New Teleflora design book.

[lori042499]

I'm in the process of puting a list together of all of the containers that will be needed to in order to offer the products that are part of Birthday and Occasion section.

I'm at 32 products so far with 6 that are Syndicate Sales Containers and the rest are Teleflora Codified Products. Hopefully I will have the complete list by the end of the day with total dollars needed in order to offer these products to our customers.

The most difficult part will be that some of them require that you purchase 2 to 6 different colors in order to get the Suggested Prices that Teleflora says the containers will cost.

Eric, to stock all the containers in the book, it was something like a 2400.00 investment...But they were running some kind of combo pack back in august sometime, that was less product but a sampling of each type...not to mention the space they take up..yikes..

 

[Grandma Nancy]

11/4/10
Boy, wish I had read the threads about the new design book before I opened it. In all my years of being a florist, I have never been so dissappointed. The one section we use the most--sympathy--has less pages and less selection. Most of the selections are very expensive and use flowers we normally don't stock--orchids, amaryllis, etc. And ditto with the round arrangements pictured with all the flowers facing forward.
That is deceptive advertising! We are not able to get glads year around yet nearly 1/3 of the arrangements show glads. And the mounded arrangements--my customers still want "showy". Are we allowed to send the books back?

 

[lori042499]

You can send it back but will still pay for it!!!

 

[mperry]

I have been trying to decide what to do about Teleflora now for a couple of months. Now the selection guide is here. I have not opened it yet. I did not sign contract to be in teleflora. I was a AFS rollover florist. I did sign contract when I bough the point of sale but I'm not sure that is the same. I really want to drop them, get a new website all that stuff. But I have not had the cash to move forward and pay for duplicate services for these really slow months. My question is if I drop Teleflora do I still need the selection guide? I don't have those high quality photos and it would take a lot to do them (time and money) If I drop Teleflora now can I get credit for the Book? I called them about deadlines for the POS they need 60days. The membership needs to be canceled by Dec to not be in the Feb, Mar book. That's about all I know at this point.

 

[Spookyflowers]

Also a rollover from AFS I wih that company could of bought Teleflora non containers and just nice to work with.
As for the Sympathy book why did they show so many of the caskets sprays on closed caskets? I have my own pictures in a book and want to make a bigger one with just a few of my better selling ones. I get to do alot of my own designs as people tell me colors and we go from there.

 

[Eric S]

So here is my Excel Sheet.
Feel free to play with it and make any changes.

The total I have so far is $2168.04 without shipping.

I can't find the info on the ford truck.

There is two products added because of the way you have to buy the container pack.
The Fifth Ave and The Sunshine Surprise.

View attachment Teleflora-Products.xls

 

[BOSS]

That's it Eric?? 37 different containers?

I would not like the 48 count packs, but that's just me, my container supplier comes to my store every two weeks, and the rest I order from Container Source and SS....

 

[lori042499]

Eric, that is awesome...

You and my husband should get together and make up excel spreadsheets....they friggen escape me....I hate them, he has a spreadsheet for everything, I have them printed everywhere...is it a computer guy thing??? or just not a florist thing...I am taking a bridal and event planning class and there is an excel class included, can't wait to see what all the excitement is about!!!

 

[Eric S]

That's it Eric?? 37 different containers?

I would not like the 48 count packs, but that's just me, my container supplier comes to my store every two weeks, and the rest I order from Container Source and SS....

Dude I have to run a business not sit here and figure everything out for you!

Remember it is just for one section of the book.

 

[concord]

John Henry has some nice books for funerals and other occassions. If you drop TF you can still use those until you get your own images.

 

[BOSS]

Dude I have to run a business not sit here and figure everything out for you!

Remember it is just for one section of the book.

So that's only one section. Hmmmm... and there are what 5 (?) sections, so the potential for 185 different containers... LOL....

Nope, you don't have to figure it out for me, my last 3 years in FTD I had NONE of their containers, and now, I still have none of anyone's but mine

 

[lori042499]

Smithers Oasis has some great photos for anyone to use and also videos...free of charge!!! Smart cookies, they know if you show it on your site, it will sell more wire and accessories....why wouldn't they let you use them for free...

 

[Tuberose]

Got our book today, my manager is in hook, line and sinker. We're drowning in Teleflora containers, I think they now know they can talk her into most anything. I moan and groan, but she orders anyway, I think we're going to have to start storing stuff somehow and soon. I still like the satin containers, has always been one I like and we just sold 22 of them in red for an event, the clean, subdued lines appeal to my customers, not fussy or have silly butterflies on them. I still have a couple of the tea pots with the porcelain flowers that chip off, hate those.

Sorry to hear that they have so many containers they think they will force us to buy, if we don't have it, we'll be subbing for sure. They're going to have a hard time finding florists that will carry all of their containers and be able to fill their orders. It will just mean that they'll lose that many more members possibly. We have a hard time at Xmas finding other florists to send our orders to that have the coded product that most customers specifically ask for. I know they make big $$ off the containers, but at what price? Losing members?

 

[lori042499]

OK I take back all of my biatching about this book....

I had a family in yesterday, just to set you up with what kind of customers they are...They are loyal, but they are my church guild people...They usually order 25-35 dollar arrangements and the shurch gets two arra ngements for 40 dollars total or one for 35....They are not big spenders....

The deceased is the neice of the flower guild lady and she brought her sister(the mom of deceased) in to see me...It is a creamation with an urn...I say great this new book has all inds of modern stuff to at least show them with urns....They spent 450.00 on two arrangements out of that book....no way in hell without that book I would have gotten them to spend that much money or see the vision of these two arrangements in their heads...now it is not that I don't have faith in my abilities tos ell, because I do do fine, but people like this would have never gone with an expensive "concept", they would have played it safe with a less expensive arrangement that they knew....

 

[ChristiBrown]

Here's my two cent opinion on the book:
Disappointed in some of the hideous containers still in the birthday section--I was really hoping some of those would go away.
Glad to see some greens in arrangements--I am big on lots of different greens!
Loved some of the new sympathy stuff, finally a little bit design --But, I agree it is too small
Loved the quality of the pages
I thought the quality of the photography was much better and much fresher/modern presentation of photography
I thought worth the $400 just to get the old book out of here, but I am curious to see if the additional $15 is a good value--maybe we'll get some more sympathy?
I haven't worked on the pricing yet, I don't use the pricing for in store sales at all, only out of town so I usually mark them up with the stickers 10-20% over what TF lists them so that I get a better chance of a nice arrangement from the filling florist for my customer.
I tell people look for a shape and colors you like (separately) and ignore all containers--and we'll send designer's choice with those rough directions and I think it may work better with this book, but we'll see.
Jury is out on the workbook. I am glad to not have two books (one spiral and one with all the web ones), but it takes up half of my employee's work station when it is open unless she takes the page out--which seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[herndonflorist]

My issue on the book is the pricing. When Teleflora gives a suggested price for an arrangement showing all the flowers facing on one side , then calls it an all around design, it is as deceptive as anything else going on in our industry. The President of Teleflora told me once when I complained to him about this practice that " he would be lying to me if he told me this practice was going to stop any time soon". If we use the book as it is currently designed, we are participating in the deception! If we adjust the pricing to allow for flowers on the other side of some of these designs our pricing is no longer competitive online. We no longer have a wire service ally in the industry, no matter what they say! It is too bad, wire services were once a valued part of our industry. and a great part of the history of floriculture.

 

[pdxdoug]

Nope, you don't have to figure it out for me, my last 3 years in FTD I had NONE of their containers, and now, I still have none of anyone's but mine

I begrudgingly admit belonging to FTD, but proud to say that for the last 10-12 years we've not purchased any WS specialty containers.

None. Zero. Zilch. Makes life soooo much easier.

Cheers~
Doug

 

[trillygirl]

We have looked over the perishable pricing and find it is not consistant with our prices. So we are making the changes to our website to correct this because with this new launch it seems the right time to make this change. I wonder how many other florists will change arrangement prices to make these products profitable for their businesses, not all florists buy directly from the growers at these reduced prices. As always the compliant is that Teleflora is not interested in profits for the small to medium florists even though we are the greater avenue for their profits. By making this change we will be pricing ourselves higher than our national and local competition (if most florists keep the suggested pricing), we hope that will be a good thing. It just makes me want reconsider whether or not we want to continue with our Teleflora site or breakaway and elaborate on our own site more with some Teleflora products. We find we are refusing more and more direct from Teleflora orders because their pricing is not within our range especially because they only give us the $7.00 delivery.

 

[Johan]

Thanks for the input. I was hoping since Mark said to return to sender that maybe I could get away with not accepting the book but I guess I might as well keep it as long as I have to pay for it not happy bout that! Lessons to learn, read the rules! Oh well, I am going to send in my letter to terminate tomarrow. At least I won't have to be paying $15 a month for the updates on the book. Another lesson in life learned, just hope I can remember it! Old age you know! lol!

As the pages of the brochure are waterproof and easy to clean prehapes you could cut out the designs and make them into coaster's pack them up into 6's and sell them - you never know it might catch on. :rofl:

 

[FANCIES]

I sent my certified letter to TF and Dove 2 days ago (Monday) to resign from their membership & I asked for the $200 deposit that needed to be paid when joining to be refunded to me. I have had their web site & have loved it & so have my customers but I knew I had to break away & go it on my own. I just don't agree any longer with the fees that TF is charging, the monthly quality control fee $20 (I have no complaints against my store) and what really makes me mad is the $3.45 charge on all my web orders. My only regret is that I didn't send in my letter soon enough & now I am stuck paying for this new TF book. I have an independent web site now thru websystems that works with my Visual Ticket POS that I use in my store. It is not as perfect as the TF site is but it is my own & I will continue to work on it and try to make it better & better as time goes on. If I stayed with TF I would have had to up the price on the arrangements & I agree that they only give you $7 for delivery. I guess I would say, I am not too impressed.