I hate rejecting orders but

Flowermomma

Well-Known Member
Oct 16, 2010
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New Hamburg
www.allflowersandcharm.net
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Ontario
I had a flower shop network order come in from another shop.
first it has a wire service number on it. could NOT find it on the wire service site.
Fsn was kind enough to give me the shop info and I called them to find out what it was.
I could not get the flowers in the colours needed and feel The customer is expecting the picture and I would have to sub every flower in it.
I suggested another shop for them...
and there is NO way I could come close to the picture (found after the other shop helped me find it) for the value of the order!

edit the order came back again.. ok on colour change and same price... I let them know what would be in it for that price..
 
I hate to also but had to this morning. It came from D2F, a cylinder vase STUFFED with two shades of roses, gerbs, stock, and other flowers too.

Delivered total ~ $45

Looking all over their site, I cannot find the little bugger anywhere, it certainly is not on my site. Ticks me off because there is another consumer who was promised way too much and all they see is that they can't have what they ordered and Lord help them if somebody DID accept the order, it can't be done.

I remember David having a similar thing happen, an outrageously expensive design for really cheap that was not on his D2F site. It's making me wonder if I should ask them to take the site down.
 
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and what about EZbloomers site? Showing all those designs and how many people read "designers choice" when looking at those flowers and designs? Not happy much with that either.......
 
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This is what happens when you let someone else sell "for you", of course they will promise the world to get the sale, then worry about finding another customer to replace the one they just burnt...
 
Mark, My big question is, where the heck are they finding the replacement customers, remember these are real shops we are talking about with FSN...D@F and the other are different animals all together...but real shops do the same exact thing...because they go by the already low msrps, because they don't have time or want to bither with their website...They are using the ws info as a crutch and figure they really can't go up on the prices anyway because then they won't get orders, because the 10 other shops that don't bother will get them....it is a vicious circle and I bet none of them even realize how badly this is all hurting the industry as a whole...they probably have not given a single thought to the fact that our labor and skill has been completely taken out of the priceing schematic and that is why they are having a hard time paying all the bills....Not really the wire services fault, definately florists for not knowing what a healthy p&l should look like and what is needed to be profitable..Gone are the days when a flower shop can just open and be successful, now it is real work and real accounting behind it....Hopefully this fact should weed out the hobbyists and get some people with more of a business mind left in the industry...Hopefully..and with the whole letting someone else sell for you...I have no problems taking realistic orders from realistic florists with realistic prices and I have no problems telling any florist that they sold a crap ass loser oreder and good luck getting it filled....I have the ability to not accept what doesn't work for my shop, no matter how badly the other shop feels, or who took their order and made a mistake or how clueless the other shop might be, that is their problem and not mine...likewise, I sell my outs at a very good value for others and even call them if I am not sure what they will need for something)ie last minute same day fruit basket, etc), not sure why it is so hard to do that, but obviously for some pressing a button for their service charge is where the customer service experience ends....that is where the major problem lies the automation of orders to shops that are cluelesss or too busy to bother telling you there might be a problem with what you sold, nothing really to do with ws..just because florists FEEL the need to fill everything even at a loss or with subs without letting anyone know, is our issue, our feelings and our poroblems....I can now see this being removed from the ws game(and seeing a counsellor) We feel too much guilt as an iondustry which is what gets us in trouble each and everytime and makes us look to blaming everyone else....my dr would say BS on that because my guilt is noones issue but mine....period...
 
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Just to keep it straight ~ All of my D2F orders have come straight from a consumer. EZBloomers is the same. My problem is, I have no idea where that image came from. I have my own D2F site and if I had that image, it would have been priced at $105 to include delivery, consumers are directed to a florist in the zip code they want flowers sent to. It probably WAS from another florist, they probably had someone place the order on their site and then forwarded it.

I rejected it so fast, I didn't think to save it in a file first......it's all conjecture. Well, almost. It is a fact that there WILL be a disappointed consumer at the end of that one.
 
wishing I had rejected it a second time because its roses and lilies and my lilies are tight tight tight. I thought some would open over night.. nope.. I should know better! I have a call into my truck for today asking him to hold me open lilies...

sigh
 
Folks...just a "heads up"......we ARE getting these orders from customers that WANT flowers.....turning them away juts puts more nails in the "don't buy flowers anymore" syndrome!
 
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With regard to the FSN comments. One of the reasons I left them was that they told us, NO special containers and NO designs full of higher end flowers.
but what I saw with them was that all the designs have the same stuffing of higher end flowers, in a variety of colors. All the designs look remarkably the same and in cube or rectangular vases.

The prices also were not enough, and seldom was there a price in the 75 or over range. AND they wanted a 20/80 split and a fee for using them to place the order. Couples of times I had shops call us obviously having skimmed the order first, wanting a 20/80 split on top of that. I offered a 90/10 split and got yelled at, they said that's not what FSN says you should do. Well FSN isn't running my shop!! It just got silly!

D2F I've not dealt with, but I checked some of their sites for the North Texas area. There were very few selections and the search buttons did not work on the sites I checked. I too could not find the vase you described. The sites seemed unprofessional in look and function (or lack there of), dang the buttons should at least work on a site. That is really bad business, over promising only to leave a customer angry with the industry possibly.
 
Interesting thing. Mike DiSanto, (I think he might be the saint here?) filled that order I rejected. But not until he had also rejected it from D2F. Later that afternoon, he got an order from FSN for a pink vase with pink flowers for the same price, same recipient.