WS is really not viable = we have the internet

[RonBeyer]

One compelling reason I went with FTD for a wire service when I opened this fall is for purchasing florals. I knew the ws math and that I wasn't going to highly profit from them but was already familiar with their floral product quality and pricing. I'm paying less for product from them and getting as good and usually better quality. If I factor in what it would cost additionally to buy from other vendors the P&L wouldn't look any better- and the quality of my products would go down.

I can place my order by 2pm for delivery the next morning. If something bad comes in from them we simply e-mail of picture to the sales rep and get full credit. For these reasons, and the fact I am making some money from them I am intending to stay with FTD long term.

 

[domineaux]

One compelling reason I went with FTD for a wire service when I opened this fall is for purchasing florals. I knew the ws math and that I wasn't going to highly profit from them but was already familiar with their floral product quality and pricing. I'm paying less for product from them and getting as good and usually better quality. If I factor in what it would cost additionally to buy from other vendors the P&L wouldn't look any better- and the quality of my products would go down.

I can place my order by 2pm for delivery the next morning. If something bad comes in from them we simply e-mail of picture to the sales rep and get full credit. For these reasons, and the fact I am making some money from them I am intending to stay with FTD long term.

When I was looking at improving SEO for our site I ran keyword searches and FTD related terms outnumber TF over 3 to 1 as I recall.

So, that might indicate you could acquire alot more site traffic by using FTD over TF.

 

[BOSS]

the blood letting involved in a discussion about WS's.

Ha... yep...

January 2nd it begins again (I said I would not post on wire services until after the holidays,,, then Goldie's in the cross hairs again )

 

[sandytf]

1. WS's offer SOMETHING, albeit a marginal contribution to help offset my shop's overhead expenses, so I'm PRO ws.

2. WS's offer NOTHING to my bottom line net profitability, and in fact, erode the profits I made on my 100% sales and $ervice charges, so I'm ANTI ws, or just a plain ole wire service basher.

3. WS's offer me a vehicle to get my products into the homes and offices of potential new customers, my truck was going by there anyway, and even though I know I'm loosing money by filling THEIR orders, it's good advertising for MY shop.

4. WS's have always been a part of my shop's operation, and I'm not going to change now. Besides, I'm tied into their POS technology and I need a WS to send all my outgoing orders out.

It's a crap shoot of opinions, some based in fact with others based on the warm and fuzzy WS's myths. All I can add is, one size does not fit all, and each shop must come to their own conclusion over whatever FLOATS THEIR BOAT.

Having said that (too many times already), this recession/depression has forced all of us to take another real hard look at both fixed and variable expenses, and make cuts where and when we can.

The obvious conclusion: Whichever shop expense is no longer able to produce a reasonable return on your investment, must be either greatly REDUCED or totally ELIMINATED. Failure to identify the financial hemorrhage soon enough, and in order to STOP THE BLEEDING, will result in terminal SHOCK leading to an eventual Heart Attack and subsequent PATIENT DEMISE.

In closing, keep posting and asking the hard questions. We REAL FLORISTS on FC have much to learn from each other, especially since, in the end, US WEE BEES are all we got.

I agree with you, Toto. Where in the past it may have been acceptable to be a member of a wire service for the "advertising" benefits, many florists are finding in this economy that they need a better return on their investment.

Competition has become fiercer as well. Two years ago it was easier to take a higher mark up on flowers and labor in order to make a profit on incoming wire orders. Not so easy anymore with all the online and mass market competition.

I'm sure in another year or two (or a couple of months even!) there will be other variables that affect how we all do business and what works or doesn't work for us as individuals or as an industry. We all have to keep paying attention and making decisions that best suit us.

Domineaux-whenever a topic is posted that has been discussed before, someone will almost always post links to past discussions. That's not to say anyone has all the answers, but it's valuable for any of us to go back and read what was discussed already. Gives a little more perspective. If anyone on this thread thought they knew it all and had it all figured out, I doubt they would be posting! Always room for more discussion, ideas, and perspectives.

 

[Knife's Wife]

When I was looking at improving SEO for our site I ran keyword searches and FTD related terms outnumber TF over 3 to 1 as I recall.

So, that might indicate you could acquire alot more site traffic by using FTD over TF.

TF sites dominate in our area. Many cities I check out TF seem to dominate. I spoken with several florist that have both sites, TF orders seem to come in double their FTD orders over their websites.

I just looked at your city... what a mess for the 8 pack. The first shop listed closed their doors in july and the link leads no where. Conroys is listed twice for 2 of their locations. There is a lovely looking site with no ecommerce. 2 listings for a grocery store? VONS and a listing that comes up as maybe for sale. I would definitely be putting all my energy into a website , shouldn't be to hard to rank in the Google 8 pack and garner website traffic.

Joan

 

[domineaux]

I agree with you, Toto. Where in the past it may have been acceptable to be a member of a wire service for the "advertising" benefits, many florists are finding in this economy that they need a better return on their investment.

Competition has become fiercer as well. Two years ago it was easier to take a higher mark up on flowers and labor in order to make a profit on incoming wire orders. Not so easy anymore with all the online and mass market competition.

I'm sure in another year or two (or a couple of months even!) there will be other variables that affect how we all do business and what works or doesn't work for us as individuals or as an industry. We all have to keep paying attention and making decisions that best suit us.

Domineaux-whenever a topic is posted that has been discussed before, someone will almost always post links to past discussions. That's not to say anyone has all the answers, but it's valuable for any of us to go back and read what was discussed already. Gives a little more perspective. If anyone on this thread thought they knew it all and had it all figured out, I doubt they would be posting! Always room for more discussion, ideas, and perspectives.

Thanks for that...

I will still build the software, and if someone wants it they can PM me.

This is not new to me. I'm not new to forums where, trolls, whiners, complainers, excusers and know it alls of no renown rule. LOL

Any sensible person that could put their ego aside will always welcome new thoughts, even if they don't necessarily agree with their own thoughts.


It is amazing to me that florists haven't finally had enough and tried to build some kind of coalition of florists to workaround the WS.

Giving up 27% or greater of incoming orders is robbery, not counting the additonal theft of disguised delivery charges, etc.

Most retailers do well to make 27%, and many don't have standard markup practices equal to 27%. Then having additional money in profits above that... unheard of.

Posters on these boards should think seriously about forming an alliance to create ways to completely get done with the exorbitant overhead costs of doing buisnes with WS, and the erosion of primary orders to OG.

The best way to get the OG out of the system is to take the profit out of the system for them. It isn't right that consumers get taken in the loop of greed, because florists are not willing to tackle parasitic OGs.

 

[domineaux]

TF sites dominate in our area. Many cities I check out TF seem to dominate. I spoken with several florist that have both sites, TF orders seem to come in double their FTD orders over their websites.

I just looked at your city... what a mess for the 8 pack. The first shop listed closed their doors in july and the link leads no where. Conroys is listed twice for 2 of their locations. There is a lovely looking site with no ecommerce. 2 listings for a grocery store? VONS and a listing that comes up as maybe for sale. I would definitely be putting all my energy into a website , shouldn't be to hard to rank in the Google 8 pack and garner website traffic.

Joan

You won't believe how hard I've worked to get Google to fix listings. Google is run by a bunch of cerebral kids running a billion dollar company with a huge tail wind. In other words, they just aren't business minded.

Google will not remove the non-existent shops. I've written to Google a number of times and complained on their website. There are some shops that are located in the middle of intersections, etc.

Google wants people to use their search, but they really don't care for anyone except advertisers. A good example... If you have a problem with a recent camera enter the model and ID number, you can't find a way to fix the problem. You will get a 10,000 pages of return results to retailers selling that model number camera.

 

[Knife's Wife]

I just looked at Costa Mesa Florist and their listing was not reported to be closed so I reported it to be closed. The website for Newport Bay Flowers is not working, if it is closed then go to the listing, click on more and report the location to be closed.
Have you tried reporting the problem in this manner? I have found that it works really well. Google has made it pretty simple to report all kinds of problems with listings. I have gone through and eliminated OG in this manner that do not actually have a location in our area.
I have to disagree with your statement in regards to Google being run by cerebral kids, some of the greatest minds in the world are running and working for Google.
Note: Do not use the EDIT listing unless it it your own listing. Click on more and use the "report a problem" you can also report if listings are placed wrong on the maps.

Joan

 

[Eric S]

It is always interesting when the WS gets discussed.

In 2005 was our last year receiving a ton of incoming orders. We were tired and had really nothing to show for all of our hard work. I sat their during the last week of 2005 and began to really look at our business to figure out what we were doing wrong.

These numbers are taken from my tax return from 2005 and 2006.

COG for 2005 was at 171,941. Total Sales 431,586 This included 44,663.07 in discounted incoming orders.

COG for 2006 was at 168,147. Total Sales 510,082 This included $258.34 in incoming orders.

Our Tentive Profit went from -20,000 to +23,000.

I spent the same amount of advertising just moved into things that worked better. Removed all of the WS images from our store and website and added all of our own products. Oh yea and smiled every time I took an order.

But in all things considered its hard work promoting your business and brand. Its not just making a nice arrangement and delivering it on time. Its finding ways to get the consumer to order from you and not from someone else. That’s the difficult part.

The WS does that for you and in all fairness they are very good at it. I think a lot of florist know what they have to do to make things better. But do they really want to remove the biggest competition in the industry only to allow a force like myself to take over?

That’s what holds everyone at bay from joining forces. We will always just give enough to be part of the puzzle but never the complete answer. Because we all want to be the king.

 

[LJVF]

Sometimes I think these WS debates become too complex and actually scare off some of the very florists that could learn a thing or two from them.

I've always maintained that wire services can drain a florist dry or they can be a nice supplement to existing revenues, every florist has different variables and circumstances, so it would be unfair to put a blanket statement on them.

Some here have figured out the impact the wire services have on their own business and have made their own sound decisions on them. More power to them.

Some feel that the wire services are destroying the floral industry and have made their decisions on that. More power to them.

But some are clueless and may be influenced by those that shout the loudest and post the smoothest. For these, the industry (sorry to sound harsh), may just be better off if these clueless folk just went away. This is business, not some sort of high school economics project. If you can't figure out on your own why you are losing or making money with the wire services, then you probably shouldn't be in business anyways. And this is one of our industries biggest problems, too many clueless hobbyists.

 

[domineaux]

I just looked at Costa Mesa Florist and their listing was not reported to be closed so I reported it to be closed. The website for Newport Bay Flowers is not working, if it is closed then go to the listing, click on more and report the location to be closed.
Have you tried reporting the problem in this manner? I have found that it works really well. Google has made it pretty simple to report all kinds of problems with listings. I have gone through and eliminated OG in this manner that do not actually have a location in our area.
I have to disagree with your statement in regards to Google being run by cerebral kids, some of the greatest minds in the world are running and working for Google.
Note: Do not use the EDIT listing unless it it your own listing. Click on more and use the "report a problem" you can also report if listings are placed wrong on the maps.

Joan

I haven't tried to do anything with the Google local listings for several months. I gave up.

Since reading your posting, which I very much appreciate, I will give it another go.

 

[BOSS]

Good points Eric...

Too bad more folks don't look at the hard numbers and make the hard decisions. Yes some make money on a WS, but most do not, but they do fund the party for those that do.

Someday florists will join a better way... someday...

BTW, I don't want to be "king"... I just want to be BOSS!