Somebody tell me please what percent of our annual business is holiday biz - I'm guessing way over half of it.
I'll be the contrarian here (as usual) and say that - if you're in this business and can't figure out how to staff up for holidays to handle customers needs, including incoming wires from florists - you need to get out of the biz.
Christmas and Mother's Day are wire holidays - this is not like asking for a delivery on 2PM on Valentine's Day going to a business.
Bothered by OG orders? Then gather your own damm orders and quit letting someone else do it for you then complaining about it.
OG orders don't bother me a bit - I triage them for skimming or know skimmers - then fill them like any other order. Because they beat me to the order is just an indicator I have to work harder to get them back.
opinions vary
and yes, Merrry Christmas!
All holidays = 23.77% of year's total on average last ten years.
Didn't differ more than 3% from the years when we were the area's largest wire operation to the time when we filled no wires. Kinda surprised me. I'd have guessed that your 50% guess would have been closer to right during the big wire years.
While I mostly agree with you in principle, it looks like more and more florists are figuring out that they can't ratchet up staff and product costs for extra business which isn't going to give them enough profit to pay for it. And I can well understand that because I made that same decision a while back.
Show 'em the money and I'll betcha they'll do it. But you and I know you can't do that with the current broken system. So I guess what it is is what it will continue to be. Just like it has been for forever and ever. And we'll get to see the same old argument rehashed every year. It'll become a Christmas tradition kinda like watching that kid with the BB gun or something.
Christmas and Mother's Day and Valentine's Day WERE wire holidays. In my world, the wire orders have been MORE than replaced with REAL orders.
We've been calling out orders all day. Mostly avoiding wire florists, where possible, cause we don't want our REAL customer to have to get in line with a bunch of hurried up skimmer orders that somebody is filling. We've not had one single problem getting an order placed all day.
We've also been taking orders all day. Ran into a couple of interesting stories, too. One involved a customer's earlier attempt to place an order directly with an FTD florist in our area who had an answering machine announcing that they would be accepting no more phone orders until after December 25. Out of curiosity, I called the number and yep, she was right. That's what they were saying. Probably too busy filling all of those Merc orders or something to waste time on a REAL order.
The other involved a customer who, a week ago, had placed an order through a local Teleflora florist only to find out, after the fact, and after paying for delivery, that the florist was calling the recipient to come in and pick up her flowers. Strange, in that the recipient was only 3 miles from his shop and he has an employee living on the recipient's road who passes by said recipient's home going to and coming from work every day. Recipient didn't think much of that deal and refused to pick up the "gift". When the sender found out what was going on, the order was canceled and we were called. I've heard this same story many times over the years concerning this florist so I have no trouble believing it.
We got both of these orders. And, as usual, we've gotten a lot of orders direct from customers who first attempted to send through one of the wire services and couldn't get them delivered for whatever reason. That's good for my business. But I gotta wonder, as others have, how much damage this system and these idiots are doing to our industry and the tradition of sending flowers that it took so many years to establish.
Incidentally, MERRY CHRISTMAS to one of my favorite contrarions and everyone else from your local curmudgeon.
