No FTD TG or Christmas co-ops

[PhillyPhlorist]

Got the Merc message this AM...

More "great" news for FTD members... looks like you're on your own in trying to sell your FTD TG and Christmas Branded Product this year.

No co-op ads in PARADE or "an other alternate publication in 2009."

Hmmm, and WHERE is that 7% marketing fee we pay on every order supporting these days??? (rhetorical questions, no need to answer............)

IMHO - looks like TEL gets the nod this year with their co-ops and coupons. Yea - you have to play by their rules, and you do PAY for those co-op ads, but at least there's SOMETHING out there.

Ahh, I'll be relying on my e-mail blasts and such anyway...

- H.

 

[TOTO]

Investment versus Return?

Everyone is taking a HARD LOOK at their expenses, either FIXED, VARIABLE, or OPTIONAL.

If any one of them no longer generates a REASONABLE RETURN, it gonna get CHOPPED. It's as simple as that!

With the costs of the CO-OP Tie ins and the poor rate of returns, many shops have stopped using them as an advertising vehicle.

In addition, many shops stopped buying the Holiday Branded due to cost, too low SRP's, and too low returns on their investments.

And lastly, DA CONSUMERS have stopped buying these items, either as a collectible or another piece of CHACHKA they don't need as they opt for more fresh flowers versus putting any emphasis on the container.

For the past 10 years, those ads in our market had less and less LOCAL SHOPS listed and more and more Towns and Cities located far from the marketed target market.

That scenario applied to both the wire services and I suspect that FTDI threw in the towel first, and Teleflora may reach that same conclusion at some point in the future as well.

When the tie in ad costs $180.00 or more and you stocked 12 or more of the Branded, and you may or may not have sold them, that's an additional optional expense a shop is forced revisit.

 

[Robin]

We paid for the FTD ads, too....none of them are free, Herb!
Makes me even GLADDER (?) that I bought none of their containers!!!!:bouncy:
Robin

 

[blumen]

We are VERY selective about what branded containers we carry. We carry few, and only choose those that we can feature and make look good on our website. (We won't fill for Ftd.com)

Right now we are selling a lot of the FTD pumpkin arrangement. For Christmas we only bought the C2 and C10 and the old gold cube which FTD is now promoting as an everyday arrangement (Golden Bliss).

FTD has too many expensive containers, promoted at too cheap a price. We dropped the co-op ads a few years ago. For us, e-mail marketing is the way to go.

 

[PhillyPhlorist]

We are VERY selective about what branded containers we carry. We carry few, and only choose those that we can feature and make look good on our website. (We won't fill for Ftd.com)

Right now we are selling a lot of the FTD pumpkin arrangement. For Christmas we only bought the C2 and C10 and the old gold cube which FTD is now promoting as an everyday arrangement (Golden Bliss).

FTD has too many expensive containers, promoted at too cheap a price. We dropped the co-op ads a few years ago. For us, e-mail marketing is the way to go.

Ditto on the pumpkins. They sold well last year, and this year too. We are usually selling them $10-20 over the SRP, one in the cooler at all times and it sells. Halloween version will be dud, but we'll give it a shot. We do some good Halloween biz for some reason...

- H.

 

[marie g bushnell]

FSN has their autumn page web site that I can email to customers, but I need to type in a "brief" intro with this and haven't done it yet.
What message do you send with yours?