Ok, I have read endless amounts of posts regarding the 3 most popular wire services. The majority of them say how much we all despise the big guys and hate being a slave to this neccesary evil. I myself am currently W/S free and have been content using the internet as a tool for finding a filling florist when the need arises. I'm sure I could make money at the W/S game if I put my time (and money) into promoting it. But personally, I have far to many more important things going on in my shop to spend hours trying to find new strategies in advertising, merchandising, and buying to promote something that in the end only benefits the W/S and causes me more stress and headaches.
My proposal to the F/C community is this, Stop wasting time griping about how the W/S is cheating you, and lets all get together and start our own W/S. It shouldn't be hard in this age of the internet to get something going. Look at all the florists we currently have in the F/C community!! That's a good start right there. I'm not saying completley cut the W/S out, but gradually shift your orders to the wonderful folks listed here. Start a new forum for orders, and if it goes smoothly, then everyone pool some $$ into a paypal account, designate about 5 or 6 folks to put together a webpage listing our services and florists and advertise it as a "Wire Service Run by Florists, not by a Faceless Corporation".
No % discounts, no promo stuff to buy, no ad listing to pay for, no huge fees to pay. If everyone here chipped in 5-10$, that would be enough to get a domain name and set up a page. I recommend calling it "United Florist Network". We could also set up a page where the customer could buy directly from the site, we could list about 15 different florist standard items for them to choose from. Everyone here could submit pics of their different styles and we could vote on the items to be listed, you know......democracy style.
And so there is no fighting over who gets the orders, (if more than one florist in the same city) the order goes to whoever is next in line, (base it on join date) regardless of how big or small. And if by chance next in line can't fill then they are skipped and have to wait until their turn comes around again, this will keep people from cheating, (holding out for larger order). Monies will be designated to the sites account and will be distributed to all florists that FILLED orders from site.
-Just a thought -
:soapbox:
My proposal to the F/C community is this, Stop wasting time griping about how the W/S is cheating you, and lets all get together and start our own W/S. It shouldn't be hard in this age of the internet to get something going. Look at all the florists we currently have in the F/C community!! That's a good start right there. I'm not saying completley cut the W/S out, but gradually shift your orders to the wonderful folks listed here. Start a new forum for orders, and if it goes smoothly, then everyone pool some $$ into a paypal account, designate about 5 or 6 folks to put together a webpage listing our services and florists and advertise it as a "Wire Service Run by Florists, not by a Faceless Corporation".
No % discounts, no promo stuff to buy, no ad listing to pay for, no huge fees to pay. If everyone here chipped in 5-10$, that would be enough to get a domain name and set up a page. I recommend calling it "United Florist Network". We could also set up a page where the customer could buy directly from the site, we could list about 15 different florist standard items for them to choose from. Everyone here could submit pics of their different styles and we could vote on the items to be listed, you know......democracy style.
And so there is no fighting over who gets the orders, (if more than one florist in the same city) the order goes to whoever is next in line, (base it on join date) regardless of how big or small. And if by chance next in line can't fill then they are skipped and have to wait until their turn comes around again, this will keep people from cheating, (holding out for larger order). Monies will be designated to the sites account and will be distributed to all florists that FILLED orders from site.
-Just a thought -
:soapbox:
