Is 30% of Something better than 0% of Nothing???

[CHERYL BAKIN]

JB & Joe:
You can set your Dove to have the whole system Auto forward ...or not...your choice. It should be in the main setup of your system, and you should not have to select it on each order.

JB:
the TF offerings DO seem to be a little simpler on the flower choices now -- or at least getting better.

We also like the cube arrangements, and find that the ones with the COLOR in them (Orange unique, for instance) do really really well. I think that lack of color is why the cymbidium one did not do well.

Customers have also gotten better at counting stems or flowers. They DO realize if only 5 or 6 flowers are shown, and tend not to choose the "skimpy" arrangements.

They do need, however, to be more up to date on their demands for high end flowers like callas and hydrangea. While we may not have it in stock today, we can generally get it within 24 hours. However, it's not realitic for me to do 15 callas in a vase, with other stuff (lilies, freesia & a few roses, with unusual greens) at $63.00 (including delivery -- and the vessel was a 5x5x5 cube!!) (That was today's ask/answer/cancel & confirm......at 2:55 pm for today's delivery!!)

cheryl

 

[domineaux]

Suppose you are a struggling florist (which means all of us, really ). Suppose you happen to be a WS member.

You are paying $350 a month in fixed fees. After some serious number crunching, you discovered that you are getting exactly $350 back in "return"*; that is, your NET earning, after monthly fees, is zero, zippo, none**.

* "Return" here means gross profit after all the costs and labor, but before monthly fees.
** This zero-earning situation, by the way, is not at all unusual. If you are not a big sending shop and your wire-ins are about $1,000 a month, your NET is almost certainly close to zero.​

Now, what would you do?

You might think "Let's quit the WS!", because you are tired, aren't making any money (only WS does). You're simply wasting your time.

Yup, I agree. I think any florist with zero (or less) earning from WS should quit. This part is easy. Now the difficult part...

Simply quiting the WS by itself won't make your business any better in a financial sense. By quiting, you would save that $350 monthly fee, to be sure, but you would also lose that $350 "return" (see definition above). So overall, there would be no NET gain/loss.

In general, quiting a WS will have two effects in financial statements. It would decrease your total revenue, but increase the percentage of gross profit margin. If you were at break-even with WS before quiting it, these two effects would simply cancel out, and the net income would stay the same.

"Quit WS" isn't enough, that's the bottom line I'm trying to get at.

In order for "Quit WS" strategy to have any positive impact on a florist business, one would have to come up with other ways to spend the $350 that's now free and create more than $350 in return.

I believe that most florists who quit WS are not doing that.

Overwhelming majority of florists are not a risk taker. Instead of spending $350 on something new, most of them would rather a) do nothing or b) look for so-called "no-cost" promotions - which is a fancy word for "I-won't-feel-bad-even-if-this-doesn't-work-because-I-didn't-pay-for-this" advertisement.

Facebook, twitter.... how many of you would do these stuff, if they charged you some money? Very few. Unfortunately, "no-cost" promotion is not going to work in a real world. It has something to do with the fact that you aren't really "in it" unless you paid for it.

There are a lot of ways to spend $350 a month that, possibly, will give us more than $350 in return. WS is one such example.

Other examples....

• Increase your monthly budget for PPC by $350. Or any kind of advertisement for that matter.
• Invest $2,000 (6 month-equivalent) on bridal shows.
• Invest $2,000 on infrastructure, hoping to make your daily operation more efficient.
• Create an employee incentive package that costs $350 on average.

.

... and on and on.

As you can see, none of these is a sure bet. You might lose your money in the end. But the alternative is do nothing, which guarantees that your business will NOT grow.

So what I think is that, if you are currently a member of WS and contemplating of quitting it, think again.

Do you have a plan after quiting it? What is your plan to spend the freed WS fee to your advantage? If you don't have the answers, I would wait until I get the answers straight and go from there.

Without the plan, I think there won't be much difference with or without WS. It's really not a matter of whether we should be a WS member or not. It's a matter of whether we have a clear strategy to grow our business, and how much risk we are willing to take for that purpose.

Thank you for reading.

Good points you've made, just a little aside comment

When part of your business is not producing income and you feel it is necessary to your business:

Carefully analyze it to determine some way to make it beneficial to overall business income.

In other words, find ways to make non-income producing parts of your business add to or contribute to overall income production.

If you cannot offset lack of income or losses through some method to increase your overall income you should discontinue it.

 

[prestonway]

Good points you've made, just a little aside comment

When part of your business is not producing income and you feel it is necessary to your business:

Carefully analyze it to determine some way to make it beneficial to overall business income.

In other words, find ways to make non-income producing parts of your business add to or contribute to overall income production.

If you cannot offset lack of income or losses through some method to increase your overall income you should discontinue it.

...and that's exactly why we should DOUBLE our delivery charges...

...if only to keep up with Pflowers!

:boggles:

 

[RC in Dayton and Cincinnati]

...and that's exactly why we should DOUBLE our delivery charges...

...if only to keep up with Pflowers!

:boggles:

We did!

Went from $4.95 to $9.95.

 

[domineaux]

We are in Orange county, ca and delivery is a problem for many reasons.

Operating a business vehicle in California is very expensive. It costs 2,000+ per year liability only for a 1/2 ton van, registration is in the $600 per year range, and you can't hire a driver for less than $10 per hour. California gasoline prices range appx 25 to 50 cents higher than the rest of the country. Top off the above with fuel costs of driving the delivery truck.

It can take 2-1/2 hours to drive 45 miles in socal. That is pretty well the norm, except around 10 AM to 2 PM when you can travel 45 miles in about 1-1/2 hours.

Teleflora informed us that delivery charges over $10 are too high, if we expect to get wire orders. It is not possible to make money off wire orders in Socal, if you apply true costs of delivery.

I should also mention toll roads are expensive, and you often have to use them. Tolls can range from $4 to $9 one way. We deliver several areas that require either using the toll roads or spend hours getting to the area.

I doubt any florist expects to make money on deliveries. The problem is fast becoming " is it possible to deliver at a price customers can afford, and pay for an arrangement as well".

It would be sensible for florists to deliver only a couple days a week in our area. Yet, there would be hold out florists that deliver at losses, who knows who will go broke first. Would the florists that try to curtail and manage deliveries sensibly or those that drop everything and deliver as requested.

Sure would be nice if we could FAX floral arrangements to customers.

 

[Joe Mioux]

JB & Joe:
You can set your Dove to have the whole system Auto forward ...or not...your choice. It should be in the main setup of your system, and you should not have to select it on each order.

l

yea I know. I have Dove set to Not Auto forward, but it still happens.

 

[prestonway]

Good points you've made, just a little aside comment

When part of your business is not producing income and you feel it is necessary to your business:

Carefully analyze it to determine some way to make it beneficial to overall business income.

In other words, find ways to make non-income producing parts of your business add to or contribute to overall income production.

If you cannot offset lack of income or losses through some method to increase your overall income you should discontinue it.

Teleflora informed us that delivery charges over $10 are too high, if we expect to get wire orders. It is not possible to make money off wire orders in Socal, if you apply true costs of delivery.

I should also mention toll roads are expensive, and you often have to use them. Tolls can range from $4 to $9 one way. We deliver several areas that require either using the toll roads or spend hours getting to the area.

I doubt any florist expects to make money on deliveries.

But shouldn't florists make money on deliveries?

Why aren't they?

We're offering same day delivery at RIDICULOUSLY LOW PRICES!

Waiting for the WS to take the lead yet again?

It's not going to happen.

But then again there's a sucker born every minute...if you're working for Teleflora & not yourself when they tell you what delivery should be.

When is somebody/some group/some organization going to take the lead to make delivery a true profit center, like Pflowers?

Anybody?

:treadonme

 

[BOSS]

When is somebody/some group/some organization going to take the lead to make delivery a true profit center

Anybody?

I don't know about you Preston, but in MY store, delivery IS a profit center, generally generating 1/3 profit(higher at holidays, based on multiple deliveries per street) on expense of delivery including, vehicle purchase, insurance, fuel, maintenance and driver salary.

Any florist that is not making money on their delivery $ervice, should not be delivering.<period

Now to the bigger question: When will florists reserve their delivery $service for consumer and ORF's (other real florists) and disallow the dOG's that collect $14.95 (for delivery) on every order and not pass it along to the filling florist? Of course, it's these silly florists own fault they're losing money on delivery, cuz they're doing it without getting paid for it...

 

[RWK]

I don't know about you Preston, but in MY store, delivery IS a profit center, generally generating 1/3 profit(higher at holidays, based on multiple deliveries per street) on expense of delivery including, vehicle purchase, insurance, fuel, maintenance and driver salary.

Any florist that is not making money on their delivery $ervice, should not be delivering.<period

Now to the bigger question: When will florists reserve their delivery $service for consumer and ORF's (other real florists) and disallow the dOG's that collect $14.95 (for delivery) on every order and not pass it along to the filling florist? Of course, it's these silly florists own fault they're losing money on delivery, cuz they're doing it without getting paid for it...

.........or, if a shop for whatever reason does choose to fill for the d'OG's, then at the very least, send a message asking fo a price change to include the delivery charge on every single order that comes in from them...........

 

[BOSS]

.........or, if a shop for whatever reason does choose to fill for the d'OG's, then at the very least, send a message asking fo a price change to include the delivery charge on every single order that comes in from them...........

Bingo... thus removing up to 1/3 of the profit margin for the dOG and thus making their delivery $ervice profitable!

 

[RC in Dayton and Cincinnati]

But shouldn't florists make money on deliveries?

Why aren't they?

We're offering same day delivery at RIDICULOUSLY LOW PRICES!

Waiting for the WS to take the lead yet again?

It's not going to happen.

But then again there's a sucker born every minute...if you're working for Teleflora & not yourself when they tell you what delivery should be.

When is somebody/some group/some organization going to take the lead to make delivery a true profit center, like Pflowers?

Anybody?

:treadonme

Preston,

You're an independent business man; aren't you? If you want to raise your delivery fee you don't need our permission.

Why do some florists insist we need to make our policies in unison? Real-world competition generally finds the best solution. If you implement a better solution you'll have the competitive edge, and others will soon follow.

RC

 

[domineaux]

We are in Orange county, ca and delivery is a problem for many reasons.

Operating a business vehicle in California is very expensive. It costs 2,000+ per year liability only for a 1/2 ton van, registration is in the $600 per year range, and you can't hire a driver for less than $10 per hour. California gasoline prices range appx 25 to 50 cents higher than the rest of the country. Top off the above with fuel costs of driving the delivery truck.

It can take 2-1/2 hours to drive 45 miles in socal. That is pretty well the norm, except around 10 AM to 2 PM when you can travel 45 miles in about 1-1/2 hours.

Teleflora informed us that delivery charges over $10 are too high, if we expect to get wire orders. It is not possible to make money off wire orders in Socal, if you apply true costs of delivery.

I should also mention toll roads are expensive, and you often have to use them. Tolls can range from $4 to $9 one way. We deliver several areas that require either using the toll roads or spend hours getting to the area.

I doubt any florist expects to make money on deliveries. The problem is fast becoming " is it possible to deliver at a price customers can afford, and pay for an arrangement as well".

It would be sensible for florists to deliver only a couple days a week in our area. Yet, there would be hold out florists that deliver at losses, who knows who will go broke first. Would the florists that try to curtail and manage deliveries sensibly or those that drop everything and deliver as requested.

Sure would be nice if we could FAX floral arrangements to customers.

It is always interesting to read comments, when you discuss a topic like this. If you look at our costs of delivery above and convert that to some kind of cost per mile just for the vehicle and it is over $1.00 per mile. This is dependent upon how many miles the vehicle is driven per year of course. Employee costs are additional.

A big additional employee expense in California = Workmen's compensation is not a choice, it is mandated.

A delivery within five miles of our store costs appx. $10.00 just for the truck and when you add driver cost it jumps probably another $5.

You can't keep the delivery truck on the road delivering the entire day everytime your driver works. The answer would be a designer that loves to deliver flowers in a smog filled environment with each freeway filled to capacity (giant parking lots).

Delivery service and efficiency is evidently no where near the problem in other parts of the country as OC California. Not only is driving a vehicle of any kind in CA expensive, but traffic is a major nuisance driving at any time of day.

The price of fuel went to $3.10 two days ago, so a $10 delivery is now going up $5. If fuel prices continue to rise, it is will become even more of an issue.

Reading the content of this thread I think delivery service charges might not be a focus for some. There are numerous websites that have cost of maintaining and driving a vehicle. I encourage anyone making deliveries to pay attention to vehicles costs, they can make a big dent in your bottom-line.

Regardless, of how much you love working with flowers. Being in business, is being in business no matter what you offer in service or products.

 

[LJVF]

domineaux, I feel your pain. Other florists often wonder why we can't accept a same day delivery to an address that is only 9 miles away from us. Problem is, in many cases it's a 90 min to 2 hour swing time just to make that delivery. When you've got several other timed delivery requests, sometimes it's impossible to meet all the demands.

On the other side of the coin, since we operate in more population dense areas, we have the advantage of capturing more orders within a smaller radius. Having multiple deliveries within the same areas daily can help with delivery profitability efficiency. Only of course if we have efficient delivery routes planned.

 

[cem]

Why are any of you waiting for wire orders anyway??? The problem with retail florists is that you're all waiting! The beer companies and video rental companies aren't waiting. You're not competing against the next florist. You're competing against every company out there looking to grab the consumer's disposable dollar. They're not sitting by the phone! Get out there and network. There's little cost to do that. People have to start thinking of you first, not the wine shop. Get out there and promote in all of the local civic organizations. And not just once. Every week. If you're sitting by the phone, you sure as hell have time. Transfer the shop calls to your cell phone if you have to. Get out there and build relationships with other wedding and funeral vendors and venues. Network with you're accountant or attorney or other nearby businesses. If you have time to sit and debate 30%... you have time to do all of this.

 

[strippinrose]

I just came back from buying my little boy some Bakugans, on the way home I passed our main local competitor's shop. She's been the one who wants all the incoming. I've been content to get all the outgoing and let her have all the incoming.

I see a brand new delivery van sitting outside her shop, covered with flowers, ala Expressions in Bloom (sincerest form of flattery I guess) -

B-b-but she's NOT supposed to be making money on all those incomings. I know that - cuz I read it on flowerchat [sic]. No money in filling incoming orders! Ask just about anybody around here!

She gets all the 800TFTD orders for our city, I've checked. But there's no money in them!

hmmm.....

and she's got a new van, in a depressed economy...


hmmmmm...... :argue:

Could Gaylon have been right that 30% of something is better than 0% of nothing?

I think it's time I sought out more incoming

Glad I have decons in place.

question is ...Is 30% better after the feess etc ???no but it does have away of keeping the wheel greased, aka .wholesalers ,emlployees, delivery people working...but is that enough? please let me know when and if you ever figure that out!

 

[domineaux]

Why are any of you waiting for wire orders anyway??? The problem with retail florists is that you're all waiting! The beer companies and video rental companies aren't waiting. You're not competing against the next florist. You're competing against every company out there looking to grab the consumer's disposable dollar. They're not sitting by the phone! Get out there and network. There's little cost to do that. People have to start thinking of you first, not the wine shop. Get out there and promote in all of the local civic organizations. And not just once. Every week. If you're sitting by the phone, you sure as hell have time. Transfer the shop calls to your cell phone if you have to. Get out there and build relationships with other wedding and funeral vendors and venues. Network with you're accountant or attorney or other nearby businesses. If you have time to sit and debate 30%... you have time to do all of this.

I guess you told us how the cow ate the cabbage.

Who said anyone is waiting?

Who sits and debates?

You might want to read these forums for awhile before posting, you might learn something.

You will soon find the people here didn't just fall off the Turnip wagon.

 

[bloomz]

question is ...Is 30% better after the feess etc ???no

If the fees are being paid anyway (mine are) that sort of changes the picture.

So 30% of something is 30% of something more than I have right now.

Right now I get 100% of nothing, and my cpmpetition gets that 30.

I want it all. :walking:

 

[BOSS]

Who sits and debates?

Um... me and Jon... at least I think he's sitting...

You might want to read these forums for awhile before posting, you might learn something.

You will soon find the people here didn't just fall off the Turnip wagon.

And before things get out of hand... keep in mind you just joined us as well... I tend not to tolerate personal attacks lightly....

Just an FYI....

 

[BMRH]

I have long believed & been one of the few to be convinced that the ONLY way you can make money with a wire service is if you are sending them money...not vice versa! We have one wire service only and stay with it for our point of sale system and to provide our customers with the service of relaying orders out of our delivery area. When we are sending the wire service our monthly payment, it is the remainder of the order we relayed and kept 20% as well as our dervice charge of $6. (Yes a cheap service charge and our customers almost always notice that we are much lower than any online site!) We have no 800 number listed in the directory, no card ads & no incentives to florists to send their wire order to us. We do ALWAYS fill an incoming order to 100% value but that's easy when you are getting an average of 6-10 orders in a month. I will not pay extra to receive an order that I will only see 70% +/- of.

 

[Joe Mioux]

I have long believed & been one of the few to be convinced that the ONLY way you can make money with a wire service is if you are sending them money...not vice versa! We have one wire service only and stay with it for our point of sale system and to provide our customers with the service of relaying orders out of our delivery area. When we are sending the wire service our monthly payment, it is the remainder of the order we relayed and kept 20% as well as our dervice charge of $6. (Yes a cheap service charge and our customers almost always notice that we are much lower than any online site!) We have no 800 number listed in the directory, no card ads & no incentives to florists to send their wire order to us. We do ALWAYS fill an incoming order to 100% value but that's easy when you are getting an average of 6-10 orders in a month. I will not pay extra to receive an order that I will only see 70% +/- of.

If you are only getting 6-10 orders per month, you a probably losing money, as you have not mentioned your WS gross revenue on those incomings as well as your membership fees.