Hey Art,
I have a big question for you...How much of your business model depends on the wire out portion? How much of your current business do you stand to loose money from if you lose high rebates, and streamlined sending ability? How much do you depend on fillers to generate the revenue for your business?? Also, being the visionary you are, do you have a plan in place in case these wire services fail? What is that plan??
While we are all implementing our plan of solving the problem of too many filled orders not enough sent orders, and not having enough reach or money to effectively gather orders..you are sitting here indirectly brainwashing people into believing that they may be wrong for doing it..I struggled with my decision for one full year before implementing what I knew was killing my business....The more I grew the more TF took from me in terms of money, the more I gave the more they wanted and when I needed they were never there to return the favor...I bet they would be all ears if you spoke up, they need you and your orders, you need the small shops to fill because they think they need the orders...and when they go out, 3 more take their place, howeever with the power of the internet and the young kids knowing how to use computers, many are foregoing the ws model local florist and that must scare you....they are not jumping right in but taking a we will see if we need it approach and many will find that how they do things works and will never know the struggle that we old florists know because they have only seen how a healthy local wire service free business can run...no ws stress, no hundreds of dollars a month leaving you with questions of what exactly do I need to spend this money for feelings, no just flowers, weasley, america's florist or from you flowers shenanigans...this must be a very scary time for you, the early 90's was a world full of promise, here in 2011 your model is basically threatening to become very difficult and the empire could come crashing down if you don't do something...I understand that, that has been happening in the small florists world for years, difference is all we have to lose is a dream, no empire to ry to keep a float.and no worry of lots of employees to let go and property to sell or get rid of...I hope what ever your plans are they just don't take down lots of little florists with you pushing them to keep a part of their business that might be killing them...I do hope you are helping florists and not just being one of the many sucking the blood of desparate peole holding onto a dream and hoping to be a big florist like you and being lead to the desert for a good long drink only to find they are alone in a mirage with nothing but and empty bank account and not even a thank you of helping you along to the real oasis....you too have the ability to take two routes, just like the wires did, we all know what route they took in the name of saving the florists let us see what route you take...
