Charge for FindAFlorist
Mine also was for $19.95...both a charge and a credit. I did not think much of it since I had complained to Teleflora that their website was not bringing anything to the table and they gave me 3 months free hosting. I still plan to dropping their website because it is COSTING me money.
Based on my stats (12 full calender months- 2004) from my independant site
www.mcadamsfloral.com and my Teleflora website, the below partial email that I sent to a friend might be interesting;
In summary, it is costing me $58.11 per average order of $67.55 (including Del, taxes, etc.) for each order Teleflora is getting me through their website. As you know, your cost of goods sold is 30% and labor is 20%, thus leaving your gross profit per order before Teleflora fees of $33.78. Taking in that the Teleflora fees account for $58.11 per order, it is COSTING me out of my pocket $24.33 for every order I received on my Teleflora website. Another key number to look at for comparison is that the Teleflora website only generated 468 visitors to the site.
On the other side of the coin is our own website (WebsiteCP) by Digital Thoughts (
www.mcadamsfloral.com ). It is only costing me $2.21 per average order of $54.16…and more importantly, it has generated 14,180 visits and 59,201 hits in the same time period as the Teleflora website. Now based on the 30%/20% costs of $27.08 per order and subtracting the per order cost of $2.21, I have a gross profit of $24.87 per order (not a gross loss of $24.33 above). Another item not shown in the numbers above is the general belief that for every internet order you receive from your floral website, you have received 3-6 other orders on the phone that had generated from that website.
Some know and most do not, I have been working with a company called Digital Thoughts for several years on an independant floral website program that you, the florist, control through an admin. control panel. You, the florist, can add and delete existing categories, add new ones, add and delete products with descriptions & pricing......all as easy (actually easier) than downloading an item with a description & price for eBay. Ask Mark how easy it is, he has been helping Digital Thoughts and myself with new delevopment ideas since January. We have just finished adding the feature where a florist's exclusive designs are separated from the wire out designs. More and more customers would call to say that they were on our website and wanted to see some of our own designs. Unfortunately, I have not completed image down loads for my new catagories, I dropped my Canon G3 last month on concrete....and kept waisting time on how to get around the out of focus problem instead of spending the money on a good new camera. Trying to save a dollar and probably lost 3 in business. Anyway, most florists do not know what kind of business that a wire service is "actually bringing" to them because they only have the wire service site.
Question, how many forists would allow a wire service to change their store window display for each of the floral holidays, with mainly wire service products, and pay them $60+tax per month and $1.95 fee on each order generated from the shop for this?
PS- The math and percentages above might be a little rough, I was trying to get the general point over to my florist friend.
