Hello , has anyone ever tried or had a website from united floral network . i do have website with teleflora and Ftd. i wanna cancel my services with them both this month. please your thought or input on united floral netwok webite. thanks
United floral Network
- Thread starter tendol
- Start date
BOSS
FlowerChat Administrator
I don't know about them... there is a United Florist Network that does sites.... not that great IMO...
I'd recommend looking into www.demoflowershop.com though...
Good luck, and congrats on your decision to set yourself free...
I'd recommend looking into www.demoflowershop.com though...
Good luck, and congrats on your decision to set yourself free...
Flowermomma
Well-Known Member
wow step far away!
why would you pay a company 20% of every order??
look at the one boss suggested or even the flower shop network.. thats a flat yearly fee not a monthly.
why would you pay a company 20% of every order??
look at the one boss suggested or even the flower shop network.. thats a flat yearly fee not a monthly.
anytimeflowers
Linda
Just to make this clear, flower shop network also does the 20% commission to the sending florist.
Your only real chance at getting 100% of the money for what orders you fill is to have your own independent website. I also use the same one that Boss gave you a link to.
Flowermomma
Well-Known Member
true thanks.. I tend only use them for my website and send out my orders on the company credit card.
flower shop network also charges your customers a $4.99 fee at the back end if they order through your site. That is how they do it for "free" At least that it is how it was explained to me when the sales rep tried to get me to use their site.
Flowermomma
Well-Known Member
no that is not correct.
the customers have no back fee .... they order off site with a credit card its just like if they phone in.
Actually jamie is correct - at least here in the states. I dropped their website and went independant but am still a member for sending purposes.
I think we've been 'round and 'round this issue before. As I recall, yours is the only FSN site we can find that doesn't have the mandatory $4.99 customer service charge.
Flowermomma
Well-Known Member
Flowerchatter03
Co-Owner and Floral Composer
If it were me, I'd go with Ryan's company, Strider. Great template, great service. You pay a monthly fee and the rest is all yours. You can make your site what you want. The money you are paying for TF and FTD sites will more than pay for a site through them. If you want to get out from under the control of wire service and others who want a piece of the pie, this is the way to go!
Flowermomma
Well-Known Member
yes i had dh place an order on line.. and we completed the sale. there was NO extra charge. I get the order with the credit card number on it and I bill them and run the cards.
Doug Munro
Well-Known Member
The one thing I can never get my head around on this board is how much effort goes into trying to run a business spending little or no money.
If as a business owner an individual feels a good website is crucial to the long term success of their business, the cost should not be the first consideration.
Remember business is all about return on investment. My point being is that although it must be a consideration a 20% cost per order should not be the driving factor.
Personally I would review websites on the basis of which one would allow me to generate the highest volume of business, and in the case of a small flower shop which one required the smallest learning curve and least maintenance.
If as a business owner an individual feels a good website is crucial to the long term success of their business, the cost should not be the first consideration.
Remember business is all about return on investment. My point being is that although it must be a consideration a 20% cost per order should not be the driving factor.
Personally I would review websites on the basis of which one would allow me to generate the highest volume of business, and in the case of a small flower shop which one required the smallest learning curve and least maintenance.
BOSS
FlowerChat Administrator
Very true.... however, a 20% per order cost could be considered high when an average order produces 30% or less gross on a good day....
Flower Shop Network charges the fee to customers on US florist sites, not on Canadian sites. Different structures. Flower shop network offers some very acceptable sites and in Canada their placement doesn't seem too bad on Google etc. They offer sites with no control or for more $ you can have control.
I got a big push recently to get a "United" site. I think they look incredibly tacky personally. They claim your orders will increase wildly because of their excellent placement and you'll have more conversions (orders per visitors). This seems to be based on putting "FREE DELIVERY" in red writing all over your site. Now 90% of my phone customers use my site as an online catalogue so you are going to have to offer them free delivery too, or p*** them off. I guess you just have to put all your prices up to include it but it seems deceiptful to me. I see one of my competition went with them but I still place higher than them on most Google searches (knock on wood).
I got a big push recently to get a "United" site. I think they look incredibly tacky personally. They claim your orders will increase wildly because of their excellent placement and you'll have more conversions (orders per visitors). This seems to be based on putting "FREE DELIVERY" in red writing all over your site. Now 90% of my phone customers use my site as an online catalogue so you are going to have to offer them free delivery too, or p*** them off. I guess you just have to put all your prices up to include it but it seems deceiptful to me. I see one of my competition went with them but I still place higher than them on most Google searches (knock on wood).
duanermb
New Member
As was stated, it's true that there is no service fee for Canadian sites as they don't clear the credit cards for you. We were extremely successful with our FSN site and I still recommend using them if you want a cost effective site to start with that is easy to use and has great functionality. It's easy to manage and if you only want to dabble in managing the site, it's really the best option. Custom sites are not always the answer. Even a template site needs proper management so that you don't go awry and kill you web presence. That's the nice thing about TF sites as they are nice and are well managed without you doing very much. I just flat out don't like FTD sites and I have noticed that TF sites rank much better in the search engines - though not as well as FSN.
UFN sites do rank very well from what I have seen, and in our market, that FREE DELIVERY thing, I am sure draws a boat load of clicks even though they are normally below us in the rankings.
That being said, looking at 20% as a pure website only marketing cost is ludicrous. Viewing it as an complete online marketing expense, maybe 20% isn't so bad? If you want a managed site that you don't have to do anything with that ranks well, it could be an option. What about all the phone in business. "Oh, well that's free". NOT.
Divide that 20% by 3 or maybe 4 for your online order + call ins, and now you are at less than 7% marketing fee for the web. For businesses like florists, our marketing budget should be in the 8-10% range anyway from all I have read. Do any of us spend that much on marketing. Not likely.
ALWAYS consider your website as a separate business and an extension or division of your local shop with it's own budget and it's own resources. Many shops in larger towns could literally close up their retail store and run an online only business. I know I've considered it as the much reduced overhead is attractive, but I like having the walk in, wedding and event business that comes from having a storefront too.
NEVER take a site change or upgrade lightly either. It should be a 3-6 month process to do it right, especially if a significant portion of your business already comes from your website.
So, all of that being said:
We all need to make a decision. Decide what you want to pay for and decide what you want to do for yourself. That percentage of cost for online marketing fluctuates greatly based on what decision you make. What's it all worth to you?
Define what you expect to get out of the web and go from there. Not meeting expectations, reduce your costs. Blowing them out of the water, invest more.
I've had this in the back of my mind for a while, so I just blogged about it here.
