Teleflora and ProFlowers

BOSS

BOSS

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Oct 31, 2002
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I heard yesterday that Teleflora claims to have a 4 fold increase in order volume this Christmas season. My guess is that that number could be correct, based on their association with ProFlowers and handling their orders as HQ orders (sending them out as TF.com rather than as PF) to local florists.

TF has said that they are going to separate those orders out, and allow florists to opt out of PF orders while continuing to fill TFHQ orders, but no one I know has seen evidence of this change as of yet.

Are you seeing more orders from TFHQ this season?
 
It is easy to know if you get any pf orders by t/f, late orders are sent with very minimum, secondly if you ask for more money they either do not respond, or cancel after several hours. AND tflora lines are already backed up that one has to leave messages. We received a few HQ orders and so far we have received price increases so we have filled these orders, It is "just flowers" which is a real pest. We have one florist in Charlotte who is filling every wire order even something for $25.00, of course they do not have to carry much inventory so it does not matter (don't want to express too much about this). Florists like this are the ones who encourage Pf and Jf to exist. Fill lots of orders, and sell out of everything by 12/24. Merry Christmas everyone.

Just another point.....Rush Limbaugh is now promoting 1-800, and not Pf.
 
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Nothing over here. But they did ask me if I want to up my listing to the preferred florist in Tustin on the dove directory.

There is only three of us left so I told them no thanks but if they wanted to give us some credits on our TF statement we might consider staying with them longer.
 
No increase in order volume, it is about the same. There is a slight decrease in $$$ per order. All orders are still coming masked as TF HQ. There is only one definite change I can identify, and it is in Teleflora customer service. They are definitely trying hard to stick it to the florist. While in the past, customer service in TF HQ tried hard to help florist and work with them on the issues, the attitude completely flipped recently. Like there was a "board meeting" where someone adopted that "future is in order gathering and we will find some kids from high school to make these arrangement for us - sc**w florists". I hate to say it, but there is a Walmart happening all over floral industry and our associations are silent.
 
Google Trends - Web Search Interest- ftd.com, teleflora.com, 1800flowers.com, proflowers.com - W.png

According to Google interest in all the big 4 has dropped significantly ... TF hasn't increased, but the others are dropping to their level.
 
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BOSS said:
I heard yesterday that Teleflora claims to have a 4 fold increase in order volume this Christmas season. My guess is that that number could be correct, based on their association with ProFlowers and handling their orders as HQ orders (sending them out as TF.com rather than as PF) to local florists.

TF has said that they are going to separate those orders out, and allow florists to opt out of PF orders while continuing to fill TFHQ orders, but no one I know has seen evidence of this change as of yet.

Are you seeing more orders from TFHQ this season?
Click to expand...

I believe that they are currently working with the high volume florists, that have already opted out of TF Headquarters orders (because of ProFlower same day delivery masking), and getting them situated to accept TF Headquarters, without accepting PF orders.. I am assuming that, based on that Teleflora did this with a large florist in Houston.

This was emailed to me yesterday from a TF rep;

Guys, we do listen,

As promised previously, our IT team has been working hard to give shops greater flexibility regarding fulfillment of Florist Express orders. shops can now opt-out of fulfilling Florist Express orders. Shops no longer have to opt out of receiving all TF HQ orders just because they don’t want to receive Florist Express Orders.

We told you we hoped before the holidays and we were able to get it done.

We’ve also addressed a few additional concerns that have been raised about ProFlowers over the past few months. First, we worked with ProFlowers to ensure the language on their Florist Express site around delivery fees is consistent with our rules & regulations. As you all know, “delivery fees” are included in our bouquet prices and are shared with our filling florists.

Secondly, our team also worked with ProFlowers to revise some verbiage on proflowers.com to remove any unflattering references to florists from their site.

We hope you can see we do listen and if possible take action. These updates further exemplify how we are managing the Florist Express partnership in the best interest of our florists. We remain 100% committed to driving as many orders to our members as possible.

Best,
 
I haven't checked the numbers but I am certain that our TF orders are less than last year. We don't carry their codified product except for the TK which most people just come in to buy the house. We upped our minimums to stop some of the PF, etc orders. We started getting a few and rejected that they are below our minimum. I finally got tired of it and sent a general message to customer service asking them to stop sending things below our minimums as it is a waste of their time and ours.

We will NOT fill for anyone who advertises negatively about florists. Why would anyone fill for these people???? We also double check the SRP before accepting an order just in case it comes in looking like a florist when, in fact, it is from one of the OG's.
 
This was emailed to me yesterday from a TF rep;

Guys, we do listen,

As promised previously, our IT team has been working hard to give shops greater flexibility regarding fulfillment of Florist Express orders. shops can now opt-out of fulfilling Florist Express orders. Shops no longer have to opt out of receiving all TF HQ orders just because they don’t want to receive Florist Express Orders.

We told you we hoped before the holidays and we were able to get it done.

We’ve also addressed a few additional concerns that have been raised about ProFlowers over the past few months. First, we worked with ProFlowers to ensure the language on their Florist Express site around delivery fees is consistent with our rules & regulations. As you all know, “delivery fees” are included in our bouquet prices and are shared with our filling florists.

Secondly, our team also worked with ProFlowers to revise some verbiage on proflowers.com to remove any unflattering references to florists from their site.

We hope you can see we do listen and if possible take action. These updates further exemplify how we are managing the Florist Express partnership in the best interest of our florists. We remain 100% committed to driving as many orders to our members as possible.

Best,[/QUOTE]
It all sounds so good, but how do you KNOW for sure, TF has such a stellar reputation for dealing fairly with florists, we stopped all HQ orders in May and they still try to send them ,how will you know if they sneak 2 or 10 PF orders through.
 
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We opted out of filling Head Quarters orders and we will NOT opt back in. my system says I am down 50% on incoming wires but I dropped one wire service plus I have a $49.99 wire in min. in order to avoid junk orders. And I have all the dogs marked for auto reject in MAS. Having said that it appears at the end of the day we are still going to be up around 25% in sales.
 
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steve said:
We opted out of filling Head Quarters orders and we will NOT opt back in. my system says I am down 50% on incoming wires but I dropped one wire service plus I have a $49.99 wire in min. in order to avoid junk orders. And I have all the dogs marked for auto reject in MAS. Having said that it appears at the end of the day we are still going to be up around 25% in sales.
Click to expand...

Gotta love those 100% orders
 
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From TF...
clay said:
We remain 100% committed to driving as many orders to our members as possible.

Best,
Click to expand...
Corrected: We remain 100% committed to gathering as many orders as possible and funneling them to our filling members".

Clay, one thing, how will anyone really know if they separate the orders out, if they all come through as TFHQ anyway?

And do the FloristExpress prices include delivery too? If so, then the florists are still getting screwed.
 
There's another indicator. A few weeks ago, we started seein (cloaked?) HQ orders with a "before 12" time limit. The last few that we rejected came in at about 1:30 PM with the "before 12" time limit still showing.

We rejected one with the comment that, "Scottie say the Di-Lithium Crystals are shattered and the Time Warp is nae functioning."

Haven't seen any of those recently.

All the best,

Bill
 
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