Official FlowerChat Order Gatherer Registry

Having fun with URL's

I noticed something fun today! Type in any correctly spelled word in the first part of this URL and it works! It is nice to see they have admited to who they really are:

http://ordergathering-florists.flowerpetal.con

http://dirtbag-florists.flowerpetal.con

Each URL really works in going to their site!

It work wonders on your own perverted sense of humor what you get to call them!

Enjoy seeing the website with the glamor URL of your choosing. Sadly type in your name or town, (even if its trademarked!) it works there too. Wonder how they seem to come up naturally for everywhere?


I met these internet "guru's" at a top 100 FTD meeting, 6 months after they launched their site. They had been doing SEO work for JF and saw easy pickings, I guess we are.

Poor guys, with this tightening economy they won't get to lay off designers, sales staff, drivers, pay gas bills, buy vans, etc.

Isn't the flower business great?


Keith

BTW, somehow I don't think its about the flowers.
 
Dear Calla,

Your choice to be send only is wrong. If you do not have enough wire business to avoid the reciprocity fee get out of the wire business. But looking at your website I highly doubt this is the case. As far as I am concerned, there is simply NO reason to be send only. Period. I will not accept any orders from send only. Why the heck should I? This whole system is founded (and now bastardized) on reciprocity.

The whole idea is an anathema to the wire business. I strongly believe it should be ended.

Please take my shop out of your computer system, save me the trouble of forwarding it.

Either join the real florist business or not. Don't play a game.

I wish you Local success,

Keith
 
calla said:
We are a send-only shop as we could not generate incoming orders over a 12-year period so we were pleased to eliminate the $20 monthly QC fee and the ad fee.
Click to expand...
Well, well, well....

Do tell how many orders you generate that you funnel to other florists.

As far as generating incoming orders...not easy, nor profitable, but you have already figured that one out.

I'd also be curious as to your local volume, do you even have a cooler?
 
Calla, I'm curious about your send-only position also. How did you come to make that decision? I don't really understand what you mean when you say that you could not generate incoming orders.
 
I have 1-800 call me daily wanting us to deliver flowers.
Constantly asking us to do "Fields of Europe", "All about me", or
the awful birthday cake. The cubical kids,as I call them, cannot
pronounce the names of the flowers nor do they know what they
are doing. I loved life as a florist before all this came about. If
we only knew what was going to happen to us!
 
Despite 12 years or so of paying fees, advertising, offering a #800, our business would receive about 12 orders a year from the TF network as incoming orders. Our business inside TF is sending for corporate customers primarily. If you've got a secret inside track I'd be really pleased to learn it as I couldn't despite hours on the phone with TF to see what's what. Our impression was that there were a couple of downtown florists capturing the incoming orders as they were Dove members from the get-go which was several years before I purchased the business. The previous owners (1984) had tried to be two-sided TFers and had cancelled completely, sending out via credit cards. We also were AFS members for several years to the same result, and there was another in there that we tried (cariac??) The number of florists published in the TF catalogue for our city is about one-third of what it was a few years ago so it would seem we're not the only ones who find TF unworthwhile effort. My query here was to try to understand(again) if there was method in the order-gatherers needing us --such--that we should reinstate for the receiving end......guess not.
 
Thanks for your viewpoint. After 20 years in a journalism career, serendipity brought me to the flower business 17 years ago. Believe me, for a decade I wouldn't be home before 9 or 10 pm as I toiled to drag a typical dinosaur of the flower business into the modern age, building databases and advertising inside the TF catalogue and paying their 1992 membership fee to receive a dozen orders a year. I looked into joining the Dove Network in the mid-'90s to see if that would be the answer to an injection of incoming orders, only to be told by the TF rep out of Calgary, and confirmed by local florists who were actually open to networking inside this business that if I were to join that it would take us 8 years for our shop name to come up to the first page of the listings. Whoaa...my time is more valuable than that, after the million and more I left on the salaried employee table for the delight of the flower business! We operate a corporate telephone business, in the main, and use the TF lost leader to service that customer base for international sending. Service is for my customers, not other florists who would have me increase my overhead for a specifically useless cost inside the nature of my business. That would be bad business wouldn't it? My feelings would be hurt at your request to remove you from The List, if I thought you'd be one of the 12 orders we 'might' receive next year!
 
Our local volume is gratifying after 25 years of the up and down motion that most replicates bull-riding. I find this topic an interesting one, which many of us have wrestled with, usually, in isolation. Understandable, given the insolence that pops up inside a forum of peers! Yes, we have a beautiful storefront in one of the nicer areas in the heart of the city. And a cooler, a TF requirement (tic) if I recall when the rep, a former clothing salesperson, used to fly in with a 10-part check-list, spend 10 minutes and toss in some tidbits on Mother's Day. Such green oozes about when a business person accesses the possiblity of using only those services that are useful and profitable...and available! What do you think about merely becoming a TF affiliate and cutting all the b.s. and peer-bullying? After all, a "pure" 10 per cent commission, no fees, no percentages, no jealousy???? No doubt you've searched, as most of us have, for a way around TF?
 
Oh Spirit Man....in addition to my quick response posted above, please do tell:
i) how many orders do you generate that you funnel to other florists
ii)what is your annual local volume?
iii) Is it porportional to the coolers you own or does that god-awful website acutally generate orders?
 
Dear clueless Calla,

You sadly mistake my request for you to take me off of your "List" I do NOT ask because I think you are misguided and could make money on incoming, I ask because your business plan is in line with any true DOG and as such we will not fill or believe me send to, anyone who thinks they have figured out the system by screwing the retail florist. I simply ask because I have a very diametric opposition to your business model. Find another local retail florist to take advantage of using the wire service system.
For us the reason we send a fair number of orders is simply because we have a large customer base and they trust us. If you build your local business the outgoings will grow too, but to say you will not take incoming is a slap in the face of all retail florists who do (at a loss) but consider it part of being a retail florist. Your model would not work in any plan, imagine if all the florists who think they don't get enough incoming to justify it simply became "send only", wonderful, who would you have fill your order that you send? A true genius plan. It appears that you are simply taking advantage of a current loophole in the system, shame on you.

Maybe its time you found the DOG forum and learn the other ways to screw the local florists.

Pathetic,

Keith
 
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calla said:
Oh Spirit Man....in addition to my quick response posted above, please do tell:
i) how many orders do you generate that you funnel to other florists
ii)what is your annual local volume?
iii) Is it porportional to the coolers you own or does that god-awful website acutally generate orders?
Click to expand...
Since it's common knowledge around here...

i) about 3500
ii) pushing $1MM
iii) yes, and depends on which site your talking about.

The reason I asked the question in the first place, is that there are several KNOWN so called "florists" in Vancouver that do not have flowers, yet alone a cooler. One in particular, E-floristinc.com formerly known as Urban Florist, is a Teleflora top 5 member generating a few hundred thousand orders a year, without the associated overhead of a true RealFlorist.

Your obvious contempt for your "peers" leads me to believe that your hiding something for some reason. Not that I care, since I am not Teleflora and have no way to receive some of your orders.

I do note, your lack of answer regarding the number of orders you funnel to other florists. So I would ass-u-me that the answer would provide a glimpse into the actual nature of your operation, something you are not willing to let other people see.
 
I don't have contempt for my peers. I think that your insolence is unnecessary, given your position as the FC administrator. Usually the comparison of apples and oranges doesn't even make for good marmalade. And the forum is open for florist-business-participants to ask questions --and to be treated with the respect of that. I got your answer, but presume your bully attitude is the minority among our peers! And can understand why so many of the FC ,members keep their anonymity, as I did for a few years......who needs you in their day? You're absolutely right in that our gross annual sales don't come anywhere close to your purported million. It's that big USA thing, I presume, as it's doubtful many independant, self-financed operations in Canada are coming close to your bulk. With your service attitude I can be quizzical at the success you report, guess it's that ugly american-thing that your country is so well know for.....wonder why?
 
Hi Calla: I see you don't have a website. Out of curiosity, do you have a shop or are you homebased? Also are you a full-service florist (excepting receiving of wire orders)?

Thanks for your time.

V
 
calla said:
With your service attitude I can be quizzical at the success you report, guess it's that ugly american-thing that your country is so well know for.....wonder why?
Click to expand...
There's enough ugly in your recent remarks for both countries. Nice.

Lead by example friend.
 
calla said:
your bully attitude is the minority among our peers! And can understand why so many of the FC ,members keep their anonymity,
Click to expand...
Naw, not a bully, I just cut to the chase when I have a question. Never intended to offend, just wanted an answer to an honest question that's still unanswered.

And as an Administrator, if I want to find out who someone is, I generally can.

Perhaps it is an American thing, being direct that is, but you should know, as others do here, I'm American Indian mostly....

I've wasted enough time on this one...
 
I'm not following this very well. Calla is a OG with an empty cooler in Canada? But a send only OG that also does some local bus????
So far the only OG with a shop on FC that has'nt come off like a dink is Bloomz.

I can not process this data.
 
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keith said:
I had an order called in today from a Pink Blossom Florist in Surrey BC that is send only. I think this is actually PinkLotus.com online. We called them back and said completing the order was not going to happen, they ask us to send a CAN, on a phone order? Maroons.
Click to expand...
PinkLotus.com is owned and operated by Vancouver's very own e-florist-inc.com. e-florist-inc is all TF affiliate content, PinkLotus is all FTD affilate content.

keith said:
I noticed something fun today! Type in any correctly spelled word in the first part of this URL and it works! It is nice to see they have admited to who they really are:

http://[COLOR=red]ordergathering[/COLOR]-florists.flowerpetal.con

http://[COLOR=red]dirtbag[/COLOR]-florists.flowerpetal.con
Click to expand...
OMG that is too funny. It's like a catch-all subdomain.

calla said:
What do you think about merely becoming a TF affiliate and cutting all the b.s. and peer-bullying? After all, a "pure" 10 per cent commission, no fees, no percentages, no jealousy???? No doubt you've searched, as most of us have, for a way around TF?
Click to expand...
Why bother? You're already a GrowerFlowers.com affiliate and send your online customers there strait for ordering.
Vancouver delivery and lower mainland, call us directly to discuss your custom designed arrangement or seasonal bouquet; or please place order here.
Click to expand...
That link goes straight to GF. You'll make more than 10% in affiliate commissions through them. Still perplexing why a real florist would settle for affiliate commissions on local orders rather than filling and delivering them him- or herself.
 
CHR said:
PinkLotus.com is owned and operated by Vancouver's very own e-florist-inc.com. e-florist-inc is all TF affiliate content, PinkLotus is all FTD affilate content.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't call the content from pinklotus.com either teleflora or ftd content.

Better click there again - it's unique stuff.

http://www.pinklotus.com/
 
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