TF website

Clarabella

Clarabella

Well-Known Member
Sep 3, 2008
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Clare
www.clarabellaflowers.com
State / Prov
Michigan
Interestingly enough, I was talking to a florist today that has a TF website. He was commenting on how he was still getting orders for Christmas designs and how those designs were still on the main page of his website. We pulled up the site, and 3 of the 5 featured designs were still Christmas designs (on Jan 9th!!).

Just for kicks, I said "lets pull up TF's site" and can you believe that teleflora.com had NO Christmas designs, and was completely up to date!

Once again they are giving their member florists their sloppy-seconds. Shocking I know.....
 
Flowerchatter03 said:
It is the shop owner's responsibility to stay on top of their own website. No one will make your business a top priority except you! I would have called them on Jan 3rd and tell them to change it.
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So right, I looked at both of me competitors who have TF websites and both are still Christmas..........I changed mine on Jan 03!! Too bad....
 
I agree that the owner is responsible for updating their site, and that most of us (myself included) need to spend more time doing it than we do.

The unfortunate thing however is that these shops are paying TF very generous fees to maintain their sites for them. That alone means TF has a duty to keep the site up to date, which they are not. I use FSN for the selection guide part of my site. They are much cheaper....and are up to date!

Personally, I think TF is doing it on purpose. We already know they are trying to direct as many customers as they can to their website so they can wire it to the store and steal the profit. If you were a customer, and went to your local florists website and saw the Christmas selections, you would probably look elsewhere. (which is exactly what the WS wants). Its dirty, deceptive and shameful. I just hope more and more florists stop drinking the koolaid.
 
I DO find it interesting though that he (the florist) is still getting orders for what is on the site. It's possible (not probable but possible) that TF knows his area will continue to purchase Christmas into January.

That said, I trusted Bloomnet when I agreed to have a website with them at only $60 or $70 per month, started it end of November, ended it beginning of January. When I looked at my site, I was perturbed to see that the home page did show some Christmas, but it was the previous year, not what was being advertised, certainly not what I was codified for. They clearly didn't want me to compete with them. I dropped my membership with them a couple weeks after that ~ not my friend, not looking out for me, just soaking me.

That's when I went with Strider's Florist 2.0 :)
 
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This is a little off topic but not by much. We received a call for a woman over Christmas that said, "Can you make what is on your website?" Carol (the shop manager) explained yes we could, most for holiday were designs we created. "Can you do it for that price?", Yes we sure can.... Well it turns out she had called 3 different florists, and after selecting her item she was informed if she wanted that piece she would have to pay more. WHAT!!! WHAT!!! Yes she would have to pay more because they did not set the prices and if she wanted that design she would have to pay more. If you don't know how to change prices to reflect what you are selling in your shop then you better be prepared to eat the difference. Can you imagine if a department store tried to pull that crap. Oh those socks are $3.00 more, ignore the sign, it costs us more to sell those.

When we had our TF site we would go in and change the prices for holiday and every month we would pick our own images to be shown on the front page so we would stand out from all of the other cookie cutter sites.
 
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secretgarden said:
When we had our TF site we would go in and change the prices for holiday and every month we would pick our own images to be shown on the front page so we would stand out from all of the other cookie cutter sites.
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You can definately make a TF site better and less cookie cutter, but it takes work. My independent site is much easier to work with than the TF site ever was, but I always made sure the prices were MY prices , not theirs, and my home page featured my work.
 
Independent is the way to go. We have 2, (and 1 for weddings), and we keep them updates immediately. By having our own site, we have been able to get rid of a boatload of old codified product we had laying around (we're the only ones who have them on our website), we can adjust prices accordingly, and we actually can (and do) delete or deactivate the onesy-twosy items as they sell. Customers can purchase online, and we give them rewards points towards future purchases. We get text messages when an order is placed, and the customer doesn't have to register if they don't want to (most do). We also were able to get on the first page and usually top 3 in raw searches. Something that the ws never tried to do for us.

Each website costs us about $85 per year, and we get 100% of the sale.

If you are using a ws website, you may want to evaluate whether or not you actually make money from them. I'd guess that most florists lose money on their ws websites.
 
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BloomingFlorida said:
Independent is the way to go. We have 2, (and 1 for weddings), and we keep them updates immediately. By having our own site, we have been able to get rid of a boatload of old codified product we had laying around (we're the only ones who have them on our website), we can adjust prices accordingly, and we actually can (and do) delete or deactivate the onesy-twosy items as they sell. Customers can purchase online, and we give them rewards points towards future purchases. We get text messages when an order is placed, and the customer doesn't have to register if they don't want to (most do). We also were able to get on the first page and usually top 3 in raw searches. Something that the ws never tried to do for us.

Each website costs us about $85 per year, and we get 100% of the sale.

If you are using a ws website, you may want to evaluate whether or not you actually make money from them. I'd guess that most florists lose money on their ws websites.
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I really like your sites, they look great. Who did them for you? Who hosts for you? sounds like a killer price!!
 
Amazing.....
The reason most florists subscribe to Wire Service websites is that they do not personally have the expertise, initiative, or time to develop and maintain their own websites. As I have often said a florist website to be successful (to any degree) should be viewed as a second location and the appropriate amount of resources allotted to it.

Wire service websites are cookie cutter models that require little if any ongoing input from the actual florist to function. In fact I suspect that the only interaction many florists have with their websites is checking for orders daily. This posting regarding the fact that Christmas was still up in January 9 will be a shock for many TF website subscribers as they have more than likely not viewed their site since the Christmas rush.

The bottom line is that of course TF will place more emphasis on their own site. to think or expect otherwise would be foolish, to say the least. In the end what can be expected for the princely sum of $99.00 per month?
 
We use inmotionhosting.com for hosting and buy the SSL certificate from cheapname.com for $11.00 a year (so we can take credit card info online securely). There is also a $10.00 domain renewal per year for each domain we have and we own 3. I am tech savvy so I did everything myself using prestahop ecommerce software. If you are not technically minded you can get someone from www.prestashop.com (get quotes from their programmers) to set up something similar and then you just do the updates yourself in the back office like you would do with TF or FSN. About 7 times a year (winter, spring, summer, fall, Xmas, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day) I have to sit down and spend a considerable time going through prices and changes but at least I know what I have. In the past you could not put a 1800 arrangement on a TF website, I've heard recently that now you can. Also, when we used to be with TF people would call and ask about a website arrangement and we often didn't have a clue which arrangement they meant.
 
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