Stay away from Premier Level!

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Susanne said:
Fox, are you familiar with loss leaders? A business strategy in which a business offers a product or service at a price that is not profitable for the sake of offering another product/service at a greater profit or to attract new customers.
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sFox...are you paying attention??? :>

The problem is, and Susanne you eluded to it, but I think you're a bit off in your analogy, the wires have indeed used the florists as "loss leaders" over direct consumer sales. They are willing to lose up to 110% on that first sale to get the customer information away from the local florist, no matter that florists size.

"Small shops", while they can try to emulate larger operations have little hope of actually doing so. They do not have the same clout when it comes to almost every item it takes to survive this industry. Larger operations can and do negotiate seriously low fees, they demand and get extremely large rebates (upwards of $8-10/order), we can buy in bulk, like (and I'm not that big) 10-15 full boxes a week, or like some, 40-50 boxes. Small shops can not do that...it just does not work.

The wires have and continue to pit shop against shop, driving the machine in the direction they want it to go. Not much will change until the florists follow Nancy's words, and "Just say NO!"...but thats happening, all though slowly, and the trend will continue.

Loss leader....yep, the wires are selling us out, just like that case of toilet paper, that's "free after mail in rebate" at Walmart.
 
Susanne said:
Toto,
You mean to tell me the ol' Fox made me get my knickers in a bunch over nothing. LoL (laugh out loud) I really thought he had breathed in too much of that aersol floral spray dye.
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Susanne, the old fox did have fun with the post, but what was amazing is that as outrageous as my post was, it was believed. Just like the wire services, when they make those outrageous promises to florists, that only result in more money leaving a florists pockets and going into their pockets.

It only goes to show that if you are going to tell a fairy tale, make sure it's a "whopper" of a story because it usually makes it more believable.
 
So true! I was with 1-800 for 18 months when I first started this biz & I almost lost my biz because Of not making a cent on all the work we did. Crazy! When I moved recently to Suwanee, GA, the rep is calling & begging me to sign up. Do I look insane? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over & over expecting different results. It would definitey not produce any different results....
 
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Don't worry

Susanne said:
Toto,
You mean to tell me the ol' Fox made me get my knickers in a bunch over nothing. LoL (laugh out loud) I really thought he had breathed in too much of that aersol floral spray dye.
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It's taken me ages to fathom it out as well ... used to get in a right old two and eight about his posts and then realised!
Carrie
 
Speaking of 1800 does anyone know if they have access to the minimums the TF florists have up on the system? They sent us an order that was waaay below our minimum on roses, we refused it, should have put "What were you thinking?" on the message I guess. They called to see if we were going to do it and they said "We realize you don't have roses on sale like we do," meaning their drop ship program that under cuts the florists. What a bunch of %&*#!! We told them who was one of their members, call them.

Trish
 
Trish, I'm going to say this and someone will say I don't know what I'm talking about but here goes...

I was a test shop for TF new Beta System for over a year, TF was the last of the big three WS to get into the new computer age (they were analog).

It was a nightmare no orders, and the system kept going down almost daily calls to TF re this to no avail. Then I noticed that when a 1-800 order came in the TF shut down. Everytime!!

I called TF and gleaned a bit of info re. TF and 1-800 somehow being connected on the new system side. Sorta like when you have two antivirus running in computer at once they fight each other.

Then I started getting calls from shops processing 1800 orders over TF's system. I made a note of that info put on desk to ponder later. Didn't take long before other orders and other florist called with the same story of a connection between 1800 and TF.

Curious...how TF couldn't figure out Beta for years(Remember you had to have a separate dedicated phone line and a special mother board that could read TF's old tech. That cost the florist more $$ every month too).

Then 1800 who had the technology starts sending orders over the TF new Beta System?????!! The pay off for 1800 is they have the benefit of the much larger reach, more filling shops, many more!

1-800 couldn't get shops to sign up, and the ones that signed up when it was NOT a WS proper only charging 250.00 per year, started leaving in droves, when 1-800 decided to be a WS bigboy.

From recent post re 1-800 Premier, they have gone nuts and will loose even more of their own shops. But no worries, they will just be another OG collecting orders like FROM YOU, and BLOOMS TODAY, and KAYS, etc.,sending their orders thru TF (#1 in shop numbers).

Everyones, happy but the florist getting SCW@@@@D. (hey I didn't underline that and make it blue!)

Please, if any of my learned breatheran, know more or can for sure tell me if I am wrong, please fire away. But please let's not go to the crazy WS place. Thanks.:iwuvyou:
 
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I know 1800 is now in bed with TF, but don't their order takers know about our minimums that we have for our shops? I don't think they have that if you are a 1800 shop so maybe they don't realize we have minimums? Teleflora must be getting something out of the deal to let their competition send orders thru their system. Did they happen to enlighten you on that?

Trish
 
Trish,
Perhaps I didn't state that clearly but...

TF did not have modern technology, apparently couldn't figure it out, so I think from what I was told, 1-800 provided TF the technology model in exchange for the ability to send 1800 orders to TF shops for filling.
TF has at least 4 times the # of shops that 1-800 has.

So the benefit to 1-800 is the ability to send to many more locations.

The benefit to TF was they got the newer Beta technology from 1-800.

We are WS free, so can't test the theory, but would bet that if a shop was TF and 1-800, if they dropped the 1-800 membership, they'd still get orders for 1800 thru TF.

Therefore if 1-800 is a sorta TF member, they would have access to your shop mimimum info. huh.
;)
 
Thanks, that's what I thot that they had access to our minimums and info, but I did miss the part about TF gaining the technology, thanks for clearing that up. I could see what 1800 got out of the deal, access to shops like us since we are only TF.

Trish
 
So I have to know.

Since bloomtastic started this thread and you wanted us to know all the fees that was involved with bloomnet.

I would really like to know what your percentage of the incoming was after fees.

4 years ago for us it was 68%.
 
I'm not sure why you folks are surprised...

Bloomnet does not even honor the codified minimums of their own members....one of the reasons they are not worth the hassle. Too many rejects on price alone...
 
Eric S said:
4 years ago for us it was 68%.
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That would be doable for me.

I do believe that would be around 38% more of whatever I am not currently getting. We could very easily fill a coupla more orders a day.

:tread::wallhead:
 
ahhh but she looks so good standing around.

Better than a Christmas ornament.
 
sfox said:
It's probably a good thing you said that because she's a woman who works all day with a knife in her hand.
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Yea... and especially since Bloomz has no idea what a knife is for anyway... he might get hurt!:poke:
 
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