Amen! Can't we discuss the merits without attacking the personalities?
IMO the personal attacks have caused more folks to stop posting... not because they were attacked themselves, but because they don't like the atmosphere.
'Tis a shame.
Nothing biased about this board ........
- Thread starter Doug Munro
- Start date
IMO the personal attacks have caused more folks to stop posting... not because they were attacked themselves, but because they don't like the atmosphere.
'Tis a shame.
Let's add a few rather common phrases that you might understand Doug. A circular argument is what you have presented to FC. Here is the definition in case the term is new to you:
Arguing in a circle is first using a premiss to prove a conclusion, and then using the conclusion to prove the premiss; in other words, it is an attempt to prove two statements reciprocally from each other.
When the circular argument is expressed in simple and unmistakable language, with the intervening discussion omitted, it is easy enough to detect, and you might justly say that no one in his senses would ever be deceived. But when the two halves of the circle are widely separated, and the disputant uses his terms loosely and vaguely, then the argument has a plausibility about it that may deceive a hearer who is not alert.
Begging the question is another way to phrase it. Similar definition, but I can post it if you like.
Now let's substitute the word reader for hearer. This is why you are not getting the response you want from this thread. We are not all as stupid as you would think, or least as stupid as your overall tone seems to suggest. I personally understood your request and the point of your thread the first time it came up and again in this post. Several times now you have, indeed, made your point.
In the interest of general posting I responded to your post in a way that I thought was satisfactory in explaining my point of view. Others have done the same. Alas, this does not seem not sufficient for you.
Far more of us on FC have lost or wasted money thru the wire services.
Many have experiences with skimmed orders or undervalued orders. People tend to talk about what they have in common. I doubt we all have many filler shops that we all use. But you understand this, and you did from the beginning before you posted.
I am sorry that you are disappointed that no one wants to play your game by your rules. I especially have no interest in joining up with someone who wants to be condescending and snide. I recognize a playground bully when I see one, and I never did play those games.
Any questions about the terms I have used? Please PM me, and I'll be more than happy to clarify them for you. I promise.
Arguing in a circle is first using a premiss to prove a conclusion, and then using the conclusion to prove the premiss; in other words, it is an attempt to prove two statements reciprocally from each other.
When the circular argument is expressed in simple and unmistakable language, with the intervening discussion omitted, it is easy enough to detect, and you might justly say that no one in his senses would ever be deceived. But when the two halves of the circle are widely separated, and the disputant uses his terms loosely and vaguely, then the argument has a plausibility about it that may deceive a hearer who is not alert.
Begging the question is another way to phrase it. Similar definition, but I can post it if you like.
Now let's substitute the word reader for hearer. This is why you are not getting the response you want from this thread. We are not all as stupid as you would think, or least as stupid as your overall tone seems to suggest. I personally understood your request and the point of your thread the first time it came up and again in this post. Several times now you have, indeed, made your point.
In the interest of general posting I responded to your post in a way that I thought was satisfactory in explaining my point of view. Others have done the same. Alas, this does not seem not sufficient for you.
Far more of us on FC have lost or wasted money thru the wire services.
Many have experiences with skimmed orders or undervalued orders. People tend to talk about what they have in common. I doubt we all have many filler shops that we all use. But you understand this, and you did from the beginning before you posted.
I am sorry that you are disappointed that no one wants to play your game by your rules. I especially have no interest in joining up with someone who wants to be condescending and snide. I recognize a playground bully when I see one, and I never did play those games.
Any questions about the terms I have used? Please PM me, and I'll be more than happy to clarify them for you. I promise.
I am not missing his point - That some filling florists SUCK - No.. I think we get his point. I am impartial - When there are no puzzle pieces.. but when circumstances change the situation.. impartiallity is difficult.
I am "against" WS/OG's .. but not because of my OWN bias... I was opened minded.. I used to fill these orders (a lot of these orders)
BUT then I saw the truth in who they are and what they represent. Deception, dishonesty and manipulation - putting ads in my local phone book? In my entire county there are LESS than 100K people.. We are talking an area over 200 sq miles .. WHY? ***TO STEAL my biz.. and then try to get me to fill the order for them... ** ONLY ogs and ws do this - not ABC florist 300 miles away.
WS and OG's need ME and others like me to survive - A REAL flower shop DOES not! SO tell me?? Why do the og's do everything to make me be biased against them? GREED!!!!!! Plan and simple - and I am sorry but I HATE greedy people - wo YEP - there is my BIAS! I FOUND it
.. Hate greed! I wonder.... Since Doug is so successful - if we did get a list of "POOR filling florists" together... Would he just black list them..
Or perhaps give them a call and talk to them about how to be more successful incoming order fulfiller??
For the record, I think Doug has a valid point about OG's, and some lack of professionalism in the industry. I am all for shops being accountable for poor work, which hurts all of us. But walk softly and carry a big stick, not beat others over the head with it should be the norm around here. That doesn't seem to be the case in this thread. JMHO. :dunno:
BOSS
FlowerChat Administrator
I make no bones about my stance against dOG's, OG's and the like. My mission is to kill them all.
As to personal attacks, they are uncalled for and unnecessary, often derailing valuable discussion.
Now Wait just a darn minute.. Is black listing another florist.. not a personal attack?
If someone here put my name on that list - I would take that pretty darn personal... Which is exaclty why we don't want to make that list - as an OG - they don't care about personal attacks... Personal ATTACKS is how they roll.
Just the other day (keep in mind I am not with a wire service) THEY blamed me, to the customer for not taking an order... EVEN said the name of the shop! (THE reciept is a good customer, and called to ask me about the issue) I explained that I am not required to take their orders..
When the og called me - I said I would take it on a CC at 100% - they refused to give me the order - kept on about 20% split.. I told them no. So then they try calling me with the same order.. (less money this time) GUESS they think I am stuid.
And I have to agree with Erin Brockovich - MY work is Personal - It's my time away from my children and my family - If I were to be put on a list.. because someone here (or their customer) did not like me or my work - I would take it very, very personal.
If someone here put my name on that list - I would take that pretty darn personal... Which is exaclty why we don't want to make that list - as an OG - they don't care about personal attacks... Personal ATTACKS is how they roll.
Just the other day (keep in mind I am not with a wire service) THEY blamed me, to the customer for not taking an order... EVEN said the name of the shop! (THE reciept is a good customer, and called to ask me about the issue) I explained that I am not required to take their orders..
When the og called me - I said I would take it on a CC at 100% - they refused to give me the order - kept on about 20% split.. I told them no. So then they try calling me with the same order.. (less money this time) GUESS they think I am stuid.
And I have to agree with Erin Brockovich - MY work is Personal - It's my time away from my children and my family - If I were to be put on a list.. because someone here (or their customer) did not like me or my work - I would take it very, very personal.
Joe Mioux
Well-Known Member
hey goldie what part of the title has anyone missed.
this sounds like a push-pull thread where Doug has already determined the answer to question and is just being provocative.
and i am getting a little sick of everyone whining and implying that certain members around here are just posting to hurt other members' feelings. if you can't take the heat don't post.
whenever a thread turns south, the first comments out of the "peace makers" is "lets stop the name calling" ..... if you can't defend yourself stay out of the debates and if the threads get too nasty lock them.
Just when we are whipping up a good argument here....the inconvenient truth steps up.
Blacklisting is blacklisting. No matter how you justify it, or what your motives are - it is still the same thing. When you step out to put a shop's name on the list, you become fair game to have that come right back at you, regardless of your altruistic attempt to right the floral wrongs.
Skim, scam, scum lists are one thing, (you still put yourself out there for retaliation) but there is a fine line here. Not everybody who sends a large amount of orders is the devil. I'm betting anyone who sees their name on a list takes it pretty darn personal.
Hate to give up any ground in a good argument but "Personal ATTACKS is how they roll." is too broad of a brush for me. Just sayin'.
Let me pose a question here regarding how you deal with shops that do not fill properly.
When you find out ( by whatever means ) that an order you sent for a customer was improperly filled by another shop thereby causing your customer to be disappointed, How do you handle that situation?
I'll use an example that happened to me several years ago. I had moved from Charleston, SC to Columbia SC and while working at a Columbia shop, I had a customer place an order for an FTD branded design......going to Charleston. I knew the shop's work in Charleston because I had worked there.......seen the quality first hand........so I sent them the order.
A few days later, the customer comes in to the shop with a snapshot of the design......which looked nothing like the design was required to look like. The order was for the old Pick Me Up mug design...and the order recieved was a white mug with red carnations, red pixie carnations, red tinted pompon mums and twigs.
How would you handle that situation..........I'll post the method I used after I read a few postings on your handling of that situation.
When you find out ( by whatever means ) that an order you sent for a customer was improperly filled by another shop thereby causing your customer to be disappointed, How do you handle that situation?
I'll use an example that happened to me several years ago. I had moved from Charleston, SC to Columbia SC and while working at a Columbia shop, I had a customer place an order for an FTD branded design......going to Charleston. I knew the shop's work in Charleston because I had worked there.......seen the quality first hand........so I sent them the order.
A few days later, the customer comes in to the shop with a snapshot of the design......which looked nothing like the design was required to look like. The order was for the old Pick Me Up mug design...and the order recieved was a white mug with red carnations, red pixie carnations, red tinted pompon mums and twigs.
How would you handle that situation..........I'll post the method I used after I read a few postings on your handling of that situation.
Funny how the assumption is made on behalf of the order gatherers that they do not care about personal attacks. I do not consider our company anymore of an order gatherer than anyone else who excepts or promotes orders for out of town delivery. Yet, I find our companies name on the OG list, an arbitrary decision made for us by someone we have probably never met. Yes, I do take it personally as we go to great lengths to conduct our business in an above the board manner.
Even so, we find ourselves "blacklisted" by a select few or possibly one individual with their own agenda.
Does no one see the issue with this?
The reality is I never expected for a moment that anyone on this board would actually post the name of a "poor fulfiller". I imagined that everyone would simply rise to the defense of their "brethren" and continue to point fingers at the evil order gatherers and wire services.
As for the poster who suggested that I am making a circular argument and am a playground bully, get a life please.
The above 2 things lead many florists to believe your shops to be OG's
duanermb
New Member
Even though I compete against him in Winnipeg for online supremacy, I will vouch for Doug here. My sister in-law's shop here in Winnipeg is a Grower Direct shop with a very respected name.
Yes, his corporate headquarters is an OG operation as far as I can tell, but not unlike many of our OG friends here. It's also his duty as a franchise operator to get orders for his shops. Let's not burn them at the stake because they are a large franchise.
Grower Direct has been around for many years, pre-dating the internet, so I wouldn't get too uptight about the name either.
There are also several circular debates here that end up going nowhere, because we all seem to focus on dealing with issues we can't control rather than spending that precious time working on the betterment of our local business.
I will add though, that one of the big reasons we wouldn't have a great deal of poor shop posts from these board members, is that the ones who would take that approach have learned how NOT to have an order improperly filled from reading and learning here among other sources. For large senders, they have created their own preferred senders lists that they use regularly.
There are several steps that can be taken to ensure that an order is filled correctly, and they have nothing to do with hitting the send button on a computer. Those who know, don't have issues.
Doug - I don't know you - you are obviously a very successful man.. I do not know your order gathering practices... If you say you're not an OG - I believe you... but..
THIS IS what I do know - There are 15 (yes 15) OG ads in my LOCAL (very small rural area phone book) - I am looking at them now - They include fromyouflowers.com (half page ad) - FLORIST.com - Main Street Flowers, SC CA - FTD (half page ad) - 1800flowers (half page ad) READS - we're your neighbor hood florist..?? American blooms (half page ad) blooms today (half page ad) They all also have smaller ads in with the actual florists. ARE YOU any of these? IF SO then - you might be an OG>>
#1 How do I compete with them? I am honest and I do not want to make 10 million this year - nor will I cheat, lie and deceive to get rich - NOT my goal.
#2 Not only are they in my LOCAL phone book - they decive people into believing they are local.. not just in the ads, but also on the phone when consumers call and by maps on the internet.
Deceiving people to get business is not a practice that I WILL ever do! If I can't get the BIZ thru honest and upstanding business... then I just won't have the biz...
Do you do these things? If not, then I personally am NOT talking about you... If you do - shame on you!
And about the assumption - It is no assumption - I have had enough dealings with OG's and WS that "assumption" is WAY gone - I know how I have PERSONALLY been bashed and threatened by these people.
I do not assume that they will talk crappy to me, or lie about me... THEY HAVE! And so I KNOW they would do it again... NO ASSUMPTIONS neccessary!
I call the florist - ask what the problem was? and let them know that my customer was not happy .. I tell them what I have done for my customer.. refund etc.. I ask them if they are willing to split the cost of the customer satisfaction.
Ultimatly - ITS MY customer... So if I have to eat all of their mistake I do...
BUT honestly In the 8 years I have been in business maybe 5 serious issues with filling florists.. ONe of which.. I can't "blacklist" because they are the only florist in that area.. for like 60 miles..
The others, I just won't use them -
I can honestly say that we go our of our way to NEVER say anything negative to our customers about a fulfiller. We do explain the reasons why a product delivered may not have looked like the product ordered. After all it is our reputation with the customer that is on the line, not the fulfillers. In most cases the sending customer has no idea or does not care who physically delivered the flowers, what they do know is the dealt with and paid us.
Our policy always is customer satisfaction, first and foremost. We commonly issue refunds (partial or full) to customers even though the fulfiller is adamant that they are not in the wrong and will not refund. When this occurs can anyone blame us for choosing a different fulfiller in the future.
As for my being "a very successful man", I suggest that you are giving credit where credit is not due, the owners of our franchised stores are the ones that have created the success, we simply provided the tools, their hard work did the rest.
I can certainly sympathize with the battle you fight having 15 non local competitors in your phone book, it is not a practice we subscribe to. At one point we did advertise in phone books, but our ads were always focused on providing out of town delivery and in fact if we recived a call from a given city for delivery within that city we referred them to one of our own stores (if we had a location) or suggested they contact a local florist.
I certainly will not defend our name or apoligize for it. The reality is it is simply a name, what any individual reads into it is their choice. There is no conspiracy to "trick" the consumer into believing our product is fresher than yours. For one thing I have no idea how our competitors purchase their product.
The origin of the name is pretty straight forward, 20 years ago when the vast majority of retail florists were buying their product from the local wholesaler the founder of our company went straight to the growers, thus cutting out the middle man. The original reason for this was pretty simple, reduce the cost and pass the saving directly to the consumer. No mystery and it worked pretty well as we launched $9.99 dozen roses into Canada.
As an added bonus our product tended to be fresher than what was available on the market at the time as we had in affect cut the time in transit between grower and retailer by 2/3's in some cases.
So "Grower Direct"
I posed this question because the original posting was about un-satisfactory filling florists. I'll sidestep for a minute by saying this about Doug's company as an OG. From everything I have read regarding his company, he is one of the H'OG's ( Honest Order Gatherers ).
Now, back to my question, the reason was to ask how proactive you are in handling your customer's complaints. When the customer showed me the snapshot of the arrangement sent, I immediately apologized, and told her I would call the florist while she was there. When I called my former shop, as was expected, they first denied a problem, when I told them I had a photo of the design in question, they agreed to work with me in rectifying the situation. The customer asked for a replacement arrangement to be delivered that same day......she called the next day and told us she was happy with the flowers recieved.
Now, you might think this is where the story would end........and this is the crux of the matter.
As it turned out, I asked the customer if I could keep the picture as there was an industry event that weekend and I knew the shop would be in attendance. I took the photo with me and showed that photo to the filling shop, The owner was aghast that such a thing went out......and vowed to never let something like that happen again.
This is what I mean by being proactive, rather than naming them as a poor filler, if possible, go to them with the evidence and show them the problem......perhaps the shop owner/manager is not aware that a problem exists.
Mikey the Flower Guy
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Semantics aside, we would NOT be having this "discussion" IF the wire services did THEIR job, and REAL FLORISTS did theirs.
As it stands, the wire services have turned into order broker middlemen between the consumer and the filling florist, and I think a growing proportion of the buying public is SICK OF IT.
OG's LIE openly that "yes they can" get you farm to the table fresh flowers, "bypassing" the traditional florist, and florists openly LIE about THEIR credentials and abilities to fill orders properly, and "hatchet shops" are as a result of EXTREMELY LOUSY wire service intervention in the relationship between the two.
Grower Direct AND Bloomzie, and others, have got a VERY SUCCESSFUL business model, that many shop owners are literally jealous of, and as a result, insult them, OPENLY, for what THEY are good at, and refuse to complete the transaction between the customer, and the fill shop.
I'VE had shops reject MY ORDERS, 'cause I'M an OG...go figure.....florists are SO "lost" in their own downward spiral, that open infighting, WILL DOOM us ALL.....
Personal attacks are downright childish, BUT, as an "apparent adult" give it a rest already...sheer survival has given US ALL reason to fear for survival, and this stupid front that some people are portraying on this board, about "hurt feelings" is GOT TO STOP!
Professional people find creative ways to call someone a jackass, non professional people cannot..so, what's it gonna be??....
As it stands, the wire services have turned into order broker middlemen between the consumer and the filling florist, and I think a growing proportion of the buying public is SICK OF IT.
OG's LIE openly that "yes they can" get you farm to the table fresh flowers, "bypassing" the traditional florist, and florists openly LIE about THEIR credentials and abilities to fill orders properly, and "hatchet shops" are as a result of EXTREMELY LOUSY wire service intervention in the relationship between the two.
Grower Direct AND Bloomzie, and others, have got a VERY SUCCESSFUL business model, that many shop owners are literally jealous of, and as a result, insult them, OPENLY, for what THEY are good at, and refuse to complete the transaction between the customer, and the fill shop.
I'VE had shops reject MY ORDERS, 'cause I'M an OG...go figure.....florists are SO "lost" in their own downward spiral, that open infighting, WILL DOOM us ALL.....
Personal attacks are downright childish, BUT, as an "apparent adult" give it a rest already...sheer survival has given US ALL reason to fear for survival, and this stupid front that some people are portraying on this board, about "hurt feelings" is GOT TO STOP!
Professional people find creative ways to call someone a jackass, non professional people cannot..so, what's it gonna be??....
prestonway
Well-Known Member