1800Flowers "Premier Florist"

[Mikey the Flower Guy]

Actually, I don't really consider myself on the fence on this one. After reading everything here, notably the empty promises, I'm leaning heavily against it. But, I am always willing to listen. If they meet all of my demands and then some, and there is little or no risk involved then I'm game.

this is EXACTLY the right frame of mind.
As much as we'd ALL hate to see you taken advantage of, like we're pretty sure you WOULD be, it's ABOUT YOU!!
YOUR decision to make...we actually DON'T want for you to come back and say it was a bad decision (read failed attempt) AFTER THE FACT!!
To be honest with you, got into a heated profane strewn shouting match with them some time ago with them over the same "proposals" (lies)

 

[wrdlady47]

After this, you gotta know how well -loved you are. Do What's best for you.But, if 1-800 doesn't hold up their end of the bargain, let me know and I be happy to kick their butt for you

 

[Lizi]

I know that you will weigh the pros and cons of the advise you have been given from this forum.

After all, you do have to do what you think is right for you business. If you decide to try this promotion with them and it works, then great. If you try and it fails, we will still be here for you. :flowers:

After all, we are a community of real local florist just trying to carve out a living doing what we love. And you are one of us.

 

[PhillyPhlorist]

500 orders and 20-30K checks???

Those numbers surprise me. Was your average order over $80?

RC

Sorry for the delay in a response...bizzy this week with prom work

Actually, our avg. order WAS about $60 - but THAT was BEFORE the "$29.99 It's Your Day Bouquet" was their featured arr. and you had decent volume. ("Garden of Grandure" was a big seller - was that about $80 or something???)
Also, delivery charges were only about $4~5 or so, and they did give you $5.00. A 30k month was in May, with about 400 orders for Mom day week alone. During other months, a 20K month was the norm. Without looking back at the actual statements, I couldn't tell you for sure, but Dad recalls the 20-30 K months clearly...mainly due to the fact he used that $ to pay off the wholesalers each month. V-day was the highest, and their doz rose prices (if I recall) were always either 69.99 or 79.99 at V-day...

How memories fade...

- H.

 

[Flowerchatter03]

I think it's a very appealing offer.

I'd go with Ted who said - call their bluff - it's only for 90 days. IF they don't deliver average $60 orders and volume they promise, you're not out that much (I've wasted $600 more times than I can count, and having the containers isn't a waste cuz you can still sell them with or without their program)

I've found their container selection very well researched and well wholesale priced, with shipping costs that make the other two look like the ripoffs they are ($5 PER CASE!). I've considered joining, not to send or receive, but just to have access to their containers.

I wonder if they'll make that same offer to me? I'd love to take some business away from the 2 members here in town if I can make a few bux at it. If I could get all the orders (with my minimums of course) it may be enough to drive one of them over the edge.

Good point about the containers. Right now in the clearance section, they have cornucopias for .42 (you get 24 and they have a built in liner) with a 5.99 shipping fee. Try to ask TF or FTD what the shipping charges will be for their product and they'll tell you they don't know.

 

[bloomz]

They have incredible clearances - and weekly specials as well.

Teleflora will charge you more for freight than the product cost you - they make enough to almost give you the product just to profit like banditos on the freight.

I wonder if they'll make that same offer to me? I'd love to take some business away from the 2 members here in town if I can make a few bux at it. If I could get all the orders (with my minimums of course) it may be enough to drive one of them over the edge.

I think I should have said all the GOOD orders - let the others have the junk orders.

Which would require holding them to the listed minimums. But I don't see why that would be such a problem - they do have a reject or forward button don't they?

I really don't mind rejecting or forwarding and feel, contrary to many here, that it isn't that big of deal, - takes me about 30 seconds now, if that. No big deal at all.

If I have time to post on flowerchat - I have plenty of time to triage and reject orders as needed.

Wouldn't it be nice if we were all so busy running our shops we didn't have time to post here, at least during work hours?

The fact that we do says something about us, you know?

 

[goldfish]

It appears this could be a good deal with a few caveats (see below).

The rebate part is not the sweetest part, because you can get the same (or significantly similar) deal with any other WS.

The uniquest point of this deal, as I see it, is the "guarantee" of a certain number of wire-in sales to you. According to your original post, the first tier will be "guaranteed" $50-70K a year. That's a lot of sales.

With no need to add additional labor (we'll come back to this point later), this level of wire-ins should give you a gross profit in the range of 12K-19K a year before the monthly fees.

So here's what I would be interested...

1) Monthly fees: with your level of wire-outs, can the rebate alone pay their monthly fees?

2) If you missed the 20 wire outs in a certain month, would that trigger the breach of contract for all the subsequent months, or just for that month?

3) I don't believe the "guarantee" is unconditional. It MUST be a conditional "guarantee" contingent upon, not just the number of wire-outs but also some other hidden requirements on your part. What are those requirements? More importantly, if these requirements were not met and the "guarantee" was retracted, would you ever be notified?

4) Suppose you met all the requirements. How do they distribute all those $50-75K orders? If they allocate a TON of orders in a busy month, you would be forced to hire extra labor, which would necessarily shrink your margin.

 

[goldfish]

3) I don't believe the "guarantee" is unconditional. It MUST be a conditional "guarantee" contingent upon, not just the number of wire-outs but also some other hidden requirements on your part. What are those requirements? More importantly, if these requirements were not met and the "guarantee" was retracted, would you ever be notified?

For example, are you required to carry certain 1-800 items? How much do they cost? This could be a killer of this deal.

 

[CHR]

In 2004 I recieved $84,000 in orders with not one order sent out.

If you want the orders they will give them to you. But its discounted and its 71%.


Lets put it this way.

The money you would spend on Membership, and the 29% they keep would give you a good amount advertising to beat them at their own game. And instead of buying "Their Containers" for "Their Customers" you would be getting "Your Customers" and promoting "Your Business"

Got the same offer two weeks ago to "get me back on the team."

SOS... same game, different year. You would have to carry EVERY item in their design line...yikes.

All I have to say is... don't you believe it...stay away...FAR away...

Did it for 30 days. Promised the world and received nothing but big headaches... The average sale figure is achieved by the one high dollar item they send you every month. Lots of extra work for designers and office and you have no say if they don't agree that the flowers you substitute you don't get paid.

If you'd like more info message me. Don't make a big mistake it's not worth your reputation.

I was a Premier Florist in Duluth for 18 mths til I lost my shirt filling all their $24.99 & $29.99 orders. They tell you that you can set a minimum but you really can't. You have to also honor their pricing strategies which at times is impossible.

At this point, you've heard from 4 experienced, successful, long-time florists who've had first-hand experience in that program. Notice a pattern?

 

[RC in Dayton and Cincinnati]

Goldfish,

I can tell you this is a bad deal without even analyzing it.

First of all, 1-800 isn't going to present any deal out of generosity. They're in it for the money. It is quite obvious there are plenty of florists willing to work for them or free. Why would they present any better deal than needed to get their objective done.

The catch 22 in the scenario is they desperately need quality, but there are so many florists willing to pay them to work they can't pass up exploiting the desperate florists (present company excluded ). Quality will just have to take a back seat for now, I guess.

RC

 

[goldfish]

Randy, I don't doubt for a second that this deal benefits 1-800 more than it benefits LJVF. All the wire-ins are like that, in terms of senders' benefits and fillers' ones.

But LJVF's original question, which has been lost during this debate, is whether this deal can be profitable for him, in terms of money. He wasn't asking which one, 1-800 or his shop, would benefit more from this deal. We all know the answer to that: of course 1800.

 

[RC in Dayton and Cincinnati]

At this point, you've heard from 4 experienced, successful, long-time florists who've had first-hand experience in that program. Notice a pattern?

I'm actually surprised by the honesty. People usually don't like admitting to their bad decisions. They all deserve a greeny

Speaking of great partnerships, whatever happened to Veldkamp, a once powerhouse in the industry?


RC

 

[RC in Dayton and Cincinnati]

Randy, I don't doubt for a second that this deal benefits 1-800 more than it benefits LJVF. All the wire-ins are like that, in terms of senders' benefits and fillers' ones.

But LJVF's original question, which has been lost during this debate, is whether this deal can be profitable for him, in terms of money. He wasn't asking which one, 1-800 or his shop, would benefit more from this deal. We all know the answer to that: of course 1800.

Goldfish,

From reading posts and debates on this board I've come to the conclusion the term profitable is a relative term depending on the angle you view it from.

For example, if I bought two ice cream cones for a buck each to sell but only sold one, while the other started melting, and someone offered me a quarter for the melting cone which I sell to him, some would call that quarter a profit, adding to the bottom line because if that cone is not sold no revenue is achieved.

I'd simply call it cutting my losses.

RC

 

[CHR]

I'm actually surprised by the honesty. People usually don't like admitting to their bad decisions. They all deserve a greeny

Good point.

 

[RC in Dayton and Cincinnati]

Florists filling wire orders is kind of like hedging your bets.

Wire orders may provide enough revenue to sustain a florist, especially if the florist resorts to cheating, but robs them of future potential to flourish and succeed.

I know, many will say they only want them until they can build enough local business to sustain their business on its own, but that time never comes. So, instead of following their dreams and ambitions, they start following the rules. Instead of carving out their niche and identity, they follow in line. Instead of becoming self reliant, they become dependent. And instead of being an entrepreneur they become the hired help.

I understand hedging your bets, but if you were at the races and bet on all the horses, would you win? If you try becoming independent by depending on wire orders will you succeed?


RC

 

[Eric S]

I still have to say that the biggest mistake filling florist make is the dream of marketing to the recipient. Somehow stealing the recipient by marketing to them with coupons and business cards.

Its a dream people and will bet my business on it.

So you send out this beautiful arrangement called Fields of Europe and you slap your name all over the place on it and you really think the recipient is going to take notice to your "Superior design technique".

Two recipients received two different arrangements the other day.
Which one do you think they remembered?

 

[CHR]

I know, many will say they only want them until they can build enough local business to sustain their business on its own, but that time never comes. So, instead of following their dreams and ambitions, they start following the rules. Instead of carving out their niche and identity, they follow in line. Instead of becoming self reliant, they become dependent. And instead of being an entrepreneur they become the hired help.

Can't think of a more eloquent way to make that statement. Perfect.

 

[goldfish]

Randy:

First of all, you've mentioned a couple of times that some inexperienced people here are giving bad advice in this board. So let me start by saying that I am not an experienced florist at all; in fact, I don't actually consider myself a professional florist. 10 years from now, maybe, but not now.

What I am, however, comfortable doing is to analyze a situation quantitatively. That's actually what I'd been doing in my entire professional life. In fact I am so good at it that sometimes I even get it right (most of the time, I don't). I tend to believe that my analytical skills are good enough to irritate experienced pros like you, Cathy, BOSS, many others here.

So here we go...

Wire orders may provide enough revenue to sustain a florist, especially if the florist resorts to cheating, but robs them of future potential to flourish and succeed.

It could, depending on how much the wire-in sales would dilute the store brand. Filling for WS.com orders would dilute store brand; that's the way I look at it. Brand-dilution would result in the decrease of growth potential.

So the question to me is relative...

If a $1M-revenue shop is expected to grow 10% (100K) a year, 1% reduction in growth would "cost" them $10K. So it's obviously stupid for them to try to earn 5K from wire-ins, if doing so leads to the loss of 10K growth.

But if the brand wasn't hurt by filling wire-ins, then any positive earning is a good thing. At least that's the first approximation with everything else being equal.

For a business like yours and Cathy's, sales of wire-in products (especially cookie-cutter arrangements) would significantly dilute your store brand. The dilution would be so great that no achievable amount of wire-in revenue would be able to compensate the loss. That's my prediction.

But I think that's not universal. I think there are different kind of shops, which are smaller and whose brands are more generic than Oberer's or Avante Gardens'. Many of these shops are already serving the kind of arrangements similar to WS.com orders. For these shops, brand dilution due to filling wire-ins is much smaller than it would be in your kind of shops.

That is, the "damage" by brand dilution would be smaller in these small generic shops. It is possible, although not certain, that the wire-in earning could outweigh the possible loss of growth potential.

Now tell me I am completely wrong.

 

[RC in Dayton and Cincinnati]

Goldfish,

I can't tell you that you are completely wrong because I don't completely understand what your saying.

_____________________________________________________

I'm also not speaking from experience but rather observation.

I may be wrong, but I think the majority of florists have revenue of less than $200,000 a year (Paul Goodman a few years ago said two thirds of all florists had sales of approximately $120,000). I also think 30% of revenue comes from incoming wire orders is typical for the American florist.

If the above statements are even close to being true the majority of florists already have an unhealthy percentage of incoming wires. You are very analytical as it appears in all your posts, but unfortunately most florists are not. So what often happens is less analytical florists read your posts and want to believe what they are doing is OK. They read if kept under control incoming wire orders are good. This is also what the wire services have been preaching for the last fifty years.

It's my belief that if the typical $200,000 florist receives too many discounted wire orders it undermines their profitability. If they limit those orders to less than 8-10% of sales a year, the cost per order becomes too high.

I simply don't believe there is any formula for the typical florist where chasing incoming wire orders a good practice. I've observed way too many instances where it has produced disastrous results.


RC

 

[BOSS]

I
Speaking of great partnerships, whatever happened to Veldkamp, a once powerhouse in the industry?
RC

Wire orders may provide enough revenue to sustain a florist, especially if the florist resorts to cheating, but robs them of future potential to flourish and succeed.

I know, many will say they only want them until they can build enough local business to sustain their business on its own, but that time never comes.
RC

Goldfish,

I also think 30% of revenue comes from incoming wire orders is typical for the American florist.

If the above statements are even close to being true the majority of florists already have an unhealthy percentage of incoming wires.
RC

All true....

I know of one shop in Michigan, city population of about 700,000 where 5 years ago I installed their Advantage system. At that time, their incoming volume was about 65% of their biz, they are FTD-TF-800F and who knows what else...today their incoming percentage is around 80%++...

Sure lots of flowers coming in and going out...buildings falling down, roof leaks, employees are crabby....owner is off-site at his *job*...

Imagine what would happen if the flow slows down...or worse yet stops all together.