WS website images & "photoshop"

Doug...I whole heartedly understand what you are saying...the buck should stop with the florists...the wire service and og can sell what ever the heck they want to but ltimately it is in the florists hand to make the decision on if they can or cannot duplicate the arrangement....

Duplication in itself is an artform, many many AIFD contenders had fabulous creative designs but the duplication sucked eggs...it is not always easy to design something that another designer made, we all have our own angles and our own styles, when the arrangement was never designed by hand in the first place the angles are nearly impossible and like CHR said the laterals aren't always cooperative to get the look that is portrayed in the picture because they just photoshop in a flower head...

The problem is that FTD, TF and Bloomnet no longer qualify shops as having any kind of morals, design ability, cooler, they don't even have to carry flowers any more...now an item that I say there is no way I can get that look even remotely with these flowers, the shop down the street might accept and not care what they send..I have worked for shops that may get in a tfweb156 for 34.99 and tell a girl out front just tag any of the 35.00 vases we have out there...because it isn't worth their time or effort to even look it up...it fit the bill for the money and that is how they operate...some do look it up, but the selection of subs is horrendous...like subbing a rose for a gerbera might be the same value, might even be the same kind of flower being a mass flower but changes the whole integrity of the arrangement and on the other hand it was robably the whole reason that arr was chosen because gerbs are a highly recognizable flower...when I was in a wire service, I would look up the arrangement, I would assess what I had and how the integrity of the arrangement would be affected, I took into consideration ho customers think an dmade choices on subs...there is no sub for iris period, there is no sub for gerbs, asters are easily subbed with daisies and vive versa....being a designer for 25 years has given me the knowledge to kind of mind read what a customer would have chosen this arrangement and make subbs if neccessary or decide that with what I have on hand will just totally not work...give those same decisions to someone who doesn't care about the customer or the design and only has a couple years experience or maybe less and they can't make that decision, not the way it should be made...this is the whole reason why seasoned designers should be worth $25.00 an hour or more...this knowledge keeps you out of the complaint aisle on the world wide internet superhiway....but it is this that makes those easy flowing "free for the taking" orders unprofitable...and a major reason why most shops with huge integrity, impossibly impeccable quality and a fabulous design staff have either left the ws building or are seriously considering it...the high volume, slam them out as fast as you can design workshops just do what they have to to get through the day and make money...they make money on volume, mediocre quality, mediochre designed flowers..and that is fine, but that is exactly what is ruining the industry because the ws have had to dumb down the designs to help these florists who want their crap orders at their low god awful prices all because people see the images and these shops cannot duplicate them, neither can most great shops...because they are fake...

the internet is great for buying desks and bookcases, because if you are buying a sauder bookcase item# 234678 it will be the same at walmart, target, pricechopper, discount furniture or any of the 600 other people selling boxed furniture, you know what you are getting it has to be it is manufactured, flowers are natural, design is subjective and experience and quality vary, that is how it is..but it is the florists final decision on how well they think they can fill the order that is who the burden falls on....and it is the mediocre to bad florists who is making it hard for the all the good ones to earn a living and are ruining the floral industry.....
 
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The problem is that FTD, TF and Bloomnet no longer qualify shops as having any kind of morals, design ability, cooler, they don't even have to carry flowers any more.
Click to expand...

That IS THE problem. What does the $20 a month for "quality assurance" go to anyway????? I can't believe some of these pictures out there that florists sent out. I know that it was a crazy Mother's Day and that what some services charge to cancel or refuse orders is high BUT! But there is a way to turn off the wire service if you are to your last bucket of flowers and you just know that you can't fill one more. I believe both sides are to blame here. Shoddy florists that have no idea what they are doing and the wire services for taking way more orders then they are able to get filled.
 
When I hear a florist give the complaining customer an excuse of well your order doesn't look likethe picture because just flowers didn't give us enough money to make it and they kept 20% more ontop of that it makes me cringe...WTH, you took tha @@@@ order, if it wasn't enough money in the very first place and you felt you could not produce what you were contracted to, you didn't have to take the order, period! I will never understand the florists out there that think they are obligated by God to take and fill every single order that comes to them from a 3rd party...if it will cause you to complain, lose money, go out of your way, go to a mid day market run, have to make something totally different or not get created or delivered properly, reject it or communicate what you need to make that order happen....although there are many florists out there that think they are doing a real beautiful job and have no idea how bad their designs are, I have been on facebook, I have seen the work that people are so proud of and it is a scary scary sight!!!
 
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Lori,

All that you write in this thread, particularly today, the 21st., is correct and, yes, collectively, florists are at times their own worst enemies.

However, it still does not take away from the fact that companies sell imagery at a given price that cannot be made. Yes, more florists should reject what they cannot make, regardless of the reason(s) behind why they cannot make it. But not all florists are as enlightened as you/many on Flowerchat and the company that projects an image that is not possible to construct does harm to all of us. Such companies do not care about their consumer nor their apparent partners.
 
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Doug Munro said:
If there is a role I would personally like to see the wire services take it is in educating and qualifying florists, something they did a lot more of years ago. Unfortunately wire services are like the Better Business Bureau in the sense that the individuals they need to police are the very ones they rely on for revenue, so penalizing a member or kicking them our is not in their best interest. In today's world if the WS's took a tough stand on the quality of work leaving shops I suspect they would have too few members left to survive.
Click to expand...

If wire services took a tough stand on quality, I think there would be no shops left to service their orders simply because the arrangements are sometimes impossible to fill as pictured, and not a money maker either, it would force shops to quit them. We rejected many orders simply because there wasn't enough money to do the picture and I wasn't willing to take it in the shorts, other orders I asked for more money and got it. I was not going to send an arrangement with 4 or 5 roses when it called for 6 and was obvious. If they are going to make even more unreasonable demands on the florist and not give them enough money, they will lose. Some orders I looked at and they had so many putsy little bits, I didn't want to mess with it and it got rejected, not worth my time and money.

I hesitate to sub a specialty vase when we run out because people get mad about that, but folks posted that their order wasn't filled because the vase wasn't available and they were mad about that. Since I'm not talking to the customer, TF is, I have no idea what they are willing to go with, you get burned coming and going.
 
I agree with both Lori and Simon. I just don't get it. Why do florists accept orders they cannot fill at a profit?? I don't belong to Teleflora, FTD,1 800 Flowers, etc. Even though I am not a member of any of these wire services yesterday I still had a call from Just Flowers wanting me to take an order for Sidney which is a good 45 minute ride away. I never accept orders from Just Flowers, or any of the wire services. There are reasons I don't belong to them and I don't know why they don't call their own members that for whatever reason do want to belong to them. When I say "belong " to them that is what I mean because I think if you are a member you are working for them -they are not working for you even though you are paying them and on top of that you are working for them for nothing.
Anyway I told Just Flowers there are 3 florists located in Sidney and that they should call one of them. Half an hour later she called back asking me again to take the order and this time I told her directly that I knew she was an order gatherer and if I didn't even belong to Teleflora or FTD why would she think I would be willing to fill an order for her. Lately I have been getting more and more calls from order gatherers and the wire services which tells me more and more member florists are refusing their orders and they are getting desperate which is a good thing. What I don't understand is why are these florists still members?
As far as the photography goes I agree it is totally false advertising. Almost everyone that either calls me or orders online tells me they choose me because I do my own pictures and they are real and they are not generic.I also send a lot of out of town customers pictures of the flowers I did up for them so I follow up. Most of them email me back saying how happy both the recipient and they were with the flowers and that they surpassed what they expected from my website pictures. This is probably because the pictures are so small on my website but when I email them the actual arrangement I send them a larger picture and often from all sides.
Anyway for me both the photography and unprofitability of belonging to these wire services-(not to mention the time consuming annoyance of having to decline all their orders as some member florists are doing) are reasons not to belong to them.

Dianne
 
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artistry in bloom said:
Lately I have been getting more and more calls from order gatherers and the wire services which tells me more and more member florists are refusing their orders and they are getting desperate which is a good thing. What I don't understand is why are these florists still members?
Click to expand...

Or, it could mean that more and more consumers are going online and placing their orders through these companies. Just Flowers doesn't have members as far as I know...they are strictly an order gatherer and farm out the orders to whoever will take them. Hopefully, that is less and less everyday.
 
Hi Sandy

I know Just Flowers does not have members and is strictly an OG but they are members of either Teleflora or FTD and they shouldn't be. I don't think any non filling member of Teleflora or FTD should be permitted. Their only purpose is to take money away from real florists and of course give more money to the wire services. Back in the old days(1975) when I started in this business and worked for another florist there wasn't even computers or if there were they were in their infancy. The orders came through on tape. The wire services were the only way of connecting one real florist to another real florist which in this day and age is no longer the case. As many have mentioned before the wire services don't care about quality control either so what actually is the function of wire services now? They are no longer needed to connect one florist to another and customers can go directly to a florist's website from virtually anywhere in the world so what real service do they provide? The only reason I can see that they are still in business is fear. Fear that some florists have from letting go and fear that some customers (fortunately less and less) have of going direct to a local florist still thinking the wire services provide some measure of security and quality control.

Dianne.
 
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There are so many good points you all have made. Its just too bad that no one at the WS is listening.

And thats why so many of us have stoped using those silly images and just take the time and take the picture.

The minute you realize that no one is going to do it better then yourself is when you finally remember why you started your own business.

To sell you and your brand.
 
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Most agreed Simon...

I know that I take my career as a florist far more serious than the average shop...one of the many, many reasons I had to leave the wires..I wasn't in the wire services this past May and following all the complaints made me so mad, sad and depressed...The fact that the wire services took 100,000 orders that they could not get placed, the fact that so many shops accepted orders and failed to get them out, the fact the many shops made pitiful, dead or otherwise fugly designs...I am very very sensitive to those things...I have always had a huge amount of integrity and working for someone who used tactics like tact 2000 to hold bad delphinium together or hold gerbs togethre that should be in the bucket, or getting in boxes and boxes of flowers at a good deal and having to strip slime off them and put them out at fresh flowers for retail sale...I have seen and been involved in the worst of the industry, not very proudly, but when you work for someone else they call the shots.

In the last 5 years as I refined my own wills and will nots, my taste for quality and my design ability, I am now not sure how many shops I would be able to actually work for if I closed...I think many shops would think I was crazy, especially wire heavy shops because they all use tacticts like the ones above to make a little bit more on those heavily discounted arrangements, they all buy second and maybe third rate or worse flowers and this is why we have such problems...it is an epidemic and is just as much the florists fault as it is the wires and ogs...it is a losing games and in the end I think there will either be innocent casualties or shops like mine will struggle through, see the demise of the wires and ogs and revel in the fact that these awful shops now no longer have a place in the world and go out to pasture, I feel that the second scenario is a pipe dream, but a girl can hope and pray..

Simon Says said:
Lori,

All that you write in this thread, particularly today, the 21st., is correct and, yes, collectively, florists are at times their own worst enemies.

However, it still does not take away from the fact that companies sell imagery at a given price that cannot be made. Yes, more florists should reject what they cannot make, regardless of the reason(s) behind why they cannot make it. But not all florists are as enlightened as you/many on Flowerchat and the company that projects an image that is not possible to construct does harm to all of us. Such companies do not care about their consumer nor their apparent partners.
Click to expand...
 
Looking at 1800 Flowers-same day delivery (in other words florists delivered), in a zip code where we have a shop (and there is one other shop), for a Monday delivery, here is the list of flowers needed for those arrangements shown as "available" :

Lilies:
Orange asiatic
White Asiatic
Yellow Asiatic
White Casa Blancas
Stargazer
Starfighter
Pink asiatic
Roses:
Lavender
Peach
White
Pink spray or sweet
Orange
Pink
Red
Chrysanthemums:
Viking mums
Lavender daisies
Yellow button
Green spiders
Orange buttons
White daisies
Yellow Daisies
White cushions
Lavender Cremones
Green Kermits
Accent Flowers:
Lavender seafoam statice
Misty blue limmonium
Hot pink lepto
Lavender monte
Rice flower
White monte
Solidago
Blue statice
Purple wax
Calcynia heather
Alstro:
White
Pink
Yellow
Orange
Gerbs:
White
Yellow
Hot Pink
Light Pink
Carnations:
Light Green
Hot pink
Purple
Red mini
Pink
Light pink mini
Dark pink mini
Sunflowers
Green cymbids
White callas
Leucodendron
Yellow pin cushion protea
White dendros
White snaps
Green dendros
Peach hypericom
White tallow berries
Delphinium
Pink cymbids
Dark pink aster
Yarrow
Lavender stock
Purple stock
Misc.
Lemons
Small picture frame
Birthday candles
Cake plate
Small American Flag
Many vases and other containers.
We carry a large inventory of flowers compared to most florists and we would be stretched to fill a lot of these orders. We don't carry dendros and cymbids on a daily basis, some of the flowers are more seasonal (yarrow, viking poms), and the likelihood of us having all the colors of roses, lilies, etc are slim. I don't know why they keep that design with the little frame around the neck of the vase...they have to know it's unlikely 90% of the florists will be able to fill that. The other thing that's misleading is that ALL the flowers are fully mature and open in the photos. We all know that's the last thing we want to send out of our shops for an order going to a home because it's not going to last.

That's why when I do designs for our website, I tend to show the flowers partially open, or more like the way they will look when they arrive at the recipient's. I only put designs on the site using flowers we get as a standing order. We are getting sunflowers in as a standing order in all 5 shops so I can now do sunflower designs for the website. I would'nt put those designs on our site if I knew only 3 out of 5 shops carried sunflowers on a regular basis. Same thing with containers: I don't put a specialty container on our site if all locations don't carry it.

The sad fact is, it doesn't take a lot of substitution for a design to look completely different than how it's shown in the picture. Some of the factors that can DRASTICALLY change the final look of the design: Using closed vs. open flowers, subbing a vase or container that is very distinct (if the photo shows a purple gathering vase and the closest thing you have in stock is a clear cylinder-that's a big visual difference), not having one prominent flower (in the instance of the arrangement in question in this thread it was the yellow spray roses. I don't know about anyone else, but spray roses were rather hard to come by for Mother's Day...and yellow is probably even less likely to be found).

I'm not sure what the answer is, but having our own designs on our own websites is MOST likely to bring the MOST satisfaction. I know a lot of consumers don't take the time to find a local florist so the next best solution would seem to be to promote a national/international home page with easy links to local websites. I know there are some sites that currently exist, but for whatever reason they rank low, are incomplete, or have some other major flaw.
 
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Just to compound our feelings with WS imagery, here is an article from the recent Consumer Reports issue.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/.../shopping/beautiful-blooms/overview/index.htm

The article, written by an organization one would think had a better understanding of the general nature as to how WS and drop-shippers function, Consumer Reports writes about "...3 national florists..." and covers 1-800, FTD and Pro-flowers.

By writing that local flower shops vary across the nation so "...we ordered from 3 national florists that send at least some of their orders from central locations, which should let them control quality..." and the 3 selected companies and then by what they write later on, tells me that they ordered flowers in a coffin, sorry, brown cardboard box for drop ship.

Based upon Consumer Reports outcome, if you cannot read the link, they arranged as similar to the website image as possible and admit that this was not necessarily straightforward with decidedly mixed results, from wonderful to horrific. In their opinion, 1-800 did the best job in resembling website images and sending the right product. In the article Consumer Reports refers to mixed bouquets having substituitions. If, as I think, all the orders come from drop ships, it is interesting to note that even these have substituted flowers.

Over-all, I think the article is disappointing at the least and downright alarming in respect that nowhere does it suggest buying from a local florist and, if Consumer Reports that not thought of that, surely that is troublesome to any local florist.

Maybe the local florist can take comfort in the fact that the intention of the article was to purely compare and contrast floral pieces purchased on-line. If that was the sole intent, then that brings up back to the entire purpose of this thread...the images can be (and in at least numerous instances are):
- misleading insomuch as they ignore the habits of nature - crediting certain flora with longer laterals than Mother Nature has seen fit to give them, so far;
- using flora which for large portions of the year are unavailable - the WS ignore Mother Nature again who can be an inconvenient so-and-so towards the WS designers, can't she;
- the recipes call for 1 thing and the image a different; and
- the economics do not work (for the florist).

Clearly, Consumer Reports feels that in 2011, people really do want the recipient to receive what the sender sees on-line.

We can though take some comfort in the fact that Consumer Reports found some of the arrangements "horrific" in that they carried little resemblence to the, assumed, drop-ship arrangements.
 
Linda,

The FTD image does appear to make use of leatherleaf/Baker - a little just visible in lower right-hand of the flowers. I wonder what the florist recipe calls for.

The FTD site also states that the Better bouquet, the one the consumer purchased, has 16 stems, not the 22 the consumer writes.

The use of the tape measure in the image does support the approx. dimensions of the piece FTD said it would be.

All said though, based upon the picture we're given, it is a miserable piece, even if the spray rose stem(s) is, (inadvertedly?) almost entirely hidden from the camera lens.
 
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ftd new dream.jpg

This is the smallest choice from the group...There is leather leaf and pitta negra foliage...The florist who made the original wasn't half bad, I ahve seen worse, bubble bowls are not the easiest to design and the design was OK...It could have shifted a bit in delivery and the leather leaf use was a bit much...however, the lack of yellow roses changes the integrity of the arrangement so much, the over use of poms cheapens it in the customers eyes, now in their terms they have an arrangement that a grocery store could make...The florist in question left the two most expensive items out of the arrangement and didn't sub with anything within the price range, they filled it up with cheap poms which subbed for the asters...

It looks to me like the florist used 3 iris, 3 carns,one stem of statice two stems lav poms and two stems yellow poms...that is 16 dollars retail flowers plus vase and greens, that would be in my stor a 35.00 arrangement..even if there were two roses hidden in there and I think I do see the tip of one in the back which would lead me to believe there is another one in there...it would still only be a 40.00 arrangement...so the whole thing is under value...the arrangement is sold at 59.99 plus ftd shipping fiasco charged...so the arrabngement itself is 10.00 short of value...that is a serious problem and really thecrux of the matter...this florist probably would have gotten a way better response with adding in BB and alstro just to get the very full crammed look...The arrangement clearly features poms and we all know that if a customer is paying 60-80 dollars for something, they don't want the poms featured...the florist in this case either skimmed the incoming by 20% to make up for their % loss, is way over priced on their flowers, which I doubt if they are only carrying cheap flowers(my guess is it is a dasiy, pom, carn rose occasional liliy shop), or had a designer that didn't read that this was an upgrade, if I remember correctly FTD was always a bit harder to read that...when I managed the old shop, at the holidays, my counter people used to mistakenly put in the regular size instead of the upgrade all the time and a few times it would slipp through, I couldn't catch everything...
But all in all thsi is a triple blame arena...customer was silly to accept the terms of the product she wasn't happy from the moment she landed on the ftd site that nothing good was smaller than 49.99(duh, she's the exact type of customer none of us needs, she wants dom perignon for the price of asti spumanti), FTD for charging 20.00 for relay and setting their shops up for failure with such rediculously photoshopped arrangements and the florist for sending out an already doomed arrangement with horrible subs and undervalue to boot...this order failed for the customer from the very first moment she bought the stupid living social deal...my guess is that the groupon/living social client is never one any of us want, they are all just looking for the best items for the cheapest price and whiners when they don't get anywhere hear what they deem worth their money(these people rarely ever know what their money is worth in real dollars because they never buy anything full price, because they feel they can always get a deal)
 
Lori,

Very much agree with your above post.

Out of interest, I have found the FTD recipe for the basic/std. - customer wanted the next step up and I am un-able to locate that, in part as no longer FTD. Item # is D4-4181 and contains, for basic, 3 each of yellow spray roses, pink carns, pink hypericum, 2 iris and 1 pink mat/aster. 12 stems, which agrees w/FTD website. Hardgoods inc 6" bubble, card/tape/pic/misc.No reference to any foliage in recipe. Interesting to note that in the florist guide in general but specifically under that recipe FTD state " Your floral countent may vary slightly, depending on product quality and counting methods."

Also note that, when the recipe was published in Aug 08, FTD's suggested retail, excluding delivery, was $35.99 for the piece. FTD are now, I believe, usually allowing $10 for delivery - if I am wrong, please correct me - by florists so the basic price, currently $49.99 inc. delivery, would have increased in the 3 years to $39.99 which, in my opinion, is rather fair and good of FTD to the florist.
 
As a side note, I have not found that the pricing of the arrangements on tf, ftd or 800-flowers arrangements to be too far off the mark money wise if useing the same grade of flowers to make the arrangements..the problem most florists end up having is that they carry a better grade of flowers and therefore cannot make the arrangements at the same price...Here in Boston we have some of the highest prices in the country according to the TF program designers, but you can find second and third grade flowers inexpensive enough to make a profit on these individual arrangements...my guess is that many shops that do a heavy wire in business buy this type of product already and shop by price rather than quality...I used to buy by price, but found that I wasn't carrying anything much different in quality than the grocery store or other florists in my town, the only thing that was different is my ability to design said cheap flowers better than anyone in town....when I got a review online that said the flowers were something the grocery store would carry, that is when I said I needed to carry different stuff and so the cycle of the ws arrangements started becoming a PITA...there are few florist shops that can by in such bulk that they get super grade at a cheap price, the rest either ask for more money, take the hit and use money from the 100% local orders to help pay for the wires, or use really low quality flowers and hire really cheap unskilled labor and hope for the best....
 
lori042499 said:
As a side note, I have not found that the pricing of the arrangements on tf, ftd or 800-flowers arrangements to be too far off the mark money wise if useing the same grade of flowers to make the arrangements..the problem most florists end up having is that they carry a better grade of flowers and therefore cannot make the arrangements at the same price...Here in Boston we have some of the highest prices in the country according to the TF program designers, but you can find second and third grade flowers inexpensive enough to make a profit on these individual arrangements...my guess is that many shops that do a heavy wire in business buy this type of product already and shop by price rather than quality...I used to buy by price, but found that I wasn't carrying anything much different in quality than the grocery store or other florists in my town, the only thing that was different is my ability to design said cheap flowers better than anyone in town....when I got a review online that said the flowers were something the grocery store would carry, that is when I said I needed to carry different stuff and so the cycle of the ws arrangements started becoming a PITA...there are few florist shops that can by in such bulk that they get super grade at a cheap price, the rest either ask for more money, take the hit and use money from the 100% local orders to help pay for the wires, or use really low quality flowers and hire really cheap unskilled labor and hope for the best....
Click to expand...

Lori,

However, if you used TF and/or FTD as your source for buying flora you used in your arrangements, you would rarely be able to make their arrangements, following the recipes -ignoring the matter of image resemblence - for the prices they charge.

I cannot comment on the quality of TF/FTD purchased flora as I have not done this but know some who used to a said it was nothing special and certainly not worth the price.

Simon
 
You are 100% correct, their prices were highway robbery and at a level of quality that is better than the worst suppliers around me but far from great florist quality...I would definately say second to third rate quality..but that is a whole other matter..Tf and FTD don't price their arrangements at what they sell their flora for, nor do they use the highest price paid for containers, they use the bulk price which very few shops can handle...they use a national average...which is funny to me seeing as the prices in the south and midwest where the cost of living might be lower isn't where the bulk of the orders go, the bulk of the orders go to major metro areas, like Boston, LA, NYC, Chicago etc...where the flowers are priced the highest..I would much rather see them base the prices on where the flowers will end up and haveing them be able to make them good and then have the florists in lower cost of living areas make out better or stuff more into the arrangements to make the to value..it would always be better to have to fill it in than take stuff away...when I take orders for out of my area for a dozen roses, I sell them at my price of 65 with a 10 dollar delivery...except in NYC...whne the florist on the other end says ours ar only 45 or 55 I tell them to add nicer foliage, upgrade the vase, add in nicer filler etc...I want my arrangement to be nicer my customers expect it and I would rather the shop come up to my world than have my cstomers expectations downgraded...
 
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