Turn your @(#*$^& machines on...

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Bigted said:
I thought this was a rhetorical question about holidays in general. The only time we ever suspend is Valentines Day. If you can't handle your Christmas business, something is seriously wrong. Either you are not planning right, not staffing right or not buying right.
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Ted...are you refering to turning machines off?

We're staffed, stocked (except the wholesalers are now closed until Wednesday)(could use more red stuff) and every thing is groovy... we currently have 4-5 cash customers at each register...been that way almost all day...
 
Gigi said:
For real?
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Ours are delivering on Monday, then on Thursday because no one will be there to pack product Tuesday for Wednesday delivery.

Fine by me - unfortunately, we've got plent-eee of product.
:(

tracy
 
Joe Mioux said:
I think it has been pretty much a consensus here that wire business has dramatically decreased over the past several years. This year for me its a big reduction, mostly on the Inbound side. I am off somewhere around $20K plus from last year and even more in prior years.
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We are up about 200 orders this year out of our main store and I think the figure was something like up $3000 from the wire.

Has your delivery fee ever been $5.00 ? In most markets it's not enough to cover the delivery. I guess it's better then plenty of senders.
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Here in Indy it is $9 delivery. Anything without delivery charged on it is asked for a price change. We have been only charging our customers $7 for outgoing orders but after pains of getting the orders out for the holiday and realizing that this makes us no better then FTD and Teleflora HQs for the delivery they provide, we will be raising the delivery on outgoing to $9.
 
As it stands right now we have enough to satisfy our locals and returnees between now and 3 pm Christmas Day. For the first time I plan to run out of product, load the bikes in the trailer, and get the heck out of here for a week or two.
We haven't turned off refidgeration in 5 1/2 years. Hopefully this will be the year !
Heading far away from flowers and cold weather if my plans are perfected.
 
Joe Mioux said:
Do you hire any additional help at holiday?
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Of course we do. As a matter of fact we hire a group called "The Staff of Excess Capacity."

We never suspended incoming orders this year, and after reading this thread I asked one of my managers if we were having troubles getting our outgoing wires sent. He said no with very few exceptions.

One exception he told me about was a $90 fruit basket. The florist replied they couldn't do a fruit basket for $90 that they needed $140. I asked what we did. My manager told me we canceled the order, and resent it to the same florist for $50, which they replied they couldn't do a fruit basket for $50 that they need $90. We said that would be fine, just make it nice.

All in all, we had very few problems getting wires out, and our Staff of Excess Capacity (with a little help from our regular crew) was able to fill all those incoming ones too.


RC
 
RC in Dayton and Cincinnati said:
One exception he told me about was a $90 fruit basket. The florist replied they couldn't do a fruit basket for $90 that they needed $140. I asked what we did. My manager told me we canceled the order, and resent it to the same florist for $50, which they replied they couldn't do a fruit basket for $50 that they need $90. We said that would be fine, just make it nice.


RC
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Good story! It reminds me of one of the wholesalers who sell my poinsettias. I asked him how things were going with sales and he told me he had one customer complain about the size of the poinsettia bracts (this was earlier in the month). The W picked the plants up from the shop, brought them back to the greenhouse, and re-delivered the same poinsettias the following day. The florist said that the "new" ones were better.

I like the "excess capacity staff" phrasing as well.
 
Joe Mioux said:
Good story! It reminds me of one of the wholesalers who sell my poinsettias. I asked him how things were going with sales and he told me he had one customer complain about the size of the poinsettia bracts (this was earlier in the month). The W picked the plants up from the shop, brought them back to the greenhouse, and re-delivered the same poinsettias the following day. The florist said that the "new" ones were better.

I like the "excess capacity staff" phrasing as well.
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It's kinda weird YES??
Merc is ON, shop is OPEN for Business, wire ins & outs UP, and local business has been amazing this year...we're 87 dollars short, of surpassing ALL of our best Decembers on record.
 
RC in Dayton and Cincinnati said:
One exception he told me about was a $90 fruit basket. The florist replied they couldn't do a fruit basket for $90 that they needed $140. I asked what we did. My manager told me we canceled the order, and resent it to the same florist for $50, which they replied they couldn't do a fruit basket for $50 that they need $90. We said that would be fine, just make it nice.



RC
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If us 100%ers had a problem getting an order to say a 1 florist town that would not except our 100% order. We just sent it thru one of our WS florist friends, they got the 20%+rebate, we got the service fee.

The receiving florist got-------well------- they got another discounted order.
 
We rarely turn off any machine...what we do find is that on the day before any holiday the scum bags run wild and start sending the orders for a total of 30 for a picture across the county with no phone number , poor addresses etc....usually we just rej...but it is annoying and it is not from florists. This Christmas, being in a tourist town, we have found that we are slower than usual, corporate biz was way off, parties are fewer, walkin is down, wire ins down but again like Thanksgiving phone calls/credit cards sales are up. To date we are up 26%, and yet down about 25 regular orders so my staff is selling better. I did bring in a larger reefer truck and turned it off yesterday...hired 1 more designer..that was a mistake..could have done without 4, had one employee walk out ( a floral assistant) one driver got fired ( rude to me..doesn't fly) and surprisingly have had about 14 folks come in to ask if we are hiring.....none of which has floral experience.....rumor has it that 3 bigger shops are planning to close at end of year...reasons unknown but some are closer to the yacht biz. Shopping centers around here are quieter than usual, the Galleria which is our Rodeo Drive is deader than a doornail so I think most downward trends are economicaly driven. In looking forward to VD, we are planning on a smaller but more unique holiday. We all betetr plan on making ourselves stand out for that one.So that's it folks, all the news you wanted to hear...lol...now off to work with my bright red shirt on!!!
Sher
 
Eric S said:
I don't have a single customer lost to giving them the direct number for wire out orders. Customers are smart and they are tired of being screwed. They tell me time and time again that they really appreciate the "honestly" and that it really makes a difference to them. They want to spend $35 and the florist are listed at $40 + delivery they are getting direct numbers.

Even though you may say I am "giving revenue away from shop" I say BS. Because Its not mine. Its the shop that gets up early in the morning and picks out the best quality product at the market, creates a beautiful arrangement and hand deliveres it to the recipient. I don't need to play the game of getting 20% anymore and not one wire service deserves their 7% to 9% share anymore!

The best real advice that I give to my customers is. Call these florists up and ask them to go to our website. Ask them can they make what they see and what do they need to charge for it. And if the florist gives them a hard time about looking at my site I tell them to tell the florist piss off and give the next florist on the list a call. Oh yea and I do give them more then one number to call.

I had the pleasure today to hop in the Scion and make some late deliveres this evening. I drove all over Orange County and past many shops along the way. Most where empty with no customers and yet their lights where on and plenty of flowers were sitting out. To my surprise I saw some very well known shops completly gone out of business. I even saw some that use to send me orders back when we first took over in 2003 and they are just gone!! There is something wrong with the way shops are being run. Crappy customer service is the first thing that comes to mind. Poor quality product is also not far behind that. Take those two and add in discount flower arrangements through the WS its all over. But there is something more and I think its the lack of honesty and trust that are doing in this industry. Just being up front and taking the time to explain to the customer "this is how we work" and "this is what we can do". We have to put this back into the minds of our customers and we must give them a quality product. That is what I am doing and its going to take a long time to put it back into the consumers mind.
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RIGHT ON!!!! I agree with you 100%, I just got rid of Bloomlink this season, and I was able to concentrate on my customers. I give out direct numbers freely, because I believe this is the best way. I am open 9-12 on Monday, and I am looking forward to a holiday with my family, unlike last year, when I was tracking down orders that had not been delivered and driving myself nuts because of it!
 
Gigi said:
For real? what happens if you get busier than you anticipated or you get a large funeral? The large wholesalers around here are only closed on the 25th.
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Nope, not kidding at all...they closed at the end of the day Friday.

What happens?...we're on our own! As long as they do not want Red, we're good to go!
 
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