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I consult for nawfi.com who has been in the floral business for 10 yrs. I have no formal floral education but have been involved with the floral wholesale industry for over 20 years. Others here at NAWFI have formal ed and decades of experience. This site was recommended by a designer/consulting florist to exchange dialog with florists regarding use of Internet and web technology. I hope to provide suggestions and pointers for support and more advanced use and savings from Internet. I mostly work out of NAWFI's commercial site but I also often work remotely from my home consulting office.
I consult for nawfi.com who has been in the floral business for 10 yrs. I have no formal floral education but have been involved with the floral wholesale industry for over 20 years. Others here at NAWFI have formal ed and decades of experience. This site was recommended by a designer/consulting florist to exchange dialog with florists regarding use of Internet and web technology. I hope to provide suggestions and pointers for support and more advanced use and savings from Internet. I mostly work out of NAWFI's commercial site but I also often work remotely from my home consulting office.
wildflowerschicago
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Hi, Thanks for your interest in our community. Who referred you to us?
Hi and I echo Amy's welcome. Thanks also for not only answering the questions but for being more expansive with your answers.
I see by visiting your website, the company is a wholesaler. What is your role there?
V
I see by visiting your website, the company is a wholesaler. What is your role there?
V
Thanks for the questions. I was referred by James L. Lowe of Lowe's in Minot, ND. I'm not sure what his member name here is. Very nice and talented guy and businessman. He did a great series of presentations recently at NAWFI.
My role at NAWFI is as a technology consultant who does their computer systems and related tech. I've been doing the wholesale floral biz for so long it has become a vertical market for our systems and software. Since we integrated NAWFI's website with their internal systems I've been asking for useful criticism of our web design. James was at the NAWFI spring show in Sioux Falls and graciously gave me excellent feedback and twigged me to this site.
Since NAWFI is expanding their efforts to reach out using web technology to retailers, this site is a natural forum to get feedback, ideas and to encourage others to adopt more advanced web methods (which obviously everyone here already does). Balancing high impact visual content with high functionality and flexibility is a tough technical job and the tradeoffs have to be done in a thoughtful fashion. I've looked at dozens of sites and many are rich in visual content but slow or hard to use. We are trying to keep the high visual but make it more efficient to use.
The NAWFI website is supposed to be easy to use yet powerful and fast. Things like hover images for the thumbnails and near real-time inventory availability are essential. We expect that for the more mundane daily ordering tasks or the after 5pm or on the weekend orders the website will be preferable to using the phone or sending an email or fax. The simplicity and speed of being able to create an order for two or three items in 30-60 seconds is the main goal. Easy to use, informative, fast and efficient - that's the design goal.
NAWFI goes this one level better as their sales staff will look over every single order and deal with it as if it was done on the phone or in person. I think that is very smart as it keeps real, knowledgeable people in the loop on behalf of the customer. When there are inventory issues (as there always are in a perishable biz) the salesperson will get on it and sort it out with the customer.
NAWFI has a great set of staff who keep the purchasing, receipt, stocking, picking, packing and shipping loop at a very high level of quality. It really is amazing how great these people are. Our systems and software support their efforts with all the typical biz functions plus inventory, order handling, sales analysis, labeling, route volume management, etc. (and of course now the website).
It's a service thing: If we serve you well, you can be more profitable and have less stress and better serve your customers. It's a win-win-win which is the best kind of business. I love outcomes like that. (Sorry if this sort of became a puff piece for NAWFI but they really are a great company which is why they continue to grow.)
All that said this will be a great forum learning more about the entire industry. My thanks to the creators of this site. I look forward to learning from the folks that contribute here.
Spence
My role at NAWFI is as a technology consultant who does their computer systems and related tech. I've been doing the wholesale floral biz for so long it has become a vertical market for our systems and software. Since we integrated NAWFI's website with their internal systems I've been asking for useful criticism of our web design. James was at the NAWFI spring show in Sioux Falls and graciously gave me excellent feedback and twigged me to this site.
Since NAWFI is expanding their efforts to reach out using web technology to retailers, this site is a natural forum to get feedback, ideas and to encourage others to adopt more advanced web methods (which obviously everyone here already does). Balancing high impact visual content with high functionality and flexibility is a tough technical job and the tradeoffs have to be done in a thoughtful fashion. I've looked at dozens of sites and many are rich in visual content but slow or hard to use. We are trying to keep the high visual but make it more efficient to use.
The NAWFI website is supposed to be easy to use yet powerful and fast. Things like hover images for the thumbnails and near real-time inventory availability are essential. We expect that for the more mundane daily ordering tasks or the after 5pm or on the weekend orders the website will be preferable to using the phone or sending an email or fax. The simplicity and speed of being able to create an order for two or three items in 30-60 seconds is the main goal. Easy to use, informative, fast and efficient - that's the design goal.
NAWFI goes this one level better as their sales staff will look over every single order and deal with it as if it was done on the phone or in person. I think that is very smart as it keeps real, knowledgeable people in the loop on behalf of the customer. When there are inventory issues (as there always are in a perishable biz) the salesperson will get on it and sort it out with the customer.
NAWFI has a great set of staff who keep the purchasing, receipt, stocking, picking, packing and shipping loop at a very high level of quality. It really is amazing how great these people are. Our systems and software support their efforts with all the typical biz functions plus inventory, order handling, sales analysis, labeling, route volume management, etc. (and of course now the website).
It's a service thing: If we serve you well, you can be more profitable and have less stress and better serve your customers. It's a win-win-win which is the best kind of business. I love outcomes like that. (Sorry if this sort of became a puff piece for NAWFI but they really are a great company which is why they continue to grow.)
All that said this will be a great forum learning more about the entire industry. My thanks to the creators of this site. I look forward to learning from the folks that contribute here.
Spence
Carrieann
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