FTD website users

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Cathy - you review web sites - you've probably seen as many as I have.

You think 95% of people who buy wire service sites update them timely?

I think they buy them so they can run no-brainers. Cruise control - let them choose holiday products for me.

I have to call bs on your bs cuz if I didn't choose what to put on the front page (I didn't bother - remember I am a supposed "victim" too) it would be me me and only me that should would and will take what I get.

I'm arguing with the concept that they're doing it to steal orders, not the products they chose.

Would I choose those items?

Hardly.

My responsibility?

absolutely!

Is everything they do some kind of plot by this guy? (you needn't answer that)

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This is a great example of irrational sky is falling type of stuff that seems rampant when wire services are mentioned.

IMO it toys with the credibility of us talking about the real stuff they do to us (of which there is plenty)
 
BS

I've viewed thousands of WS websites and have never seen FTD put drop ship products, especially flowers, on a B&M store's home page until it was pointed out in this thread.

You think they could have sent out emails to the hostees telling them about the change, and allowing them to opt out?

H*ll no.

It's a gross abuse of trust.

I definitely DO NOT agree with stores outsourcing their web presence to third parties, but hereto for have understood why (to a certain extent).

FTD has proven even further why they are supremely untrustworthy.

You can call me a Basher on this one since FTD deserves a big bashing here.
 
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Cathy, I respectfully disagree. I had signed up for webgifts and it was always my understanding that FTD could put them up on my website unless I notified them differently. In fact it was clear to me they will put any item that they so choose on my home page unless I requested otherwise. Also there was an option to control what is put on the homepage, but you're locked out of automatic updates. I chose this option.

Not saying it was right, in fact I agree it is wrong. But for me, it was clear as day and I knew what I was getting into.
 
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Darrel, I understand (kind of) but why would you want "them" controlling your content?

I'm assuming that you, like most of us, put your "best sellers" up front, why would you want them pushed off the front page with drop shipped items?
 
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Okay, I have been out of FTD for 3 years (or so) so why is my shop listed????
http://ftdfloristsonline.com/florist_information.html?flc=19-1825AA
http://ftdfloristsonline.com/florist/Maine/Millinocket/1

And I am in the process of calling each and every shop in Maine that has dropship listed on this so called floristonline site. BTW, there is no link to FTDfloristsonline on the home page for FTD (I searched and searched, maybe someone else can find it)...
http://ftdfloristsonline.com/florist/Maine
 
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BOSS said:
Darrel, I understand (kind of) but why would you want "them" controlling your content?

I'm assuming that you, like most of us, put your "best sellers" up front, why would you want them pushed off the front page with drop shipped items?
Click to expand...

Mark you're right, that's why I took control over the home page. You can request to lock the items in, where they will not change your homepage items. This lock will also trump any updates to the catalog. However the lock has no effect on the product updates (which is a whole 'nother issue, that frankly annoyed the heck out of me).

IMO, florists need to get more involved with their websites.

With that said, I changed to an independent webhost and couldn't be more happy.
 
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CHR said:
Did you read Herb's response? He's a smart guy, too and this was absolutely FTD's doing all the way.
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Does he have his homepage items locked? If so, then I consider this a major screw up by FTD. I always locked the items so something like this would not happen.
 
ahhh but you just simply have to be a bit smarter than that - if or when that order comes in to me - guess who chooses if I send it on to webgifts, deliver it myself, or wire it to another florist???

Ok try again, I'll give you 2 more guesses, and a hint - it's a devastatingly handsome white haired guy...

I can't believe anyone would seriously argue that florists at large don't need someone to update their websites seasonally.

Did you miss where I said it is not the products I would have chosen, but it's better than having Valentine's or Christmas still there, which about 90% of florists would have if left to their own devices. I even know of one that hasn't been updated in, drum roll - 5 years!:boggles: :boggles: :boggles:

How many do you think even know you can log into your FOL site? Or better yet, how many do it?

I'm gonna guess 10%? 2 more guesses? how about 5%? 2???

Darn these villains - how dare they???

Edit - thanks for Herb's explanation - didn't know that, looks like they forked up in programming.

Does that still qualify it as a villainous plot?

I'm calling these bastards right now.
 
Ok the guys said, as I suspected, any time you like you can change or choose anything you wish to feature - if you don't, items are chosen for you. You can do this thru the portal or call in and they will do it for you.

He said the last time they added products to sites was October 08.

Dunno about the veracity of this information, just wanted to hear it from the horses mouth.

Still doesn't sound that dastardly to me.

So if I want - I can change them right now...but I'm not going to bother, but will watch to see what they add for Mother's Day now that I know.

It's great this was brought to our attention - I just don't buy into the conspiracy theory.

hey...

opinions vary
 
Sarcasm isn't becoming on you, JB.

And I'm not into blaming the victims, in this case local stores who entrust FTD with their web presences.

There's a lot of things the affect us, our families, our lives in general, that each of us should monitor every day. But at some point we hope we can trust the people we hire to do work for us.

When they unilaterally change the rules, all we can do is react - but we have to know.

The newspapers are filled these days with tales of abuse of trust, at the corporate and financial levels, in schools, in churches, in government and in the many other institutions we used to believe would act in our best interest.

It seems few truly are worthy.

Rather than making excuses for them, and blaming the victims, I prefer a bright light and gentle encouragement to withdraw the trust and find more worthy institutions/partners.
 
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I don't know if anyone else has had this experience, but I have submitted changes to my FTD site a number of times and the changes never occur. I would think I am doing something wrong-but I have made changes successfully quite a few times as well. Has this happened to others? The last time was for Valentine's Day-I went in and spent quite a lot of time changing rose pricing to fit our pricing structure and it just never happened. I have tried to do a simple color change for the background and that too has not happened. I have even contacted them for help-and still nothing. So, I have kind of given up unless it's something critical.

One of the reasons we are going to do our own site.
 
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All I can offer to this disccusion about FTD websites and FTD themselves is this. During the time I was at Rish Flower Shop under the old owner, She tried an FTD site....Since I was the most computer literate ( computer literate - yes, computer genius - Not by a loooong shot ) of the employees there......She appointed me to stay on top of the website.

FTD would go in and undo pricing changes I had made, They would add stuff We didn't want and take stuff out that we wanted in there. It was even worse around holiday time. With all the crapola we dealt with FTD on a daily basis - That was almost a full time job in and of itself.....staying on top of their shenanigans.

So, going by MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE with FTD website management.......It will snow in Hell before I deal with them as a webhost ever again.
 
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called a friend in the biz telling them about the bizarre happenings to floristsonline sites.. they started laughing...had a call and an email or fax from FTD to rejoin at $29.95 per month, no QA charge, no low sending charge, no extraneous charges...just $29.95/month for life.
Supposedly the person making the offer stated that the new management also disliked the "drop shipping" and would be making changes in that direction...away from drop shipping and back into their member florists hands..... hmmmmm
 
RWK said:
All I can offer to this disccusion about FTD websites and FTD themselves is this. During the time I was at Rish Flower Shop under the old owner, She tried an FTD site....Since I was the most computer literate ( computer literate - yes, computer genius - Not by a loooong shot ) of the employees there......She appointed me to stay on top of the website.

FTD would go in and undo pricing changes I had made, They would add stuff We didn't want and take stuff out that we wanted in there. It was even worse around holiday time. With all the crapola we dealt with FTD on a daily basis - That was almost a full time job in and of itself.....staying on top of their shenanigans.

So, going by MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE with FTD website management.......It will snow in Hell before I deal with them as a webhost ever again.
Click to expand...

I think some people think that you can just launch a website and stick it on auto pilot and never have do anything beyond that. FTD will occasionally add seasonal products. It is up to the member to adjust the pricing or remove these new additions. Whenever a new selection guide is released, FTD FOL will wipe out the old databases and install a new one. This means all price adjustments have to be re-adjusted again and this does come with warning months in advance.

Yes this is a nuisance and it does suck, but in the grand scheme of things it's minimal in comparison with the amount of work one needs to put in with an independent e-commerce website. I guess one should put a value on how important a website is, I think it's VERY important, that's why I went independent. But independence requires effort.

Whether you go with a wire service hosted site or an independent one, I can't stress enough the importance of cruising your site at the very least, once a week. I cruise mine many, many times a day. Look at your website as an extension of your B&M storefront, would it be wise to never visit your own store? Always check to make sure things are square, or it could be dollars down the drain.
 
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Heck, we use our site every day many, many times since most consumers are looking at it when they call.

Every MAS terminal at our shop can launch our site right from order entry. Not being able to see the site when selling would feel like flying blind.

I too am perplexed how shops don't know what's on their sites, especially the home pages... but TF used to throw in new stuff on deeper pages and surprise us (and yes, we were were supposed to be locked.)

Running a site is like running a second store, but it's vital, important and necessary in today's environment.
 
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CHR said:
Running a site is like running a second store, but it's vital, important and necessary in today's environment.
Click to expand...
I sometimes wish I could shrink my B&M to a 22" monitor:>
 
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