Wire Services... If you could get them to change

[Sher]

Based on recent conversation we have all had, a friend of mine and I got into a discussion and we asked each other the following questions.
What are you looking for in a wire service?

What services should a wire service provide?

How are the current ones not meeting your needs?


Just a few of my immediate responses were the following:
How can a large National Company not be able to come up with a group plan of insurance affordable for me to offer my employees.

How can this same organization continue to charge above average costs for containers...and why do they offer discounts at the end of codification to those last minute buyers rather that to those that buy early?

Why do we need cheap containers anyway?

Why do you compete with your very customers using our own dollars.Why not focus on the quality of your Real Florists?

Why does the sending florist or OG get 20% plus a rebate and the filling florist so muchless? Why can't it be the other way..(that would sure reduce some of the non-florists.)

Can we have a reasonable convesation about those questions without it just becoming a tireade against any one of the service? Thanks
Sher

 

[Joe Mioux]

Based on recent conversation we have all had, a friend of mine and I got into a discussion and we asked each other the following questions.
What are you looking for in a wire service?

What services should a wire service provide?

How are the current ones not meeting your needs?


Just a few of my immediate responses were the following:
How can a large National Company not be able to come up with a group plan of insurance affordable for me to offer my employees.

How can this same organization continue to charge above average costs for containers...and why do they offer discounts at the end of codification to those last minute buyers rather that to those that buy early?

Why do we need cheap containers anyway?

Why do you compete with your very customers using our own dollars.Why not focus on the quality of your Real Florists?

Why does the sending florist or OG get 20% plus a rebate and the filling florist so muchless? Why can't it be the other way..(that would sure reduce some of the non-florists.)

Can we have a reasonable convesation about those questions without it just becoming a tireade against any one of the service? Thanks
Sher

A large database of retail florists is needed for the obvious reasons.

Those reasons will diminish as the internet grows and customers in City A will just send to Florist in City B.

There are some benefits for having standardized product and prices across the country, especially with the WS system. However, as the internet evolves, those issues will become less important as a customer in City A will just send a product off of Florist B's website in City B.

The 20 pct commission as it is practiced now should be considered a zero-sum business expense. If you try to send the same amount as you receive, that 20 pct becomes your portion of the discounted order that you accept.

Again as the internet grows, a customer in City A..... well, you know where I am going with this.

The internet will evolve. The internet we see today will probably be dramatically different in the next 10 years. I see the internet and websites as one big global phone book. There will be some OG's that pay for the big ads on the browsers and on the search engines, but that is nothing different than what they do now in our phone books.

The difference is I think the floral consumer will become more savy and search for a traditional retail florist in "City B".....

Hopefully, some org will develop a nationwide informational and educational program that promotes the benefits a buying from retail florists in "City B"

Joe

 

[12BucksFor2Dozon]

Sher I think the simple answer to all your questions is that the current OTSs are multi-national corporations which really care very little about its employees (and that's what all you florists who subscribe to the WSs are, employees) and spend almost all waking hours figuring out ways to suck the most amount of profits from those who allow themselves to be exploited by them.

Upper management at almost all large corporations are too busy trying to raise the share price to meet Wall Street "targets" to be concerned about the low-level, petty things that annoy the street level florists. Remember, most of their compensation packages are based on getting the share price up, and pretty much anything goes in that arena.

Why do you need cheap containers? Because TFTD buys them for 10 cents a unit direct from China and makes a HUGE profit by forcing you to buy them, and The Street likes those kind of numbers. How many times? how many instances of this behavior does everyone need to accept the basic truth that Big Flower is using and abusing you for its own gain, and will continue to do so until you are sucked dry and are no longer of any use to them???

I worked in Corporate America for 16 years, and even this dummy learned a thing or two about the way it operates and how it views business...hell my wife and daughter's life were put in danger when after 6 years with Michael's as an top-level designer and corporate trainer, they decided to cancel her insurance when she was 8 months pregnant and diagnosed with a pre-eclampsia toxemia, thus creating a VERY dangerous situation with her and my babies health. All of a sudden her doctor was calling about payment issues and other very serious and embarrassing problems. Thank God her mom is a nurse and my half-sister is an OB/GYN...

Why did they do it? Basically because the manager of her store thought he could "get away with it" to make his store numbers look better to Corporate. We won a very nice settlement about 2 years later, but I'll never look at another large faceless corporate entity the same EVER again...

 

[goldfish]

What services should a wire service provide?

WS should allow each member florist to set its own commission rate (currently fixed at 20%).

For example, if you want to take fewer incoming orders, you might be tempted to set it lower than 20%. But here's the catch. The same rate you set for incoming discount would be applied to the commission your earn for your outgoing orders. You cannot set 0% discount for incoming while keeping 20% outgoing commission, as it would recreate the same problem as "send-only" shops have created.

It would be intersting to see how each florist will set its own rate. Anyway, eventually, the ensemble of rates set by 20,000 florists should reach some kind of market equlibrium with each shop calibrating its rate trying to maximize its profit.

The benefit of this flexible rate system is that it's self-correcting.

 

[Sher]

Sher I think the simple answer to all your questions is that the current OTSs are multi-national corporations which really care very little about its employees (and that's what all you florists who subscribe to the WSs are, employees) and spend almost all waking hours figuring out ways to suck the most amount of profits from those who allow themselves to be exploited by them.

Upper management at almost all large corporations are too busy trying to raise the share price to meet Wall Street "targets" to be concerned about the low-level, petty things that annoy the street level florists. Remember, most of their compensation packages are based on getting the share price up, and pretty much anything goes in that arena.

Why do you need cheap containers? Because TFTD buys them for 10 cents a unit direct from China and makes a HUGE profit by forcing you to buy them, and The Street likes those kind of numbers. How many times? how many instances of this behavior does everyone need to accept the basic truth that Big Flower is using and abusing you for its own gain, and will continue to do so until you are sucked dry and are no longer of any use to them???

I worked in Corporate America for 16 years, and even this dummy learned a thing or two about the way it operates and how it views business...hell my wife and daughter's life were put in danger when after 6 years with Michael's as an top-level designer and corporate trainer, they decided to cancel her insurance when she was 8 months pregnant and diagnosed with a pre-eclampsia toxemia, thus creating a VERY dangerous situation with her and my babies health. All of a sudden her doctor was calling about payment issues and other very serious and embarrassing problems. Thank God her mom is a nurse and my half-sister is an OB/GYN...

Why did they do it? Basically because the manager of her store thought he could "get away with it" to make his store numbers look better to Corporate. We won a very nice settlement about 2 years later, but I'll never look at another large faceless corporate entity the same EVER again...

Appreciate your input but could you review the questions and offer up some answers to the questions. What exactly would you like to see done differently, what services do you think they should/could provide etc.....thanks
Sher

 

[hcflorist]

WS should allow each member florist to set its own commission rate (currently fixed at 20%).

For example, if you want to take fewer incoming orders, you might be tempted to set it lower than 20%. But here's the catch. The same rate you set for incoming discount would be applied to the commission your earn for your outgoing orders. You cannot set 0% discount for incoming while keeping 20% outgoing commission, as it would recreate the same problem as "send-only" shops have created.

It would be intersting to see how each florist will set its own rate. Anyway, eventually, the ensemble of rates set by 20,000 florists should reach some kind of market equlibrium with each shop calibrating its rate trying to maximize its profit.

The benefit of this flexible rate system is that it's self-correcting.

Now that's an interesting concept. It's a variation on something that IFA once proposed, I think. Don't know how far they actually got with it.

Doubt if it's got much chance of ever seeing the light of day in any WS corporate office, though. They're too focused on making themselves and their percentages attractive to OG and BIG SENDER operations for obvious reasons. And that concept just wouldn't fit into that picture. The only chance this concept has of ever being considered is if a shortage of filling florists for Wire Services develops and they're forced into competing for filling florists as they now do for senders. I'm not holding my breath.

As for Sher's original question . . . IMHO the most valuable service any florist organization, WS or otherwise, could provide for retail florists would be a massive national advertising campaign for and supported by REAL FLORISTS who are required to meet certain training, inventory, and capability requirements such as the old florist owned FTD used to require and enforce. Such a campaign, if well designed and well run, could head off the price point DIY and drop-in arrangement concept that drop shippers and big boxes are trying to fix in the public's mind as professional florist design work.

 

[12BucksFor2Dozon]

Ok...you want my answer? Have someone set up an national wire transfer auction site that is very inexpensive if not free to join. Florist A puts on order for item X to city B, and enters the minimum he wants to fill it. All the florists in city B could then "bid up" the fill price, depending upon the availability of flowers, COGS issues, and delivery routes. The highest bidder is awarded the "contract" to fill and deliver the order, and is then rated by everyone involved, gaining or losing "rep points" for other florists to use.

This system would totally leverage the power of the internet to create a super-efficient flower OTS where everyone wins, and Big Flower get cut out of the same-day delivery game.

 

[Sher]

What are you looking for in a wire service?

What services should a wire service provide?

How are the current ones not meeting your needs?

Can you answer or offer anything to these questions directly?
Thanks
Sher

 

[hcflorist]

Ok...you want my answer? Have someone set up an national wire transfer auction site that is very inexpensive if not free to join. Florist A puts on order for item X to city B, and enters the minimum he wants to fill it. All the florists in city B could then "bid up" the fill price, depending upon the availability of flowers, COGS issues, and delivery routes. The highest bidder is awarded the "contract" to fill and deliver the order, and is then rated by everyone involved, gaining or losing "rep points" for other florists to use.

This system would totally leverage the power of the internet to create a super-efficient flower OTS where everyone wins, and Big Flower get cut out of the same-day delivery game.

Be careful what you wish for. This could turn into flowers on E-Bay or something like that with consumers putting the items for delivery up for bid by the cheapest filling florist or the one who'd pay the most for the order or some such variation. That could turn into a price point disaster.

Actually, I think an inter-florist system where filling florists in Point B bid on filling the item might be interesting and maybe worth a try if someone did it. But it might also be too cumbersome and time consuming for both senders and fillers who already have going businesses.

 

[hcflorist]

What are you looking for in a wire service?

I'm not. I no longer feel that any wire service has any product or service to offer me which justifies paying the prices they charge to participate. I've made arrangements to purchase goods and services which were formerly purchased from wire services from others who don't compete against me and aren't trying to put me out of business. And I'm doing it in a more cost effective way.

What services should a wire service provide?

Once again, IMHO the most valuable service any florist organization, WS or otherwise, could provide for retail florists would be a massive national advertising campaign for and supported by REAL FLORISTS under one nationally recognized brand, who are required to meet certain training, inventory, and capability requirements such as the old florist owned FTD used to require and enforce. Such a campaign, if well designed and well run, could head off the price point DIY and drop-in arrangement concept that drop shippers and big boxes are trying to fix in the public's mind as professional florist design work.

How are the current ones not meeting your needs?

Don't quite know how to answer that but they're not. Best way I can state it is that they propose to provide insufficient value for the amount which they propose to charge. And one of my biggest "needs" is the need to do business with those who aren't trying to compete against me and put me out of business as I do business with them. They obviously can't fill that "need" any more.

I have absolutely no "needs" which they could or would provide me for today's times which can't be obtained elsewhere. I can buy everything I "need" from them from someone who doesn't compete against me and isn't focused on trying to put me out of business. And I can do it for less money than I'd spend with the wire services. Which is why they've all either been terminated or are on their way out the door as we speak.

I kept every one of them as long as I could possibly rationalize that they were meeting any need in the hope that things would change and they would start refocusing on the needs of their REAL FLORIST customers again. But they didn't. So we changed.

That's about as direct as I get tonight.

 

[flowerknife+us]

Don't have time to address all the questions... just wanted to say that TF is going to be offering Health care, 401 plans, business insurances etc. suppose to be available early summer. Anyone have any inside info???? It sould be interesting.

Knife's Wife

 

[Sher]

I'm counting on you ...when you have time Joan..thanks...
Sher

 

[Bigted]

Not gonna work

Ok...you want my answer? Have someone set up an national wire transfer auction site that is very inexpensive if not free to join. Florist A puts on order for item X to city B, and enters the minimum he wants to fill it. All the florists in city B could then "bid up" the fill price, depending upon the availability of flowers, COGS issues, and delivery routes. The highest bidder is awarded the "contract" to fill and deliver the order, and is then rated by everyone involved, gaining or losing "rep points" for other florists to use.

This system would totally leverage the power of the internet to create a super-efficient flower OTS where everyone wins, and Big Flower get cut out of the same-day delivery game.

I don't think this works. Nobody wants the cheap orders. Those orders would just sit there until the consumer came up with more money. You have to have some sort of cram-down ability to keep the system moving.

 

[CHR]

cram-down ability

ROFL. And that's just what it is with the 'must fill' deals.

 

[Griff]

It has already been tried

WS should allow each member florist to set its own commission rate (currently fixed at 20%).

For example, if you want to take fewer incoming orders, you might be tempted to set it lower than 20%. But here's the catch. The same rate you set for incoming discount would be applied to the commission your earn for your outgoing orders. You cannot set 0% discount for incoming while keeping 20% outgoing commission, as it would recreate the same problem as "send-only" shops have created.

It would be intersting to see how each florist will set its own rate. Anyway, eventually, the ensemble of rates set by 20,000 florists should reach some kind of market equlibrium with each shop calibrating its rate trying to maximize its profit.

The benefit of this flexible rate system is that it's self-correcting.

Goldfish, your concept is a good one and was already introduced not too long ago and florists had the option of being either 20-80 or 0-100 and order transfer was just as you suggested. A 20-80 florist could either send to a 20-80 within the destination town and if no 20-80 was available, the order would then have to be sent to any WS member in that town even if they were 0-100 and NO commission would be granted. Conversely, any 0-100 florist could send orders to any other 0-100 florist and if none were available in the destination town, the order would go to the 20-80 florist member at full value. Seemed more than fair. However, some of the 20-80 florists didn't like the idea and forced the rules to change for their protection.

I have to agree with Charlie B. The WS no longer have anything I value that I haven't already managed to find for my company from other sources and with alot less strings attrached. Can't imagine florists wanting more services from any companies that continue to have their vaccuum cleaners running 24 hrs a day sucking money from their members and now wanting to give them more opportunties to turn additonal machines on!

So, in simplest terms Sher, any WS no longer offers anything I don't already have at a much more competitive price.

 

[BOSS]

TF is going to be offering Health care, 401 plans, business insurances etc. suppose to be available early summer.

Thats scary... hard enuf to move credit cards, just imagine if the hold your 401 or health insurance....

 

[Hal Conklin]

i think

Thats scary... hard enuf to move credit cards, just imagine if the hold your 401 or health insurance....

I think thats the plan...or part of it.Contact your local assoc.. see if they have or offer such.

 

[goldfish]

Goldfish, your concept is a good one and was already introduced not too long ago and florists had the option of being either 20-80 or 0-100 and order transfer was just as you suggested. A 20-80 florist could either send to a 20-80 within the destination town and if no 20-80 was available, the order would then have to be sent to any WS member in that town even if they were 0-100 and NO commission would be granted. Conversely, any 0-100 florist could send orders to any other 0-100 florist and if none were available in the destination town, the order would go to the 20-80 florist member at full value. Seemed more than fair.

No, it isn't fair. The reason is this.

For 0-100 florists, they always get the deal they specify; when they receive incoming orders from 20-80 florists, they are allowed to get a 100% deal or reject it.

For 20-80 florists, they do not always get the deal they specify; when sending out the order to a 0-100 florist, the 0-100 rule dictates, not 20-80.

While it is theoretically possible for 20-80 florists to get 100% incoming orders from the same 0-100 florists as you said, in reality it rarely happens. Because these so-called "0-100" florists would be using FTD/TF to send out their orders to earn 20% commissions. That's where the money is as we all know.

However, some of the 20-80 florists didn't like the idea and forced the rules to change for their protection.

Well, they should. We have been a member of FSN, so we know what you are talking about above. The system you mentioned inherently favors pseudo-"0-100 florists," who are 0-100 only in receiving and in fact are 20-80 in sending (using FTD/TF). Basically they want to be a predominantly sending florist.

The outcome would be different if, and only if, big players like FTD/TF/Bloomnet also allowed the choice of commission, 0% or 20%, or better yet, any percentage point each member florist choses.

What would happen if they allowed this flexible-commission system, is anyone's guess and hard to predict. But if they did, I'm almost certain that the pendulum of reward would swing back to "filling florists", relative to the current point which is artificially held in a heavy favor of "sending florists". That's what I meant by "self-correcting."

 

[Rluceroism]

Proper discussion/you are right

The thing is I have actually e-mailed the FTD.com CEO, I have e-mailed the CFO, I have e-mailed David Soenen. I have so much desire to create an environment where a florist can make a buck, etc....

The wire service business model if you go on the interet you can find the money they make on florists is no accident and that they will not change the business model until they are forced to or a brand name is in harms way.
The only way that will occur is to get with your local organizations...like your state floral association and bring out those issues and questions. SAF should really be doing something but everyone seems to be beholden to the Big were services.

I prefer to deal directly with FTD.COM/FTD in my communicaiton as I have agreed to quality assurance and I feel many of my issues I have with them exist due to quality issues in their business operations, customer service, setting a proper expectation in regards to upgrades, clarifying the language on FTD.com to let folks know we take out delivery $ and how it needs to be worded as such... If the containers contain lead they should let the buyer know this "get well" Chicken soup bowl is health hazard.

I can go on and on, but I need to let FTD know if I want change. If FTD are ever put in the hot seat it can be documented that FTD was notified of these issues, but chose to ignore them in order to keep the order volume high.

I have had FTD answer me back & they are in no hurry to change and they already know the florist is getting hte less than desirable half of the stick.
They are fully awre of the profit they make on the florist side of the operation.

All this info in regards to what they make, off order gathering, off florists, online marketing $, and other weird stuff is readily out there since they went public February 2005 or so.

I wish wire services would change too. I have more issues with FTD they are the most deceptive and unwilling to take responsibility in my experience.

At the shop we are really educating customers on using floral online directories and telling them to avoid all middlemen. They are so happy when we do too...most have been ripped off by OG's so they are trying to use local folks.

Maybe, us florists should get together and create public announcement commercials... letting comsumers know we floristsare the ones getting the job done, from finding the house hidden behind the other house to supporting our local communities. It seems like a cost effective way to let the consumer know that we are here for them and offer the same products as wire services , offer better customer service and take pride in our work without service fees.

I think the only way to improve is to improve the customers knowledge.

Any thought...I certainly do not mean to be negative and hope that I have offered some sense of hope.

I like the Public service announcement commercial idea....I think that would be GREAT!

 

[Rluceroism]

Wheeeww!

Wow, it is about time. Great news!

Thanks EVERYONE!