Best wishes

[Peter1]

Dear Florists,

I wanted to wish you all well, and hope each of you have a successful Valentines Day.

While we have been successful in increasing our membership base all over the world, the North American market see's no growth to speak of in the past year. It appears shops aren't interested in paying less unless it's to FSI, which in reality they are paying almost as much as they would if they belong to Teleflora with the same amount of a clearing house commission.

I came back to this industry as a choice, to try and make a difference in the lives of Florists.

No doubt some of you will be happy I'm exiting, and that's ok I'll respect your opinion.

Thanks goes out to Ryan who has a great concept here, and I hope it only continues to have more shops sign up and add their thoughts and insights.

And no this isn't meant to be a sour grapes message.

Best wishes

Peter

 

[theRKF]

Is this the demise of the Blossoms Network??????

 

[Mikey the Flower Guy]

it's DIFFICULT to launch...

a NEW ORDER of things without a technology platform to make it work!!
Peter is no fool, he's spent a lot of money, TRYING to establish an alternative way of doing business, HOWEVER, faxing and mailing is NOT a choice, and CALLING orders, and reports don't do anything for me!!
I would hope that PETER is trying to rattle our cages...he wants to be "INSIDE" our cages, and not outside looking in!!
He's a good man....maybe he'd be more successful if he was a miserable, backstabbing, snot snorting son of a *****, that ONLY cares about himself, BUT, he's not!!
It's just plain ****ed hard to start ANY new business these days...ask ETFA...
Mike

 

[Peter1]

Originally posted by Infinite
Is this the demise of the Blossoms Network??????

It's in the hands of Florists, if shops say they want choice, and fairness, and less costs, then BN will be around, if they want to keep paying the high fees, and be nickle and dimed for everything, then BN won't continue. I'm more than happy to do my part to fix the problem, currently I work 20 hrs a day, 7 days a week on behalf of the industry, but it clearly takes everyone rowing the boat in the same direction. There's not a day that doesn't go by that some order gatherer wants to sign up, it would be easy to say yes to them, but we say NO. That's doing the right thing at least in my opinion.

We are working on sorting out the electronic platform issues. I agree and understand the need to be able to send the Online way for large volume shops and low volume shops.

In terms of Marketing, people might remember a company called AFS which didn't sell and chase Florists to buy dishware, and promoted everyday arrangements and other lovely choices, they had a big membership base, but it didn't happen over night. Herman Meinders built his company one member, one order at a time. For those people in Canada that wonder why Teleflora Canada treats them better than the US office, it might have something to do with Bob Newton former President and Partner of AFS Canada (Who I first met growing up when he was a field rep for the former UFC)

Peter