Doing your part to compete!

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CHR

CHR

Design matters
Nov 28, 2002
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Anaheim
www.avantegardens.com
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CA
I know its fashionable to rant about gatherers, scammers, spammers and skimmers on the web (I should know since I've done plenty of ranting myself.) I would, however, like to point out the following...

Over the last month, I have had the opportunity to look through many, many, many Florist web sites. On the whole, what I have found is EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTING for a supposedly creative group of businesses. :mad: Poorly presented, out-of-date information. The same Wire Sevices images over and over and over again. Poor self-shot images with crappy backgrounds. Lack of Shopping Carts. The same Jerry Seinfeld set storefront photo on 'About Us' pages. How would anyone know these are creative, artistic businesses?

To a consumer, your site is your store! Most US florists are doing a poooooooor job of tending to these stores. The ones that do are reaping great benefit. Part of the reason they are succeeding is that most florists are failing to step up and compete! :boggles:

The biggest OG's have gorgeous, easy to naviagte sites that are kept current. They have invested a great deal of time and money to make these virtual stores attractive. The sites look professional and add credibility to their businesses. (Most do lack anything remotely unique, however.)

If you have a wire service-hosted site, which to me is an exceptional value, PLEASE add images of your shop, creative descriptions of your services and SOME REALLY PRETTY PICTURES OF YOUR OWN WORK. Please don't whine about how you don't have the time or money. This is your future we're talking about!

O.K. I feel better now. :rolleyes:
 
Doug -

I'm a florist of almost 30 years with a high level of curiosity...and a low requirement of sleep. :) Learned accounting, marketing and web sites mostly through the school of hard knocks coupled with local seminars and online classes. (Marketing, the most important, has changed so dramtically in our industry that this has been my main focus for the last year or so and should have been so even sooner.)

I read an article recently and it really hit home on why many florists struggle to make a profit. I can't locate it right now but it's bookmarked on my compter at work so I'll post a link tomorrow.

In essence, we florists all need some background in marketing, computers and web design these days... plus a whole lot more.
 
Thanks. I'll look forward to the article.

My first awkward postings here had to do with profit.

My next thirty years in business are going to be the best ever.

Doug
 
Rosie (with an "IE"),

I have to agree with you. Nothing turns me off a company faster than a website that looks like someone spent 5 minutes in Frontpage designing it.

I'm not saying everything has to be Flash and Javascript, but it would be nice if websites more accurately reflected the shop they aimed to represent.

Ryan
 
I wrote the first post (OK, rant) in this thread nearly two years ago. And in two years, not much has changed. :( Thousands of florists are still using boilerplate wire service templates that lack any kind of flair about their shop's own specialty products.

The stores that work on their sites are rising to positions at or near the tops of the search results and everyone else is sitting under piles of OG affiliate doorway pages.

The saddest thing is that customizing your site doesn't take tons of money or effort. Are you going to go through another holiday season with FTD, Wal-mart, USAA, FlowerClub, Sears, etc... selling the same products as your online store, and in some cases, for even less than you do?

Are you going to go through yet another season with your shop photo image listed as *coming soon*?

It's late in the season, but never too late to take a few simple steps to give your site those much-needed unique touches.
 
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