Teleflora's new "cookie cutters"

[RWK]

The residue that Carol Bice speaks of, I do find that with tapes other than the Smithers-Oasis brand clear tape. Clear tapes made by other manufacturers also leave the residue. However, I have never ran into the first bit of sticky residue using the Smithers-Oasis brand. Now, using the tapes on materials OTHER than glass......even the Smithers brand leaves a residue.

Frankie Shelton mentioned this in a show she did for SC.....She said that Smithers contracted with the 3M chemical company to produce the glue specifically for use on glass.

I do use the cable-tie method that she mentioned on vases and larger cubes ...... it is the 4 inch cube and smaller that I find needs the gridding.

I do use the curly-willow armature as well. The problem I find with that is that bacteria does build up in the water.....even with the use of water clarifiers ( like Floralife Cystal Clear for example ) and does lead to a cloudy appearance much quicker than not using the armature.

Using an armature in a bubble bowl.......I have found that using Knud Neilsen dried Ting ting works great and does not lead to increased decay.

 

[CHR]

Not fond of grid taping either. Too hard to change the water.

For small cubes, we grid a base of either a shrub-type green (pitt or oregonia work well) or use a multi-floretted large headed flower (hydrangea, trichillium, QA lace) with a lacing technique.

As far as 'spilling out' goes, naturally cascading materials like amaranthus, pepper berries or ivy work well. Spring fillers like heather & ginista can also add volume without a lot of top weight.

With 4" cubes, the center of gravity has to be low.

 

[RC in Dayton and Cincinnati]

Because your site is selling pictures, not the arrangements themselves. TF-template website (or any other e-commerce florist sites) is invariably designed to sell pictures.

If you play this game (selling pictures), better be good at photography, or you can't win. If you aren't good at photography (or web design for that matter), you are fighting a battle in which your strengths don't count. So you lose.

What you really want is to choose a battle in which your strengths must count. Your website should "sell" things like your design skills, experience, personality, professional passion, etc. TF-pictures don't do this.

Here's what I would do. I would discontinue the TF website. Build a website only with your information, bio, past accomplishments, your family pictures, design examples, even your voice PR. No WS images.

I guarantee you (well, I can't, but you know what I mean) that your site will fly. It will become an icon of your business, because as I see it, *you* are THE business in your shop. Why should you contaminate that with someone else's pretty pictures?

Here's an encouraging news for you. Our site isn't pretty-looking nor a true e-commerce site. It's intended as an info site with full of personality but with a limited e-commerce capability. Visitors on our website cannot click on any particular picture to order; they are forced to choose among arbitrary design styles.

You might think that this format won't sell anything. Actually, we have a good conversion rate (~5%).

I recently saw a florist's website who instead of showing pictures gave descriptions of their specials. I thought it was someone here on Flowerchat but can't really remember.

I liked the idea. It was more like a fine dinning restaurant menu.


RC

 

[Carol Bice]

Not fond of grid taping either. Too hard to change the water.

For small cubes, we grid a base of either a shrub-type green (pitt or oregonia work well) or use a multi-floretted large headed flower (hydrangea, trichillium, QA lace) with a lacing technique.

As far as 'spilling out' goes, naturally cascading materials like amaranthus, pepper berries or ivy work well. Spring fillers like heather & ginista can also add volume without a lot of top weight.

With 4" cubes, the center of gravity has to be low.

I agree with Cathy's thoughts , but, I still like the miniature electrical tie because is makes the center of gravity low in the small cubes.

Carol Bice

 

[lori042499]

I only use the grid if the design needs to have no greens and mostly bigger flowers...Other than those particular designs I like to use oasis wire in the bottom or wound up bear grass or a weave of greens...

I also like to use small bound bunches in cubes...the heavy wire binding at the bottom keeps the flowers in and if it should jump out of the vase it just needs to be popped back in even a driver can do it...

 

[Joe Mioux]

wow, I left the shop on a road trip (delivering hydrangeas) 9 hours ago and you all spent the day debating.

If we spent less time yacking on FC and a little more time in the design room or more time actively selling, we would all be in better financial shape.

It is therapeutic to go out on the road and visit with my retail flower shop customers.

I spent the last two days doing this and I learned a lot, both metro and rural info.

joe

 

[TGDragonfly]

Try coiling up some aluminum wire in a coordinating color for the inside of your vase. Press it in until it is snug, not a lot maybe 3 feet for a 6 inch cube. Always make sure you design starting with heavy flowers, paying attention to make sure your cut is long enough to reach the bottom corners. Keep adding in and around until you'll notice a locking effect. Looks good, mechanically good, no bacteria, and also adds a cool design to the ugly mix of stems within the cube or cylinder or what ever. Say bye bye to timely and labor sucking tape grids.

Bacteria problems? I dip my finger tip in a bowl of bleach and stir it into the water within the vase. It's an old timers remedy, it helps!

 

[shannonlovesflowers]

I have a design question.

How do you keep everything in place when designing in cubes?

I like the flowers looking like they are spilling over. How do you keep them from flipping out?

Also, out of curiosity how much does a 4" cube arrangement go for?

Randy, most of our 4" cubes sell for at least $45.

As far as how to make them with out them falling out...

There are several ways to do this...

#1, and easiest, (if you ask me) is tape gridding...I do it just as Ricky described.

#2 is the kubari (hope I spelled that right) method.... Curly willow in the cube.. If I make a proper kubari in a cube, I make sure there are 2 points in the cube for the flowers to make contact.. In other words each flower has 2 binding points, or "holding" points, One at the top and one at the bottom. That way the flower cannot swivel. Also When I make a kubari in a vase I usually cut one or two heavier straight(ish) pieces of willow and cross them to fit very snuggly over the top of the winded up willow inside of the cube. It should be so snug that you can pick up the vase by the willow in the vase. But be careful, if it's too tight, when the willow gets wet it will expand, and it will break the vase... Actually happened to me. Was kinda funny though.

#3 is you can use things like ribbon that wont wick, or aluminum wire in the vase or just formed on top of the vase... Colored electrical tape can be decorative vase treatment as well as functional (Susan Ayala taught me that one). I seen in a magazine recently where they used rubber bands for secretaries day,,,kinda cute if you had that sort of market. rexlace could also be used.... lots of stuff.

But like I said tape is easiest.

 

[Twila]

Before the internet, I remember going to focus group meeting(s) with FTD in STL.

The market researchers would be behind one way glass and they would be filming us and our recording answers to various questions.

Today, I regularly receive TF product surveys for new product and surveys for post-holiday sales even when I don't always buy the product.

Cathy, Is that what you meant?

We have been to those in the past. Are they now a "thing of the past"? I just thought that they were asking different people to get more perspective.

JB - In the guise of good customer service - I have to say that I think you are way off base. In this case, I WANT to know about the skills and what another florist CAN do and HOW Well they do it because I want MY customer to have the best flowers, style, design, available to his recipient in another town.

Why else do POS systems have preferred florist listings, Why do we send orders to other FC members, Why do I refer a customer to another AIFD member......

Take the town of Charlotte in North Carolina for instance. There are several FC members in that town, but whenever I send an order, my first choice is always Jo Ingersoll AIFD's shop Shelton Florist.

Why is that......because I KNOW that MY CUSTOMER WILL get the best.

You said it yourself, this is about good customer service. KNOWLEDGE of what another florist in another town CAN DO is VITAL to that end.

You lucky ducks!!!

I spend a fortune on packing alone

...still, even if you dont have to wrap it, I still think 4" cubes are tricky for drivers to deliver, how do you keep them from moving around on the drivers truck, unless you are using the Seminole...

I don't have the Seminole system in my van. I have some foam carriers with different size round and square holes. I have never had any problems delivering them, cuz there is always places that they will fit tight enough. Can't remember where we got them from tho.

As far as what we feature on our website and knowing if they can design or not...Isn't that one of the biggest reasons that we should have an "About us" page. Let the customer (or other florist) know what kind of Accredidation (sp?), skills or experience you have. When they read ours for example....it tells that I am AIFD Certified and that our designer are "Award Winning". I also believe that it mentions that we take great pride in being UP on the newest trends and floral education. (JB if it doesn't say all this...add it quick!)

Also, when people look for a florist-either for local orders or for outgoing-they can see any Online Reviews. Just the other day when I asked how the customer found us and why they chose us, she said it was because of all the possitive reviews we had.....nobody else in the city had any.

 

[master J]

Twila, I agree, About Us page and Reviews are huge too...

What kills me is a lot of florists with WS websites, still have a "photo coming soon" with a blank space for their about us picture?!

Along with the default about us description, that are identical to thousands of other sites that didn't bother to change their about us page...

As for us florists getting a chance to see each others work, the FC image gallery should be used a lot more than it is....I encourage everyone to post photos to the gallery. It's a good way to get practice and hopefully get critiqued to help improve on all of our images I know I have a long way to go! Just got a new Canon Rebel XS digital camera, and I'm finally looking into learning photoshop...yikes!

 

[RC in Dayton and Cincinnati]

As far as what we feature on our website and knowing if they can design or not...Isn't that one of the biggest reasons that we should have an "About us" page. Let the customer (or other florist) know what kind of Accredidation (sp?), skills or experience you have. When they read ours for example....it tells that I am AIFD Certified and that our designer are "Award Winning". I also believe that it mentions that we take great pride in being UP on the newest trends and floral education. (JB if it doesn't say all this...add it quick!)

Also, when people look for a florist-either for local orders or for outgoing-they can see any Online Reviews. Just the other day when I asked how the customer found us and why they chose us, she said it was because of all the possitive reviews we had.....nobody else in the city had any.

That's all fine Twila,

Any florist can make themselves look credible online. Just look at all the ordergatherers who make themselves out to be something they really aren't, tricking the consumer into using their services.

What florists need to do, instead of trying to compete in the huge sea of lookalikes, is to create fans. They do this by differentiating themselves from others.

I'll use my shop as an example. Yesterday my website received 143 referrals from Google.com. Out of those 143 searches 98 specifically were searching for Oberer's. This doesn't include people who came directly to my site by typing in the URL. These people were not simply looking for flowers, they were looking for Oberer's Flowers.

If a florist isn't going to distinguish themselves by the products they sell, they have limited their options to price, service and reputation. Price is easy to see, but service is abstract, and reputation is highly tied to differentiating, which brings us right back to the products being sold.

RC

note: To not derail this thread I want to clarify the web statistics. Only referrals from Google.com were looked at. The point being made is a high percentage of traffic is people actually looking for my shop rather than random searches.

 

[Dorothy]

Just got a new Canon Rebel XS digital camera, and I'm finally looking into learning photoshop...yikes!

I have used Photoshop professionally for over 15 years (at REAL jobs for newspapers, glossy magazines, web). If I can help in any way, I'd be more than happy to.

Just want to add that a bad photo is a bad photo and no amount of PS experience can fix it!

 

[goldfish]

I'll use my shop as an example. Yesterday my website received 143 referrals from Google.com. Out of those 143 searches 98 specifically were searching for Oberer's. This doesn't include people who came directly to my site by typing in the URL. These people were not simply looking for flowers, they were looking for Oberer's Flowers.

That's very impressive, Randy.

We aren't famous, so most of our web visitors type in keywords like "flower huntington ny." People who type in our store name used to be zero, but now account for ~20% of organic search.

Another thing I would like to show FC'ers is the geographic distribution of our web visitors (see attachment).

Most of our web visitors (>50%) are from New York State, the rest scattered all over the US and abroad.

If you look at the attachment (NY State map), you will see that our visitors are concentrated in our local area, which is Long Island. This is precisely what I want in our site.

 

[shannonlovesflowers]

That's all fine Twila,

Any florist can make themselves look credible online. Just look at all the ordergatherers who make themselves out to be something they really aren't, tricking the consumer into using their services.

What florists need to do, instead of trying to compete in the huge sea of lookalikes, is to create fans. They do this by differentiating themselves from others.

I'll use my shop as an example. Yesterday my website received 143 referrals from Google.com. Out of those 143 searches 98 specifically were searching for Oberer's. This doesn't include people who came directly to my site by typing in the URL. These people were not simply looking for flowers, they were looking for Oberer's Flowers.

If a florist isn't going to distinguish themselves by the products they sell, they have limited their options to price, service and reputation. Price is easy to see, but service is abstract, and reputation is highly tied to differentiating, which brings us right back to the products being sold.

RC

note: To not derail this thread I want to clarify the web statistics. Only referrals from Google.com were looked at. The point being made is a high percentage of traffic is people actually looking for my shop rather than random searches.

Hell ya on that part RC!!!!

I haven't even read your whole post, that part made me stop in my tracks.

Those creeps Wesly Berry advertise in MY TOWN as a LOCAL florist AND THAT THEIR ARRANGEMENTS THAT ARE DELIVERED IN MY TOWN ARE ARRANGED BY Their MASTER FLORISTS!!!!!! FREAKIN" LIARS!!!!

We will not accept their orders! I don't give a crap if they are a real flower shop! The only other wire service "shop" here is a grocery store.....So not master florists!!!!!!