Mother's Day wire-ins

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We were down also on wire in's and out's. Even had less FTD.com orders.Which was no hardship here.

I agree with your value of our delivery.It's a service we provide and make sure you are making part of your whole picture.I feel it's just as important as the flowers themselves and the whole service we provide.

I agree also with your "branding" it goes ALONG way. But you have been established for many years and us little guys are still plugging away to get where you are. It's tough for everyone to stand alone on that branding. Ours is growing but is so darn hard to get ahead.Plus the whole FTD/wire crap doesn't help either.

Love your points and insight,thank you
 
Boss don't take my jabbing here personally but I want to push the envelope on this topic some .

Your business has been around longer then mine but we do date back to 1966. Like you I am the best known florist in our market place. And when ever various polling contest are run were consumers vote for their favorite business we always win the florist catagory. Having said that I will tell you we built our reputation on delivery quality and on marketing the FTD Brand before FTD allowed .com to steal it from the florist and destroy the brand. And right now I would say I am surving on my own local marketing and living off my reputation but one can only do that so long,and I believe you are doing the same thing.

We both agree that the wire ins and for that matter wire outs are going away. In many cases our own customers who buy there local flowers from us in fact now go on line to find a florist in another town for their out of market gifts. That consumer has nothing to rely on to know that they are dealing with a real local florist there is no brand out there that sets them apart from order gather's . And of course orders coming into our market we have nothing to hang our hat on either.
 
Nothing personal taken Steve, tis topic is worthy of discussion especially for the newer members, and those in the biz less time than we have been.

I am fortunate, biz has been here since 1947, and I owe a huge debt to my dad and granddad for their customer concern. You're right though, we *used* to use he FTD brand to build business, especially the outbound side. but in todays world, reality says that we must distance ourselves from them for our own long term good.

Until there is a new "brand" that is marketable nationwide we're better off IMO to go it alone rather than to allow them to, in TOTOs words, coat-tail off our good names locally. Best not to acknowledge association with them at all.

BTW, FTD Marketplace just called for the fall/winter product order and codification, I told here I "was not interested", she inquired and I replied "I'll be out before it's time to ship"...I think she fainted....
 
Until there is a new "brand" that is marketable nationwide we're better off IMO to go it alone rather than to allow them to, in TOTOs words, coat-tail off our good names locally. Best not to acknowledge association with them at all.

I am not familar with all the florist boards that may be out there on the web but my guess is this is the largest. If that brand does not come out of this group of florist then I think our chances of winning power ball are greater then the long term future of the florist industry.

Maybe I am to simplistic in my thinking but lets try this as an example. Lets say we have 10 florist that decide to run an ad for Christmas. But these 10 florist all do there own thing from ads with strictly verbage to ads showing products and these florist are all in defferent market places. Basicly you have 10 defferent messages some work well some stink. overall the impact does not even make a ripple in the water.

Now take the same 10 florist and they use verbage and tag lines associated with a brand and use photos of branded items that brand and those tag lines will have been repeated in 10 defferent marketplaces now mulitply those 10 florist by lets say 50( or 500 florist and market places) and we might actually have the starting of a ripple affect.
 
steve said:
Until there is a new "brand" that is marketable nationwide we're better off IMO to go it alone rather than to allow them to, in TOTOs words, coat-tail off our good names locally. Best not to acknowledge association with them at all.

I am not familar with all the florist boards that may be out there on the web but my guess is this is the largest. If that brand does not come out of this group of florist then I think our chances of winning power ball are greater then the long term future of the florist industry.

Maybe I am to simplistic in my thinking but lets try this as an example. Lets say we have 10 florist that decide to run an ad for Christmas. But these 10 florist all do there own thing from ads with strictly verbage to ads showing products and these florist are all in defferent market places. Basicly you have 10 defferent messages some work well some stink. overall the impact does not even make a ripple in the water.

Now take the same 10 florist and they use verbage and tag lines associated with a brand and use photos of branded items that brand and those tag lines will have been repeated in 10 defferent marketplaces now mulitply those 10 florist by lets say 50( or 500 florist and market places) and we might actually have the starting of a ripple affect.
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The biggest problem with all of that is the fact that every business is different, your style may not mesh with mine...and then who owns the brand...if it does take off when does someone step in and get greedy with that brand and say hey we can make even more money.....

I hate to naysay but this has all been done before and then it was ruined maybe this is why were all so jaded....
 
Truth is Lori not everyones style is alike you are correct. A brand would not represent everything you do as a florist just like it never represented everything you may have done under one of the other wire service brands in the past. A brand and tag lines would develope national awareness of real professional florist.

How do we position ourselves against the drop shippers to hold and grow our business if we do not start talking with a unified voice? that is the question that needs to be answered ?
 
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