basically it was a campaign about who they we're, what they do and how they do it. Every flower shop needs to do this. I open all bootcamps with this statement, "Today's florists lack the clarity in defining who they are, what they do and what they sell. They let others do it for them"...........be encouraged............ We are and will be the winners

 

[lori042499]

It seems to me that the OG are getting more desperate in their competition with one another. It's crazy out there is the sea of advertising. Just for me, I am advertising in the Rapid City Journal in the obits section. I pay for a banner ad that is suppose to show up on the top & the bottom on the first page on the obits. That along with 2 ads in their paper a week & 60,000 impressions a month on the obits page is costing about $300 a month. I hardly show up at all on the obits page! I guess 60,000 impressions is not very much. Than I am paying another $200 a month for 1 spot on the obits page for my name & banner to show up if a reader HAPPENS to click on one picture that is in the center of the fist page of the obits. Than when a reader clicks on a name of a deceased it goes to another screen & at the top it says to send flowers & in the middle of the page & the side are more choices of them to send flowers. OF COURSE THE TOP SPOT THAT IS THE MOST VISIBLE IS ALL SOLD OUT TO FTD! No surprise there! The rest of the spots are TF, Blooms Today, FTD, flowers all over, and MORE! New order gathers that I haven't even heard of before. THEY ARE ALL OVER THE PLACE! I can't even get away from them in my home town paper. It is so disheartening, a person sometimes feels like not trying anymore. I spend so much money to try & keep my name out there but I know I am fighting a loseing battle, but forward ho I go! Have I said enough? Do I need to go on? And on and on. Gotta get to work! Enough for now!

Now imagine being faced with that and having 5 dollars in your bank account and a bit of talant and dream of if you build it they will come...This is my reality and the reason, I did give up on advertising, I now market rather than advertise, it works better, doesn't have to cost much and much more targeted, This is something I never understood the difference between until I was spending my money and not others to get the name out...

 

[bootcampguy]

Now imagine being faced with that and having 5 dollars in your bank account and a bit of talant and dream of if you build it they will come...This is my reality and the reason, I did give up on advertising, I now market rather than advertise, it works better, doesn't have to cost much and much more targeted, This is something I never understood the difference between until I was spending my money and not others to get the name out...

This is how we will win.........then think about this. I ask all advertisers who come through the door of the flower shop one question, I tell them answer me this and I will by your product. "If advertising works, then why don't advertisers advertise".

uhmmmmm..................uhmmmmmm

 

[lori042499]

This is how we will win.........then think about this. I ask all advertisers who come through the door of the flower shop one question, I tell them answer me this and I will by your product. "If advertising works, then why don't advertisers advertise".

uhmmmmm..................uhmmmmmm

I like it!

 

[FANCIES]

I so agree!!! :>) Thanks for all the encouragement everybody!

 

[CHR]

Oh! I hadn't seen it - thank you for bringing it to my attention. I'm deleting it now. It's unfortunate, but I've been so overwhelmed with new responsibilities here that I haven't had nearly the time I'd like to monitor that Page. I check it every two days or so, and that was one was just posted yesterday as far as I can tell. Thanks again for the heads-up.

Thanks for deleting but it appears there's much, much more work to do on the phony free shipping offers.

This page (attached) is just the Google alerts about Teleflora yesterday. The 'free shipping' and 'free delivery' offers are highlighted in yellow - including one released by Yahoo itself. With so many different sites promoting the offers, there's something very wrong going on in Marketing.

 

[BOSS]

Following Cathy's thoughts and image... I doubt that a "team" of people scouring the web on a daily basis could keep up with it, especially if they are not retail florist trained... a one woman show at TF HQ stands little chance of correcting the wrongs. Heck even FloristDetective.com which has been spreading the word on this for years has not been taken seriously by Teleflora. Leads one to believe that they really do not want to control their affiliates and only want to placate florists.

 

[lori042499]

I got an order from a florist that I know and do business with yesterday, I had to call them and ask for my delivery...They infact took the amount for the flowers, a 10.00 service charge and 8.95 delivery from their web order, but neglected to send me the 8.95 delivery..I told them that I had hoped it was an oversight and they assured me it was and promptly sent the delivery over the dove, they said it was TF fault because of the way the web sent it, I let her know that that is not the case it was eitehr intentional or a training issue on wireouts in the shop..The delivery must be taken out of the service charge once it is sent to your machine, yes it is stupid way to do it, but heck the florists need to be aware of how their websites and pos systems work...it is exhausting to keep track of ogs, TF.com and regular florists grubbing up every dime for themselves and getting every dime you need to make their silly customer's arrangement for them, the least they can do is make sure they collect enough money and send all of it to the filling florist so they can do a great job for the customer..I don't fill for anycompanies I cannot trust and sadly I am finding that some of my friend, real live local florists are succumbing to the deception at an alarming rate....

 

[BOSS]

sadly I am finding that some of my friend, real live local florists are succumbing to the deception at an alarming rate....

Desperate times call for desperate measures....in some folks minds...

Folks are scared, and November 2 is not going to fix anything in the short term.

 

[lori042499]

Yeah, but if we all complain about how what these companies do as not being right and how hard it is to amke a dollar on filling...Why would anyone choose to do it to their friends instead of changing the way they do business with these companies??? Now I will use myself as an example...I started out on this road using the WS to get my name out, it worked for a while, but I found that I had to start paring back my wire in biz...I had to let go of the barely to non profitable orders...Then when I started realizing that the lower volume just wasn't making financial sense, I had three choices, start filling all orders again, quit a service or charge my customers more to subsidize the service...

I chose to end my relationship with a service...In my mind, charging my customers more would mean getting less value on the sending end and with an already borderline hard to sell value of wireouts that would not help my cause of trying to get people to use me for everything...on the other hand keeping the delivery and hoping to find all stupid florists filling anything. just doesn't work for me either from a value added standpoint and I really don't want stupid florists filling my orders, I am picky...offering free anything makes it difficult for me to find fillers willing to discount more for me(duh) so again it comes out of my customers value...it so makes more sense to quit the service than to possibly damage the already lowered rate of loyalty with your own customers, because lets face it almost all of our customers will pick up flowers and plants at the grocery store, costco or home depot as a spontaneous purchase...so you start screwing them on your gift sales for out of town and they will just pack up and find a new florist..Giving into these tactics just seems like yet another silly florist short sighted solution to a never ending circle of bad decisions base solely on the profit of one arrangement and not the effect of these decisions over the long term...Are we not learning anything from the past, or are florists still just that stupid and still riding with blinders on!!!

 

[anytimeflowers]

Well......SAF told florists in no uncertain terms to become order gatherers in order to survive, looks like many are taking that road.

 

[BOSS]

Well......SAF told florists in no uncertain terms to become order gatherers in order to survive, looks like many are taking that road.

True to a point.... but...

I still believe that the best option is 100% biz going both ways. From consumer to me, and from consumer to the delivering florist. Hmm.. I guess that's only one way after all.

Dad and I were talking about another subject last night, we were discussing the human condition. This has much more to do with the human race than flowers, and possibly nothing more. But as arrogant as we are as a people, ever wonder what caused the demise of the Roman Empire, or the Inca's, or any number of "supposedly" powerful groups? (it was not the weather)

 

[anytimeflowers]

True to a point.... but...

I still believe that the best option is 100% biz going both ways. From consumer to me, and from consumer to the delivering florist. Hmm.. I guess that's only one way after all.

Dad and I were talking about another subject last night, we were discussing the human condition. This has much more to do with the human race than flowers, and possibly nothing more. But as arrogant as we are as a people, ever wonder what caused the demise of the Roman Empire, or the Inca's, or any number of "supposedly" powerful groups? (it was not the weather)

I was intentionally being sarcastic, although it seems that's exactly what many are doing.

Very interesting conversation that must have been with your dad, would have dearly enjoyed being in on that one.

 

[RWK]

I want to interject a comment here.......When discussing Order Gatherer's ( OG's) - Let's not forget, there ARE honest ones out there.....like JB for instance.

So, Regarding OG's - let's go back to these designations....

Honest Order Gatherers - H'OG's

Dis-Honest Order Gatherers - D'OG's

 

[Eric S]

Well......SAF told florists in no uncertain terms to become order gatherers in order to survive, looks like many are taking that road.

Hmmm.....

Kinda makes you think what kind of damage SAF has done with their thoughtless article.

 

[lori042499]

Yeah Eric, They let that one loose on florist that may or may not be very good at being florists or understanding the business they run it will be fun to see what kind of incarnations it all takes and how people morph that idea, yowza, whatch out!!!