The Consumerist's 2011 Valentine's Day Garden Of Discontent

CHR

CHR

Design matters
Nov 28, 2002
8,951
8,442
113
Anaheim
www.avantegardens.com
State / Prov
CA
The Consumerist's 2011 Valentine's Day Garden Of Discontent


OK, let's stop blaming the filling florists for all the floral industry problems. When a WS sells a specific product and then tells the florists it's OK to sub, this is what we get, 1800Flowers. They probably don't even have an affiliate in the area who carries the product.

How's a shop without Monkey balloons supposed to make 'similar'?

PF's tulips, long out of water, will 'get drunk' and hang over the vase every time - because they're not conditioned.

FTD's issue is really a florist trying to make a living AND fill FTD orders (but we know those are mutually exclusive terms.) But really, when you orient all the flowers to the camera and pretend spray roses and mini carns all have 10" laterals, what do you expect?

Get the message out: Go Local with a florist you can trust.
 
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Hey Cathy,

I was wondering, whne they design these flowers for the camera...Do they take all of the flowers off a stem and just use the very tops and call the 8-10 stems they use as 2 stems of poms or minis...also when they make a vase and say they use 1 and a half alstro, how exactly do they expect a half and alstro to make it...There is currently an arrangement on my website that I need to remove because of its content...it clearly to my eyes has two very expensive hydrangeas in it but in the price and the recipe it only allows for 1 cheapish one, not the holland variety shown...I know that the marketing people don't really care about anything but the way the arrangement is percieved, but shouldn't the designers making these arrangements have some sort of say in this is not possible, this arrangement is never going to be able to be made this way or something of that nature...

I am asking you because you have experience in this arena...What really goes on behind the scenes at those photo shoots...How is it that the recipes get so messed up from original list to picture and what the heck goes through their heads when they want to use a half of a stem of anything in a vase, thet needs a full stem of anything..
 
Lori.... can you say PhotoShop??? as well as the design techniques you mentioned...

Great find Cathy... thanks... posted to FB ;)
 
I know they photoshop the heck out of the arrangements, but then the recipe is equally as stupid as the picture...A designer had to at some point actually put this stuff together and write down what was used...I just have a very hard time with 1/2 a stem of anything, we all know in our world that a 1/2 of a stem of anything equals scrap buckets at every design table...how can any designer condone the use of 1/2 of any one stem, especially in a vase where a 1/2 a stem of anything with short laterals isn't living one day....are the designers making these things told what to use and just use it because they are paid to do what the co tells them or are they just designing and not thinking of the retail reamifications...or are they just stupid..I doubt it is the last, all of the designers used are top nitch and far from stupid, but somewhere along the line stupid gets in, I am just wondering where....
 
Lori, I agree. Also, did they make the Faith Hill bouquet in their hand and drop it in to get that full round look? We ended up using Queen Anne's lace in place of bupleurum. What about the two perfectly open asiatic lilies? We use stargazers which open and are more reliable here. I may be emailing Marie at the Education Center. When I was there, I saw where they photograph the designs.
 
The non-florists in the corporate offices now rule photo shoots. AND they have Photoshop, so what's made on the set can be released to consumers looking quite different than the originals.

When I was working on selection guides and holiday products, TF had a Vice-President who was a florist - Rocky Pollitz - and she worked diligently to make sure designs were both 're-creatable' and profitable for shops. She often clashed with the Marketing Department over flower selections and price points. But she had been with the company for many years and was ultimately trusted in the executive offices.

There's no florist at/near the top who is in a final decision-making position anymore. The company still has an amazing floral design team, it's just they don't have safe positions from which to vehemently argue with Marketing.

Last year, a friend confided that he/she (I'm not gonna say who) used to tell design show audiences about being a part of the website/selection guide team, but had stopped. Too many 'boos' and catcalls from the audience. That says a lot.
 
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From Sacramento:
1-800-Flowers "Ruins Valentine's Day for Dozens of Customers

They keep on taking orders well past capacity and take hundreds of thousands of dollars (maybe millions) off the table that would have gone to real local florists.

Guys, these articles are everywhere. We really do need to save V Day as a florist holiday, because the national companies are gonna kill it.
 
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This is our REAL problem:
"It's incredible what they get away with. I've learned to never trust florists, the entire "flower industry" seems to be operated by shady people."

A comment from Boing Boing to an article call "Crappy V-day bouquets and their deceitful online representations"

Too bad the author is right about the national companies (and some of the local florists, too).

Like I've said, it took FTD more than 80 years to raise consumers' consciousness of flowers to the point where we were top-of-mind - and less than a decade to destroy all that work.

Time for a big cleansing.
 
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One of the things that frustrates me is that the pictures posted on the website and book have different ingredients than the recipes in the book. It's sometimes very confusing.
 
Floral Retailer Fails Man on Valentine's Day

The report includes several photos of lousy FTD arrangements sent to the TV station. The reporter states the vast majority of complaints received about Valentine's Day flowers were ordered through FTD. In one shot, they identify alstroes as 'freesias', but the comparison between the FTD delivery and the $10 grocery store bouquet is striking.

I've never seen so many post-holiday complaints reports in the media as this year.
 
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If that bouquet of tulips came from a local florist...which was not entirely clear to me....that's really a shame. I hope it was something that came in a box, but I'm not so sure. If this is what some local florists are sending out then we're lucky the heat's on all the big online companies.
 
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I hate to say this and believe me it disturbs me to have to but who in the world are these florists making these arrangements....We all know that the items being showcased largely came from real florists, the drop shipped ones are just so easy to pick out...but most of these arrangements aren't even close to the recipe, many are deplorable quality flowers, the designing is apprehensible...So from corporate right on doen to fullfillment all I see is dissapointment...that doesn't bode well for real florists because we(meaning all of us) are a huge part of this equation even though most of us do a good job the irresponsible ones that are filling like what we have seen make it very hard for us(as an industry) to rebutt the reports...if real florists don't start realizing that in todays digital day and age if you cannot make the arrangement as it is shown, you don't have the design staff to make it as pictured, you dont have most of the flowers in the recipe or your quality sucks reject the @@@@ order...They are killing us just as much as the stupid corporates...

I talked to a friend of mine who missed 50 orders for Valentine's Day delivery...over promised, had help issues and just couldn't get it done...I was shocked and embarrassed for him/her...and a little sad that he/she let this happen because it says alot about where his/her mind is at or not at...my bet is that half of those were wires and half were his/her own local customers...it is very sad and the saddest part is that I had excess time and would have worked through the night alongside this person, to help get it done had I known ahead of time, just to save the industry's good name...but I am not Mighty Mouse and I cannot always save everyone's day as much as I might try...I often wonder how companies that do this can stay afloat...
 
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lori042499 said:
I talked to a friend of mine who missed 50 orders for Valentine's Day delivery...over promised, had help issues and just couldn't get it done...I was shocked and embarrassed for him/her...and a little sad that he/she let this happen because it says alot about where his/her mind is at or not at...my bet is that half of those were wires and half were his/her own local customers.........
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter who she was delivering for local or ws, she made the choice. Whats missing here is the 7 P's (Prior, proper, planning, prevents, piss poor, perfromance).........if you take, you plan. If you buy, you eat. This is why I preach all the time that florists spend more time planning their summer vacation than a holiday. I hope you're friend will learn from you and through her experience not to let this happen again.

This happened to a shop here in town 2 MD ago, they had to del. 100 pieces over the course of the next week and notified no-one, they took their chances. It put them out of business...........

All the facebook rage going on now will cost those companies alot of business. Customers are very forgiving in many areas, but take my money and don't show........get out of town
 
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I'm with you, Lori. If the shop can't fill they orders the way they are supposed to be filled then they shouldn't take them. A lot of complaining about how the filling shop only gets a small percentage of the order....even some of the big media stories are starting to report on how the florist only gets a certain percent of the order. Well, those florists go into it knowing how much they will be reimbursed. They also know they are obligated to fill the order to full value. Just because they're in a bad business agreement doesn't mean the paying customer should be the scapegoat. When it got to the point where we didn't think it was viable to continue filling the orders at the discount...we got out. It's the ethical thing to do.
 
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I hate to say this and believe me it disturbs me to have to but who in the world are these florists making these arrangements....
Click to expand...

The same ones that are:

Trying to get "new customers". lol

Move their excess stock of flowers so they have better buying power. :flower:

Hire inexperience designers at low wages to keep their "profits" on these discounted orders. :poke:
 
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Eric S said:
The same ones that are:

Trying to get "new customers". lol

Move their excess stock of flowers so they have better buying power. :flower:

Hire inexperience designers at low wages to keep their "profits" on these discounted orders. :poke:
Click to expand...

This is sort of what I was thinking, but I have a few more thoughts, too.

Please note that FTD is challenging what this man ordered. It was VERY stupid of them to name a totally different design with a name they had already used, that is asking for trouble. A florist who is doing huge volumes of filling would just look at the name of the design. If they have a high-schooler pulling the orders for specials, this would be the outcome.

The damage to those tulips is incomprehensible. There are plenty of florists out there who are still demanding more more more orders from the ws. If this is the type of product they send out, it is no wonder that they are unable to gain a local customer base and have to rely on og for the orders.

As to Cathy's noticing there seems to be far more outcry in the media than there used to be, that is entirely true. My guess is that this is happening because of social media. I know I've said it before, the media scour the social media sites for their own stories. With so many people now using facebook, the word-of-mouth advertising has become more like tell one person and they'll tell 100 instead of the old 8 or 10.
 
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Missing 25 FTD deliveries could be financially devastating to a shop's bottom line since they'll be fined 2X the retail value of each missed delivery. If the average order was $60, the shop would owe FTD $3K cash in penalties. The sad part is that even if they got all 25 deliveries out on time, the shop would be lucky to net $300 after paying for product, labor & delivery costs.

The down side far outweighs the upside, esp. on V Day holiday orders. FTD's penalties likely made more florists turn off the Merc than ever before.
 
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