One Less Wires Service

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mlou

mlou

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Nov 27, 2003
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ilocalflorist.com
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I'm surprised no one has posted the annoucement...

Bloomin Highway Wire Service closed their doors today...

Dear Members:

Bloomin’ Highway has ceased operations. We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes. We would like to thank our loyal members for their support of Bloomin’ Highway and its efforts to bring sensible pricing to the floral wire transfer industry. While we believe that we have the best product and service in this industry, we have not been able to convince enough florists to join and use our service on a daily basis. We have tried for almost 4 years and, unfortunately, cannot continue. All existing orders will be handled and we will perform one last invoicing run with settlements to occur June 16.

Sincerely,

Bloomin’ Highway
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http://bloominhighway.com/
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I haven't ever heard of them before. Were they popular in your region of the country? Maybe they are the wire service that was trying to solicit our business about a year ago that we told to take a hike. Hmmmm.....
 
bloomz said:
Isn't this Peter Plumlee?
He's quit ops more than once now..
he'll resurface again just like Harry
http://thebestwireservice.com/
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No, Peter was Blossoms ... all of 90 members, run out of his basement.

State of the art FAX technology :)

Ryan
 
Just an opinion...

but does anyone think that maybe the reason these "me too" wire service alternatives have problems is because none of them offer any real alternative to what florists already have or really need. All of them are based on the same commission programs, all are membership driven so coverage is always a problem, and all have attracted members who join to GET orders rather than SEND. The large florists aren't going to join because of technology gaps and the smaller florists who still belong to WS to still reap rebates will join these operations in hopes of more in coming orders at less cost. The philosophies of how it has been done for the last 100 years seems to be so ingrained into the minds of the people that form these operations, no one offers anything different that will clearly draw florists to them. Hence, they fail.

Any other reasons???
 
What Griff and Cathy said....and...

These days, many things have changed with regard to what **many** florists need from a wire **service**...although many are too lazy to do anything about it....

You don;t need a wire service for a web site, it can be done much better and much more cost effective to do it yourself, and if you think you can't you're wrong, and I have a site package for you!

You do not need a wire service for marketing assistance, in fact today in this catagory they are more of a liability than an assett with regards to the direction their slant has taken of late. You are far better off networking with others in your industry like we do here at FlowerChat, and even further into smaller groups of florists that share ideas and the costs associated with development and production of materials.

You do not need a wire service for credit cards, however in this regard it is often adventagous to use one.

The key need, and the reason wire **services** were brought to being is order transfer...time to do it differently, however the phone is not the answer!

Until the incentive to recieve is equalled by the incentive to send not much will change...
 
Where's the value??

CHR said:
Bingo!
Most of the 'wanna-be's' tout cheaper. But it's not about cheap, it's about value.
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Talk to me about value. Wire service A which has been around a long time and charges considerably more to allow florists to send orders to each other. Wire service F or G now appear much later and both express a sincere desire to help the florists, and are willing to charge much less to do the same thing - the ability to send and receive orders. Each may offer a liitle "twist" to the concept, but basically it is the same. Wire services were originally created to be merely a clearing house for payments on orders transmitted between the florists. As value of a product or service is determined by the user of the product and not the provider, do you mind sharing your definition of value in this case and why what these people are offering today used to work, but doesn't now. Afterall, after FTD came TF and Redbook and AFS and etc. Why can't you do the same thing now??

Yes, it is a slow day and I'm trying to generate some conversation for everyone.
 
Griff said:
Yes, it is a slow day and I'm trying to generate some conversation for everyone.
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Finally, the truth!!!! LOL

Wire services were originally created to be merely a clearing house for payments on orders transmitted between the florists. As value of a product or service is determined by the user of the product and not the provider, do you mind sharing your definition of value in this case and why what these people are offering today used to work, but doesn't now.
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The mission of being 'just a clearinghouse' changed when FTD started advertising nationally more than 50 years ago. The clearinghouse function, while still a key feature, was surpassed in importance by the benefit of collective marketing long ago. This put more orders in the system which made more florists more money.

Here's how I'd assess the value of second-tier WS's:

Coverage/Number of members - most have less than 3000, not enough to be a single source for sending. So if you'll also need a larger service for the coverage, why have the smaller one at all?

Technology/Interface - (Mostly an issue for businesses with existing POS systems.) Does the service they offer make it as easy to transmit and receive orders? If not, will the cost savings offset the man hours required to go back to manual transmission and reconciliation?

Marketing Materials - Many florists are heavily reliant on WS-provided images and products (posters, ad slicks, websites) for their marketing. For the annual savings, can a florist create comparable professionally designed advertising and product images? (IMO, most second-tier companies have poor or non-existent marketing support.)

Not everone needs a wire service but as Carol so aptly pointed out, the devil is in the details of each shop's P&L.

Regarding the old days of mutiple-multiple WS membership - in 1985, we could be members of 5-6 wire services and it cost less than ONE of the big 2 today and all those orders could be sent over one system - the Mercury. The rebate and tech wars changed all that and the industry as we now know it is a natural result of the distortions created by additional incetives on the selling/sending side. Fees had to go up to pay for all the rebates.

The 2nd-tier companies don't have the funds to pay top dollar rebates, therefore they can't get more orders into the system to make the 'filler-happy' florists pleased with their memberships. If these companies paid out the rebates, they too would have to raise fees - and then their niche as being the 'cheap alternative' would be lost. Vicious, vicous cycle.

For those interested in primarily sending, they have to be concerned with the dearth of members and the quality of membership. For those that primarily want to fill, they have to measure whether the orders generate enough income to offset the monthly fees.

So in the end, value is measured based on the desired result of the member. The top tier companies fall short in they eyes of many florist and I believe most owners would prefer an alternative, but the second-tiers lack the necessary coverage and services to be contenders.
 
Now there is one new wire service that might just throw the big two a big curve that being 1800flowers. If they are doing nationally what they are doing here in Vermont they are going to have far more florist involved with them then either fTD or teleflora. In recent days they have open florist in towns that I did not even know had a florist let alone the fact they have a florist in every major market in our state. And the small town florist is paying next to nothing to be able to send an order via phone or fax as well as receive an order in same manner.
 
steve said:
And the small town florist is paying next to nothing to be able to send an order via phone or fax as well as receive an order in same manner.
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I **think** I read somewhere that 800 is basing their fees on the number of orders **recieved** and not sent, and not on a flat rate... hence shops that recieve only a handfull of orders would be paying much less than someone that recieved more...

So **if** this is the case, and you are in a market with high numbers of outgoing vs. high incoming, they might be a good fit for many shops, however you must also weigh in the extra 2% they take for marketing (I think it is) and know this marketing is driving folks to their 800 number and web site to generate those orders you do recieve...

Like I said some time ago, 800 will become something to be reckoned with, and most likely the biggest pain for the BIG2 there has ever been...
 
Those small shops will only be paying 27 percent on there receiving vs the larger shops paying 29 percent. There are not advertising fees or low sending fees . And there dues could be as low as 9.99 a month.
 
Hmmm.... Start out with low fees, get the shops to purchase necessary equipment to be part of the network, build membership and volume, and then start sending out letters about how successful the network is and how fees will only need to be increasing "a little" (make sure to point out it's only pennies a day) to maintain the top level of service.

This approach has allowed at least one company to raise basic network technology fees almost 200% in less than 6 years and 'receiving fees' 300% in the same amount of time. And 1800's new top guy was part of that "low-ball 'em and lock 'em in" team.
 
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