Since I'm not a designer I thought this might be a thread for thought.
Over the past couple years I'd say the wire services stock in trade designs are too dominant in this business.
We do not belong to WS any longer, yet we continue to get orders for the dandy little WS designs. We no longer stock the "keepsake" containers nor make any reference to any affiliation with WS.
We discuss with sender florists what we have to fill the order and what we can do to supply a quality arrangement per their order. Always we can supply much better arrangements than WS designs when the florist calls us direct or we get orders through people like Flowershopnetwork.
To be very honest... we don't mind the time spent on the phone with other florists. The personal touch is something we prefer, and making new florist friends is good too.
When we send orders we make the effort to find a local florist to satisfy our customer's order preferences.
The WS designs put us in a box, and to be very honest that spells more unemployment for designers in our business. When the WS designs are the choices preferred by customers the WS will be able to pass off orders to anyone that can read a recipe and look at a picture... and of course they must have a good stock of "keepsake" containers.
When wholesale florists start doing fill orders for the OG, which is not a remote possibility at all. Afterall, most of them are selling to consumers direct now. WS designs can be duplicated easily with recipes and pictures.
I literally know nothing about flowers, but on busy days I could build WS designs right from the WS recipes and pictures. Again, I know ZIP about flower arranging. Don't even think the wholesalers can't fill orders from OG.
The wholesale florists are already buying cheaper, they have trucks and all the coolers and facilities that retail florists have. In fact, here in California we actually have wholesalers that have retail florists shops and they compete handily with the cheap cheap cheap florist merchandisers.
What I'm saying is this... it makes more sense to personalize and customize your order selections with your customers as a first choice. This is just one more step to making the value of designer quality arrangements and the designer more valuable.
Designers should realize, and most probably do that WS are a hinderance to their profession and not a positive influence.
Unique designs and creative people have made the floral industry what it is today... not cookie cutter recipe arrangements with "keepsake" containers.
I realize there are so many florists that have WS sites with the WS e-commerce payment packages built in. You can still work with those sites, if you can put up your own designs and make them prominent on those cookie cutter websites. It should be important to all florists to present uniqueness and designer quality arrangements. It means value to your customers, whether they say it or not.
This is just one more step in the battle to take our local florist business back from the OG and WS enablers.
Over the past couple years I'd say the wire services stock in trade designs are too dominant in this business.
We do not belong to WS any longer, yet we continue to get orders for the dandy little WS designs. We no longer stock the "keepsake" containers nor make any reference to any affiliation with WS.
We discuss with sender florists what we have to fill the order and what we can do to supply a quality arrangement per their order. Always we can supply much better arrangements than WS designs when the florist calls us direct or we get orders through people like Flowershopnetwork.
To be very honest... we don't mind the time spent on the phone with other florists. The personal touch is something we prefer, and making new florist friends is good too.
When we send orders we make the effort to find a local florist to satisfy our customer's order preferences.
The WS designs put us in a box, and to be very honest that spells more unemployment for designers in our business. When the WS designs are the choices preferred by customers the WS will be able to pass off orders to anyone that can read a recipe and look at a picture... and of course they must have a good stock of "keepsake" containers.
When wholesale florists start doing fill orders for the OG, which is not a remote possibility at all. Afterall, most of them are selling to consumers direct now. WS designs can be duplicated easily with recipes and pictures.
I literally know nothing about flowers, but on busy days I could build WS designs right from the WS recipes and pictures. Again, I know ZIP about flower arranging. Don't even think the wholesalers can't fill orders from OG.
The wholesale florists are already buying cheaper, they have trucks and all the coolers and facilities that retail florists have. In fact, here in California we actually have wholesalers that have retail florists shops and they compete handily with the cheap cheap cheap florist merchandisers.
What I'm saying is this... it makes more sense to personalize and customize your order selections with your customers as a first choice. This is just one more step to making the value of designer quality arrangements and the designer more valuable.
Designers should realize, and most probably do that WS are a hinderance to their profession and not a positive influence.
Unique designs and creative people have made the floral industry what it is today... not cookie cutter recipe arrangements with "keepsake" containers.
I realize there are so many florists that have WS sites with the WS e-commerce payment packages built in. You can still work with those sites, if you can put up your own designs and make them prominent on those cookie cutter websites. It should be important to all florists to present uniqueness and designer quality arrangements. It means value to your customers, whether they say it or not.
This is just one more step in the battle to take our local florist business back from the OG and WS enablers.
