B Brooks

[SpringCity]

bbrooks might want to watch out, they'll lose their air of exclusivity, which is their only real "benefit".

Anyway, I can find high end shops on my own and put the money in my pocket instead of Barbara's. :tongue:

 

[Flowerchatter03]

Could YOU have done this:
Order comes in at 3:50pm Friday. Order is calling for a $600 arrangement, for a funeral the next morning by 10am. Ok so far. (I like BBrooks!) The monkey wrench is inserted here: the arr. MUST be all White/Cream flowers, with Green flower accents, and ALL high end stuff. No mums of any kind, no carns, no BB.
Problem for us: have MAYBE $200 in white flowers, NO wholesalers open.


I can't speak for anyone else her but heck ya I could have done that order! Even if I didn't have all the flowers here, I could have went to the local wholesaler first thing Sat morning and got flowers. Luckily, they are about 10 minutes from me and open at 7am. If the service was at 10 it would have needed to be there by 9. Look out other drivers on the freeway! :scooter:

 

[Rhonda]

heck no, sorry, we keep inventory but no wholesalers less than a 3 hour round trip and they close at 3:00 p.m. so can't order for overnight shipping....

 

[goldfish]

Brandon, with all due respects, you don't know how the finance of BBrooks looks like, do you? You probably don't know, for example, whether they are even making money or not and, if they do, how much the owner (Barbara B) is pocketing.

Without knowing that, comparing her company to Mafia, and the implied accusation of unethical conducts, is uncalled for. In fact, none of us, including yourself, knows what we ourselves would be doing if we were put into the same situation as hers.

You accuse BBrooks of being not on your side, because they gather orders on their site. But is it financially possible for BBrooks to keep providing sevices to YOU, without getting some kind of revenue in addition to the meager membership fees they are collecting?

Are you saying BBrooks should sacrifice their own self-interest in order to satisfy your self-interest?

I'm guessing that, at this point, BBrooks either has to raise the monthly fee (which is probably not a politically viable option) or has to look for some sort of additional revenue. The only alternative (again, I'm guessing) is to cut the membership, which probably will lead to their oblivion.

Running a network of 100 florists is costly enough. If the number grows from 100 to, say, 500, the cost won't be simply 5-fold. It tends to become much more than that, because the complexity of a network grows exponentially with the size.

 

[RC in Dayton and Cincinnati]

Ok, just got off the phone with Barbera who is very smart, charming, savvy and a good person.

We talked for an hour, about a lot of things, but I brought up my questions about the new florists coming in and that she sells to the public on her site, which competes against her members.

Herb, she said great things about your shop and used you as the example. I didn't even bring up any specific florists, but she talked about you... I think. It was some TF florist from Philly, so I assume you.

Tim Huckabee gave Barbera the idea to expand in an economy that was less that great. She had hired Tim to help her. He came up with the idea of BBtoo, a new name brand for TF florists who could join under the bbrooks family. (that is why you see the BBtoo next to some florist's names in the bbrooks backend) She explained that there are good florists who might sell cookie cutter stuff, but, if told, could do awesome stuff too, which I agreed.. since Herb and Dianne are members and are in the top of their league. So bottom line, economy is bad, need to figure out how to make more money, create "new brand" (BBtoo) and let TF florists in if they can do high end work. - And please don't get me wrong, I am not cutting on Herb or one of my bestest buddy here, Dianne.

When I told her about my customer finding out, through my website that we went through bbrooks and went directly to the bbrooks site and placed her order, leaving me with 0% and a lost customer forever (when it comes to wiring out her flowers) she told me she was offended that I was accusing her of stealing a customer and that it wasn't her fault, but my fault for having the bbrooks name on my site. Wow. Yeah my fault that she gathers orders on her site. I asked her to take down her e-commerce on her site or make it so when a customer orders, they can give credit to their local bbrooks member florist OR even add her florist list. She said no, it makes too much money.

I find it fascinating to listen to justifications. You are either for the florists or against, it's black or white. If you say you are for the florists 90% of the time, you are not for the florists. Am I the only sane one in this world? Is there any other industry, other than the mafia, in which we pay an organization and then they take some of that money and compete against us? Am I really awake? I know... I am a naive fool. I want to believe that their are businesses who treat me, like I would treat them.

I wonder if a WS, who paid $1000s to a server host or webmaster found out that they started a WS and were competing against them? Do you think that the WS would still use them? Am I the crazy one here? Is this concept that hard for them to see or is justifying the means that easy? MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY......MONEY.

And I am not blaming Barbera for my actions. I signed up for bbrooks after being invited, I should of done my do-diligence and saw that bbrooks collected orders from the public. So that is my fault. Barbera is a wonderful lady who I can learn a lot from, I just feel a little empty right now and don't know what to think.

My son is eating a bar of butter, I have to go.

Dazeal,

Barbara Brooks Fine Flowers always was an ordergatherer. Her niche was the high end clientele.

In my opinion she provides a real, valuable service to people looking for expensive upscale arrangements. These people don't want the typical and have always had a tough time finding a florist able to meet their expectations. BBrooks connects these upscale people with appropriate florists for a fee.

In contrast the typical ordergatherer just tries to get in between the customer and the florist taking a chunk out of the order before passing it along, no real value for the money paid. In fact the customer is usually unaware they've been had.



RC

 

[LJVF]

Dazeal,

Barbara Brooks Fine Flowers always was an ordergatherer. Her niche was the high end clientele.

In my opinion she provides a real service to people looking for expensive upscale arrangements. These people don't want the typical and have always had a tough time finding a florist able to meet their expectations. BBrooks connects these upscale people with appropriate florists for a fee.

In contrast the typical ordergatherer just tries to get in between the customer and the florist taking a chunk out of the order before passing it along, no real value for the money paid. In fact the customer is usually unaware they've been had.



RC

Interesting. So would you say she's more like a high end flower broker? There is no deception involved, these affluent clientele are willing to pay a finders fee for someone to cut through the riff raff and find florists to handle upscale orders? Florists in turn pay a membership fee and a fair commission in order to acquire these high dollar orders.

 

[RC in Dayton and Cincinnati]

Interesting. So would you say she's more like a high end flower broker? There is no deception involved, these affluent clientele are willing to pay a finders fee for someone to cut through the riff raff and find florists to handle upscale orders? Florists in turn pay a membership fee and a fair commission in order to acquire these high dollar orders.

That's correct.


RC

 

[Dazeal]

Barbara Brooks Fine Flowers always was an order gatherer. Her niche was the high end clientele.

In my opinion she provides a real service to people looking for expensive upscale arrangements. These people don't want the typical and have always had a tough time finding a florist able to meet their expectations. BBrooks connects these upscale people with appropriate florists for a fee.

Yeah I know RC, I think we all know that. I just found out last week she was an og, I explained that already. My point was, she is competing against me. I know you are a HUGE WS guy, but try to see it from the smaller shops pov. think of it this way.. you pay a guy to deliver flowers all day. At night he runs a florist online that competes with you. Your logic would mean you will keep paying him, since he is "doing a great service" for you. I am guessing the guy would be let go if it started eating into your profits. Or if that example doesn't work for you, think of someone you pay, for their 'awesome service' and they compete against you. Don't say FTD either think of it small a smaller shops pov. I also just noticed your dog icon moves and is creepy. Cool.

Brandon, with all due respects, you don't know how the finance of BBrooks looks like, do you?

She told me, not details, but %, so the rest of your long boring, drawn out argument is moot. /sigh

Are you saying BBrooks should sacrifice their own self-interest in order to satisfy your self-interest?

Did I say that? What I was saying is, if you say you are for the florists, then be for them, meaning 100%, not 90%.

You accuse BBrooks of being not on your side, because they gather orders on their site. But is it financially possible for BBrooks to keep providing sevices to YOU, without getting some kind of revenue in addition to the meager membership fees they are collecting?

Seriously, wth are you talking about??? She does make revenue off me. You love putting words and ideas into other people's mouths. THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE MEMBERSHIP FEES!!! Seriously GF, are you for real?

Running a network of 100 florists is costly enough. If the number grows from 100 to, say, 500, the cost won't be simply 5-fold. It tends to become much more than that, because the complexity of a network grows exponentially with the size.

I have no idea what that has to do with what I said about her competing against her florists, so , ummmm thank you for letting us know that more overhead = most costs. /sigh

 

[Dazeal]

That's correct.


RC

No that is not correct. There are no membership fees. Bbrooks is an invite only ws. She is not a broker. I get a call to ws out, I put it in ans send it to the florist 1000 miles away. BB makes her % on the order. And there is no "finders fee".

Bbrooks is not a dOG (Deceitful order gatherer) though, you are correct about that.

Starting in Nov, if you don't send at least 10 orders, you will be dinged and charged.

 

[RWK]

Ok, I just looked over the BBrooks website and I have to say, I am impressed with several things. At least on the surface......

1) They seem to have the floral menu broad enough to allow the filling florist to use what they have in stock. However, Did not see anything about a substituion policy per se.

2) The posted prices seem to be high enough to allow a fairly nice arrangement to be created by the filling florist. Since the prices are higher, even though the wire percentages remain basically the same ..... or so it appears, even with that, there is a greater amount of dollars remaining to fill that order.

3) Does'nt appear to be a typical skimming and fee padding order gatherer.

So, on the face of it, seems like BBrooks - while not perfect - seems to be a far lesser evil than the 800TELEFTD guys.

I am going to run it by the florist detective people to see what if anything has been red-flagged about them.

 

[Dazeal]

So, on the face of it, seems like BBrooks - while not perfect - seems to be a far lesser evil than the 800TELEFTD guys.

So true.

Ricky, nice post and all is true. You don't need to run it by the florist detectives because one of the fd is a bbrooks member.

 

[CHR]

Did you have B Brooks logo on your home page with a link to the site?

 

[CHR]

Brandon,

How much to you know about Barbara and the company?

Are you aware that she authored a widely sold book which rated and profiled leading florists across the US? Her interest and care in seeing quality florists succeed, coupled with her entrepreneurship by getting her book published and distributed nationally, was a win-win for her and the shops. Like a Zagat of florists.

The internet changed the way information is distributed. How many people actually have paid subscriptions to restaurant and hotel ratings services today? I wager it's very, very few with the number getting smaller each year.

Look at the drop in paid subscriptions for every printed periodical - from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal. But the staffs have to somehow get paid. As passionate as they are about their craft, they can't work for free. Neither can Barbara or her team.

B Brooks provides all the core clearinghouse services of 1800TFTD for about 1/10th the base cost. They qualify each member based on quality of the operation. Can you say the same for any other national WS?

The commissions paid to receive orders sold by the main site are far more equitable than any other national company's. And orders are of a quality to allow someone like us to succeed and do what we do instead of pulling out a book and copying from a picture.

B Brooks has been selling flowers on the web loooong before you were a member. Look at archive.org - which goes back to 1998 for her company.

I honestly do not get your rant. Nobody stole your customer. If you linked to B Brooks and your customer followed the link - and ordered there - you basically endorsed her to place the order.

Please....take down the link, calm down and think real hard if all this name calling was really warranted.

 

[Dazeal]

Yeah Cathy I knew all of that, in fact I think I told you that 2 years ago when I told you I joined and you should drop tf and join. Glad you joined, you're a true asset.

You guys don't get it do you? It's not about her stealing my one customer. Did you, goldfish or Randy even read my posts? here let me write in CAPS... IT IS THE FACT I FOUND OUT SHE COMPETES AGAINST HER OWN FLORISTS AT BBROOKS.COM.

I already said they were the better of evils, so I understand what you are saying about about %.

I honestly do not get your rant. Nobody stole your customer. If you linked to B Brooks and your customer followed the link - and ordered there - you basically endorsed her to place the order.

I truly didn't know she was taking the orders. Please read my posts and you would of known this.

And please don't tell me to quit calling people names when I never did. Unless you mean: smart, savvy, intelligent, etc....

You are right about this rant going on for too long Cathy, I am done and do agree that bbrooks is the better of all ws. My biggest gripe here is the principle that I have, do unto others as you'd have them do unto you, that doesn't sit well with me. I would never charge someone and then use a part of that income to compete against them, especially these florists here who are hurting. I was never raised that way and is why I have a hard time with this.

 

[Dazeal]

Ok I was in bed and came to my senses and I had to get up and apologize for getting so crazy. I was thinking bb does the same as ftd and I am not very happy about what ftd did to their customers with their website, but that is not fair to bb. BB isn't doing what ftd is doing and I freaked out.

I asked myself, is bb REALLY competing against me? Does her name come up when people type in ashland oregon florist or does she fill dOGs order like FTD? No she doesn't. If a customer happens to find her site and asks her to fill it, she has her florist fill it, not like ftd when they drop ship. Plus if that customer were never able to find bbrooks online who would they of found FTD?

Passion sometimes blinds me and I am sorry. I am going to call Barbera tomorrow and apologize too. I am really sorry for my oversight and comparing apples to oranges, please forgive me.

I am putting myself in a 6 month time-out and can't come onto the WS forum.

 

[LJVF]

Ok I was in bed and came to my senses and I had to get up and apologize for getting so crazy. I was thinking bb does the same as ftd and I am not very happy about what ftd did to their customers with their website, but that is not fair to bb. BB isn't doing what ftd is doing and I freaked out.

I asked myself, is bb REALLY competing against me? Does her name come up when people type in ashland oregon florist or does she fill dOGs order like FTD? No she doesn't. If a customer happens to find her site and asks her to fill it, she has her florist fill it, not like ftd when they drop ship. Plus if that customer were never able to find bbrooks online who would they of found FTD?

Passion sometimes blinds me and I am sorry. I am going to call Barbera tomorrow and apologize too. I am really sorry for my oversight and comparing apples to oranges, please forgive me.

I am putting myself in a 6 month time-out and can't come onto the WS forum.

Dazeal,

I think all the ranting threw some of us off focus of the point you were trying to make, which I happen to believe is a valid one. If b brooks offers e commerce, then yes they are competing against it's member florists. It may not be on the same scale (yet) as 800TELFTD, but they are still potentially taking away direct orders from it's members.

I think it is idealistic to believe that the day will come when we florists will once again will have the option to belong to the traditional wire service that does not gather orders. (Yes TOTO I know about IFA). Not saying impossible, but highly improbable.

A question I pose is what would happen if 800TELFTD decided to pull the plug on OG?

I am putting myself in a 6 month time-out and can't come onto the WS forum.

I hope not, your posts add a nice perspective and flavor to these boards. :thumbsup

 

[RC in Dayton and Cincinnati]

Dazeal,
My point was BBrooks started out as a service for affluent customers looking to send flowers long distant but were unable to find appropriate shops to fill their needs. The business was set up as a service to these affluent customers. It was not set up as a service for florists. It wasn't until later that it was opened up to florists to send through their network.

That's my understanding from the limited conversations at some of the early TF top member trips.

I think what sets BBrooks apart from most ordergatheres is customer satisfaction is the top priority for them. In contrast for most ordergatherers the top priority is order acquisition regardless of customer satisfaction.

Finally two more points, I understand your concern with doing business with a company that intends on stealing your customers away if given the chance. I totally agree. It is a dangerous position to be in and one should walk with caution when going down that path.

And, as far as you calling me a big wire service guy, that's an unfair characterization. My wire ins and wire outs combined (counted as 100% sales) are between 6-7% of my revenue. This number is way below the national average of 30%.


RC

 

[goldfish]

Are you saying BBrooks should sacrifice their own self-interest in order to satisfy your self-interest?

Did I say that?

Here's my understanding. Your interest is to maximize your profit. BBrooks' interest is the same; to maximize their profit.

Yet you are demanding BBrooks to remove one of their revenue source, i.e., asking them to reduce their profit. You are asking this, so that you would be able to earn more.

What I was saying is, if you say you are for the florists, then be for them, meaning 100%, not 90%.

You're talking about something very starnge here. BBrooks is a for-profit company, not a co-op of its member florists.

If they said they are "for the florists", it's probably just a figure of speech. It's like a florist saying we are "for" the customers, while trying to maximize the money we take from them.

You accuse BBrooks of being not on your side, because they gather orders on their site. But is it financially possible for BBrooks to keep providing sevices to YOU, without getting some kind of revenue in addition to the meager membership fees they are collecting?

Seriously, wth are you talking about??? She does make revenue off me. You love putting words and ideas into other people's mouths. THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE MEMBERSHIP FEES!!!

I didn't know that they don't even have a membership fee. That's a refreshing concept. I should have researched more before I posted it, sorry.

My point wasn't clear the first time, so I will try it again (without shouting).

Most BBrook florists are there to make money off the membership (or save the money, same thing). At least that's my understanding. In turn, BBrook needs to provide the services attractive to these members, so that they (BBrooks), too, can make money off the members.

If the entire cost of providing these services can be covered by a % cut of orders sent/received, BBrooks does not need to gather orders to raise additional money. But if it's not enough, and if raising the % cut is not a viable option, they would need to gather orders.

Running a network of 100 florists is costly enough. If the number grows from 100 to, say, 500, the cost won't be simply 5-fold. It tends to become much more than that, because the complexity of a network grows exponentially with the size.

I have no idea what that has to do with what I said about her competing against her florists, so , ummmm thank you for letting us know that more overhead = most costs. /sigh

The point was not that "more overhead = most costs"; the point was that the expense of running a network grows exponentially, not linearly, with the size of the network. Expense for running a 500-member network is more than 5-times of that for a 100-member network.

On the other hand, revenue tends to grow linearly, not exponentially, with the size of a network. At the result, after a network reaches to a certain size, their expense becomes so massive that they can't sustain its own weight. Their revenue can't support it.

I was just guessing that, as BBrooks grew, they might have hit this level.

 

[RWK]

Well, From what I have gleaned and gathered from not only the postings on this thread, but from the website itself and some other sources, I will say this.......I do not yet have a shop, but with all I have read, seems like the pros of BBrooks far outweigh the cons and if I had to have a wire service......seems like they are the way to go.

 

[Joe Mioux]

Well, From what I have gleaned and gathered from not only the postings on this thread, but from the website itself and some other sources, I will say this.......I do not yet have a shop, but with all I have read, seems like the pros of BBrooks far outweigh the cons and if I had to have a wire service......seems like they are the way to go.

just remember, the BB network is extremely limited, so they rely on TF to fulfill outgoings to non-BB network locations.