Wii ousts dive watches

[mlou]

Teleflora, operator of a network of Web sites for independent florists, “said its sales had increased, but the overall growth obscured some important details,” according to the company is Michael Burgess.

Sales for less expensive items increased significantly, he said, while sales for items ranging from $60 to $100 have dropped, says the NYT, going on:

“Receipts have also been helped by a hot-selling, decorated artificial Christmas tree for $107.”

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/14439

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/technology/24ecom.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin

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[Connie]

Vrey interesting reads!

 

[CHR]

Through Tuesday, the shipping cut-off date for most online Christmas gift orders, sales in the “jewelry and watches” category had fallen from the same period last year, while “flowers, greeting cards and gifts” category was down by 19 percent.

Is this the answer to RC's poll about declining incomings?

After receiving many "online greeting cards" loaded with viruses and spy-ware sent by spammers earlier this year, I'm not surprised that e-cards would decrease significantly. That whole category is probably crippled for a long, long time.

ProFlowers' Bill Strauss said:

“We’re not seeing the growth we saw years ago, but we’re not shrinking.”

Again on Monday, the UPS driver said he'd seen very few flower boxes this holiday. I'm wondering if Strauss' 'not shrinking' had more to do with increased average sales since I notice PF had added more upper end items this holiday season. He also indicated that non-floral gift sales fell - in their case it would be gift & fruit baskets & gourmet foods.

FedEx mentioned a decline in shipped items from 1-800-Flowers as a reason for slower growth:

FedEx grew its sales 6% in comparison to last year's Q2. Unfortunately, "substantially higher fuel costs" and reduced demand among customers such as 1-800-Flowers

In speaking with a few other florists over the weekend, it seems the average sale had moved up while units remained the same or declined.

 

[lori042499]

For the month of december I was down by 20 deliveries, but my average order went up by 25.00. For the week of christmas I was down by 40 deliveries and average order up by 20.00.

This tells me people ordered early and for more money. Consumers are either getting smarter or it is a fluke...