What would you charge for this spray?

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Looking at that spray by the recipe - I have done sprays very similar and I would have sold the spray for about the 350 price range.

However, I always told my customers that it would not look like the picture as our funeral homes don't carry those inner lid caskets, That the pictured spray only has flowers facing the front, there are none in the back of the spray. I also always told them that If I could not get the exact flowers pictured, I would choose flowers in the same color ranges.

Using the selection guides was always a point of contention for me and others at the shop where I worked last. I advocated tossing the selection guides out on their ear and making our own out of photos of actual work that we did. Others advocated the selection guides because it was easier for them to sell flowers from. I can tell you that if I get to the point where I am owning a shop - You won't find a WS selection guide.

However, The majority of sympathy customers to that shop always wanted to "look in the book" so I would always pull out the JH sympathy guide and leave the WS under the counter because the JH guide did have more stylized individualistic design ideas.
 
RC in Dayton and Cincinnati said:
Lori,

OK, change the word skimpy to niggardly if you prefer.

RC
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I have to say that I found this response to be quite distasteful. I would hope that in the future, we could refrain from things like this.

Your shop is well known to some very good friends of mine and they always tell me of the excellent artistry that comes from there. I have you website bookmarked, because it is one of the most professional sites I have ever seen and it allows you the leeway to give your customers the best you have and still gives your customers gorgeous flowers. I hope to be able to one visit some of your shops if I ever find myself in your town......perhaps if AIFD holds an event fairly close in.
 
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Pittsburgh Suburbs

In our area outside of Pittsburgh, PA--- $275.00
 
RC in Dayton and Cincinnati said:
Victoria,

AS long as my COGS are $30 or under that spray could be made comfortably for $100.

I could easily price it at $350 too but would not use the number of flowers listed.

As NCPat48 points out the picture doesn't match the recipe. It doesn't seem you could even cover the mechanics with that list of flowers and greens. If there are only four stems of stargazers the blooms must be water tubed. I don't know about the rest of you, but we have never made a one sided spray. Even if we did we would make sure it was at least finished in the back.

I think florists should throw away either the recipe book, the guide or both. They are misleading.

I hope that wasn't snippy :)

RC
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Thanks for responding. I still have difficulty getting my head around $30.00 COGs. What does the saddle cost you? Mark is suggesting you can buy the list of ingredients given way above far more reasonably than others of us... but excluding labour that seems nigh impossible to me.

As for not finishing the back of a casket spray, yipes that doesn't fall into the realm of being a professional in my view. Any casket spray I did was always finished with no mechanics showing.

V
 
I admit, I was remiss in making myself clear that I was speaking for me and me alone when I mentioned that particular phraseing being distasteful........For not being clearer, I apologize.

I still value your insights and commentary and do plan on one of these days getting around to visiting your shop and seeing your operation.
 
I can see it now.....the attendees sitting on the side of the aisle that has the back of the casket spray with no flowers slowly passing by. Then the whispers..."what unprofessional florist made that spray?". I certainly wouldn't want the name of my shop to be the answer. I can not believe that any florist, no matter how inexperienced would tell a family that the back side would have no flowers. Those recipes are not written in stone. They may only see the front, but we are free to charge enough to include flowers for the back. Ours are not mirror images, but they are certainly not sparse either. We are all born with a little common sense, and sometimes we just have to use it.
 
325 to 350.00 here
 
ok, here why I asked

Funeral home called yesterday, said could you make something out of another florists book, I said sure, (they couldn't get a hold of the other florist) It was a TF book, needless to say. I used to be TF, but was visiting my parents, so I went to the florist website, looked up the number, and they had it priced on the website for $314.95, from the looks of it, I was content with that price, no problem, I know you have to add extra to make it look like the picture, its a fact, and the FH said the casket would be open for family to view, but closed for visitation, so not quite a triple, and flowers of course on the front and back, because one sided is not something it says in the teleflora book the customers view. So, I click off site, call FH back, say sure I can make, what was the cost again, he says they have it listed in the book for $500! WHAT???? . I dont say a word, I just say ok, when I stop by the store to pull out recipe, I was blown away. Needless to say we used a lot more flowers, but I was just blown away by the overpricing of this item, now, this is a straight up funeral home, no commissions, etc, just pay you outright for a job, but have books from florists for the families to have a easier time ordering flowers. That is why I wanted the prices from others, I thought I had went nutty......
 
Reading this makes perfect sense.

We recieved calls all the time about our funeral arrangemnts. How much was this arrangement that was delivered? I always tell them its on the website if they would like to see it and give them the price.

I always figured it was other florist calling but after dealing with some recent services it has come to my attention that its the family memebers comparing their arrangements that they ordered through the funeral home to ours.

Its no surprise and the funeral homes have the upper hand. Some are great and freely gives out our shop name "which I'd like to say totally blows me away" But there are the nasty ones that make it very difficult to deliver the arrangements by limiting the time window of delivery and have the most complaints about funeral arrangements not appearing.

And the ones that do this are starting to understand that I will go out of my way to let the customer know which ones they are and to tell them that we don't want "any more problems" with our arrangements disapearing.
 
I had a family call 3 weeks ago about a casket spray for their sister. The funeral home had a pre arrangement with a built in caskt spray allowance of 750.00. This was to be a double saddle Tulip spay. When the family called and ask me to price a C-spay for them I had no idea that the funeral home was involved. They ask me if I could bill the funeral home for the C-spray and 2 matching pieces totaling 750.00. This funeral home has an account with us but mainly calls us when their florist (the one that gives them a healthy kick back) screws up. I think these shops that give kick backs to the Funeral Homes mark up the C-spays and cheat the greiving families to save their own butts on the COGs... and I hope it comes back and bites em in the butt.
 
Sounds like this would be the perfect opportunity to go into the funeral home and meet with the directors with pictures of your work and talk to them about pricing, mis-leading WS pictures, etc. and begin to form a working relationship or if one exisits already, to strengthen it.
 
Esp???

RWK said:
Sounds like this would be the perfect opportunity to go into the funeral home and meet with the directors with pictures of your work and talk to them about pricing, mis-leading WS pictures, etc. and begin to form a working relationship or if one exisits already, to strengthen it.
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Appt. for tomorrow, they already have a JH book and a book of my personal designs, but some families like the "traditional" which I understand, especially if they are buying for what their mother would like, but that price thing has been really bothering me today....
 
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I would endeavor to find out the reasons behind the higher than normal price if I could as well. It could be anything from the FH keeping a percentage of the selling price for themselves or it could be that the family pre-booked and the original amount allocated for flowers increased with addition of interest to that amount to something less than ethical.

I know that for me, I already have it as part of my pre-need plans - not a casket spray, but I have planned to have 2 matching crosses made entirely of galax leaf rosettes......and I have instructed the funeral home to order this from the last shop I worked with before I pass on......and in a slight perverse touch of humor.....I want the designers making these crosses to cuss me while they are doing it, cause I know how difficult the designs will be.
 
We have done this arrangement for $250, but now I would go $300. We statred out with the idea we could price $150 carnations , $250 mixed, $300 all roses, but have found that only works if they mix is designer choice. So now mix with lilies or hydrangea is more.
 
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