Price discrepancy between teleflora.com and TF-template website

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goldfish

goldfish

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Feb 8, 2006
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Huntington
www.flowers-insolita.com
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NY
I was just checking the prices of one-dz roses among our local competitors' web sites. Most of them use Teleflora templates.

I was amazed by their prices; they are astronomical.

For example, price for 12 long-stem roses (TF31-1) was ~$120; for 10-stem tulips? $50.

I don't know about your locality, but here in Long Island hard hit by recession, no one will pay that kind of price. Not any more. I wonder if owners of these sites are aware of the insane prices listed on their own sites.

Strangely, Teleflora.com sells the same dz-roses for $94.95; 10 tulips for $41.95.

I am very suspicious of this... Is Teleflora trying to undercut their members by inflating the prices on TF-template sites? How do owners of TF sites determine the prices?
 
Don't the members set their own prices?

Oh shoot... I forgot, that means they have to monitor their own web sites...
 
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Mark,
As a former TF website shop........
TF will set the the pricing to THEIR SUGGESTED DEFAULT PRICING, unless you are smart enough & quick enough to monitor your own site & ask that they change it to YOUR pricing.

You better believe that TF.com's prices are set slightly lower than the member sites -- better to drive orders to TF.com!!

As we have often discussed before, most TF member template sites do not have the time, nor the knowledge (but especially the time) to make the changes or ask for the changes to be made to their site. I believe that you still have to have TF make the changes for you.

(In 2005, we had to go thru TF for every change we wanted made -- much Better & Easier now with Media99 :) )

So....TF.com will steal more orders from the local guys, who will then complain about TF.com stealing their orders......

Cheryl
 
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master J said:
It is up to the TF web florist to adjust their prices accordingly, or leave it up to TF default prices...
Click to expand...

The thing is that TF default price, the one at teleflora.com site, is a lot cheaper than the price shown in our competitors' TF-template sites.

If I was running a TF-template site, I would never imagine that my "default" prices would be a lot more expensive than teleflora.com prices for the same items.
 
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Goldfish:

The "male" population only looks as the first line of the ad.

In the TF ad, the first line is Standard @ $94.95.......Premium is $117.95

In the Main Stree ad, the first line is "As Shown" $118.00.
they are showing the Premium priced roses, but not really calling it that.

Men will shop this holiday on the basis of price -- first and foremost --- so TF has positioned itself to be the winner.

I have no response as to why the Deluxe and the Premium categories on Main Street's are are priced at $87.95. THAT does not make any sense!

Cheryl
 
CHERYL BAKIN said:
Goldfish:

The "male" population only looks as the first line of the ad.

In the TF ad, the first line is Standard @ $94.95.......Premium is $117.95

In the Main Stree ad, the first line is "As Shown" $118.00.
they are showing the Premium priced roses, but not really calling it that.

Men will shop this holiday on the basis of price -- first and foremost --- so TF has positioned itself to be the winner.

I have no response as to why the Deluxe and the Premium categories on Main Street's are are priced at $87.95. THAT does not make any sense!

Cheryl
Click to expand...

Interesting observation, Cheryl. I have a feeling they screwed something up in their eflorist service center (control panel for florists to change items, prices, etc...).

There is also an option in eflorist that allows you to automatically raise suggested retail prices across the board, by either dollar amount or percentage.
 
Darell,
I did not have an "access control panel" when I had a TF website. This shop could have screwed something up.....

Or TF cold have screwed it up for them, as they did so many times on my site.

I still think that men will buy on price only -- have seen it today at least 9 times in person in our store. (And the early VD buyers have started today -- remember, payday was last Friday/Saturday)!!

I really believe that TF has positioned themselves to be less than the Retail florist -- I have checked a few other cities and found the same type of thing.

Cheryl
 
CHERYL BAKIN said:
Darell,
I did not have an "access control panel" when I had a TF website. This shop could have screwed something up.....

Or TF cold have screwed it up for them, as they did so many times on my site.

I still think that men will buy on price only -- have seen it today at least 9 times in person in our store. (And the early VD buyers have started today -- remember, payday was last Friday/Saturday)!!

I really believe that TF has positioned themselves to be less than the Retail florist -- I have checked a few other cities and found the same type of thing.

Cheryl
Click to expand...

It appears that they have custom pricing across the board with all their arrangements. IMO, they have some blocks on auto adjustments,, have specific $ increases throughout their rose and Vday section pricing and also manually changed some items in eflorist. Through all of this they neglected to change their deluxe and premium pricing for roses.

I went to two florists websites here locally, that I know for sure they never adjust the template auto set pricing and both were exactly in line with Teleflora's pricing.
 
CHERYL BAKIN said:
Mark,
As a former TF website shop........
TF will set the the pricing to THEIR SUGGESTED DEFAULT PRICING, unless you are smart enough & quick enough to monitor your own site & ask that they change it to YOUR pricing.

You better believe that TF.com's prices are set slightly lower than the member sites -- better to drive orders to TF.com!!


So....TF.com will steal more orders from the local guys, who will then complain about TF.com stealing their orders......

Cheryl
Click to expand...

Cheryl, not based on what I have seen on florists that keep the default TF prices (at least on the floral holidays). Take 2 of my competitors that hardly ever (if ever) change the default prices,
Rubies & Roses- TF.com 64.95, Florist A 57.95, Florist B 57.95
Red Rose Passion- TF.com 119.95, Florist A 112.95, Florist B n/a
Happy Hearts- TF.com 49.95, Florist A 42.95, Florist B n/a

This was the same for Mother's Day, TF includes the "set" $7.00 delivery charge in the price on the .com site.
 
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Some florists are also silly enough to charge higher fees on their site than they do for "call ins" so they can offset the per-order website costs.

I know some shops say they are too busy to customize prices, but IMO that would be a priority over most other activities.

TF has had a user controlled interface for pricing and custom products since at least 2003. The only changes we really had to have them make were to the home page and the About Us page IIRC.

I keep saying "More people visit a florist's website on a given day than walk into the store." Failing to maintain products and prices is actually worse than failing to maintain your shop displays in today's market.
 
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Sorry, Cathy, but my experience with the TF website from 2003 to 2005 was very different than yours.

I had to go thru TF to get any price changes, or any other changes made to my site. It was aggravating, and time consuming. It was one of the many reasons why we left.

Clay, the TF price as shown includes the $7.00 delivery.
TF then added a service charge onto the price for handling the order, and the end.

The shop sites price delivery separately, and then add it in at the end.

The consumer sees, initally on the TF site that PRICE INCLUDES DELIVERY. In their mind, I think, they feel that it is an all inclusive price, and is therefore the better deal. IMHO.

Cheryl
 
CHERYL BAKIN said:
Mark,
As a former TF website shop........
TF will set the the pricing to THEIR SUGGESTED DEFAULT PRICING, unless you are smart enough & quick enough to monitor your own site & ask that they change it to YOUR pricing.

You better believe that TF.com's prices are set slightly lower than the member sites -- better to drive orders to TF.com!!
Well that's not totally true... They set the price based on averages across the country, made no sense to me at first, but after learning how cheap the prices of flowers are on the coasts, it does make more sense..

As we have often discussed before, most TF member template sites do not have the time, nor the knowledge (but especially the time) to make the changes or ask for the changes to be made to their site. I believe that you still have to have TF make the changes for you. NOPE... You can go to myteleflora.com and set your own prices. If you don't have the time to go through each and every item you can put a blanket mark up percent. Such as set everything by 25% percent higher than the TF suggested pricing.

(In 2005, we had to go thru TF for every change we wanted made -- much Better & Easier now with Media99 :) )

So....TF.com will steal more orders from the local guys, who will then complain about TF.com stealing their orders......

Cheryl
Click to expand...

Someone still needs to FILL the tf.com orders. We refuse them all the time. And then they call us and ask us why, then we tell them how much we need to fill the order. Sometimes we get the order sometimes not. And the ones we don't get back, so what, no other TF shop here.
And if a FWOAC fills the orders in other cities for the TF suggested well, that's there loss literally.

I just went through last week and erased all the designs that we (the shop) didn't like.

TF template also allows you to add your own pics. We put on our home page the designs we expect that will sell the most.
Go take a look... schluterfloral.com . BTW, I made the arrangements and took the pics. :)

I also seen a website last week that had almost a split screen. where they had TF stuff on one side to enter and Their own stuff on the other.

I think there's a whole lot more that shops can do, they just don't realize it.

BTW, I'm not a TF cheerleader, it's just that I know this cause I have to.
 
Shannon:

1. All I said was that TF.com has now taken the tack of setting their advertised prices lower than the regular flower shops. Usually by some $$ (more than $10.00). I understand that they are Supposed to be using the country-wide average.....but I don't think that they are. They are pulling ##s out of their behinds, and hoping that no-one catches on.

2. I agree that NOW you can use myteleflora.com to change all your pricing and add/delete pictures. However, if you do not, then TF will adutomatically adjust them for you, to wht they deem your pricing should be.

And many florists do not have the time or do not take the time or do not know how to make those price adjustments....at least in a timely manner.

I'm not saying that it's right...I'm just explaining how it "might" be happening.

Cheryl
 
Thanks Cathy! I think tomorrow we will do that!

Cheryl,
Oh I wasn't arguing, just telling you what I know about our template site. As far as TF.com is concerned, I just add about 30% to their price and it always comes out right.
 
CHERYL BAKIN said:
Clay, the TF price as shown includes the $7.00 delivery.
TF then added a service charge onto the price for handling the order, and the end.

The shop sites price delivery separately, and then add it in at the end.

The consumer sees, initally on the TF site that PRICE INCLUDES DELIVERY. In their mind, I think, they feel that it is an all inclusive price, and is therefore the better deal. IMHO.

Cheryl
Click to expand...
Thanks Cheryl, but I know what all is going on regarding TF.com vs. Florist Teleflora site.

Sorry, but I respectfully disagree. All the consumer sees is that TF.com sells Rubies & Roses for $64.95, Florist A default $57.95, and Florist B default $57.95. The customer does not know that the delivery is included on the TF.com site (I did not see it both on the product page or the Delivery fine print), and online customers know that there is going to be some sort of "extra" charge on top of the listed price on any online purchase (books, TVs, flowers, etc.)...unless the online company states otherwise.
 
Clay,
I just checked the TF.com website, and you are correct.
All mention of "price as shown includes delivery" has been removed from the general descriptions. (It used to be the last line, and was also stated in the pricing or delivery section of the major page).

Then they go thru and add on a $13.99 service charge. (There's our $7.00 delivery charge + a $6.99 service fee, that they are now keeping all of).

(Sigh) And they are claiming to be better than "the rest".

cheryl
 
I try to keep up with my TF site, but it really is a challenge. Just when I think I'm keeping up, they send out an email on my behalf and I've forgotten to change the custom products on my home page. (They use some of the home page products in the email). The Valentine email that just went out had my Steeler baskets in it! Happily, the Steeler Nation is so crazy, they will probably send Steeler stuff to their Valentine! :loopy
 
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