Shifting Florist Wire Service Numbers

There is clearly a trend towards decreased membership. While this might be seen as good news by those are anti-wire service and want to see florists abandon them it is important to note that the declines do not strictly result from florists leaving wire services. There are at least three explanations, one of them very alarming:

1. Florists with multiple services scaling back to fewer services. In my experience this is almost always a good thing that saves the florist money. Belonging to multiple services to chase the largest possible number of unprofitable incoming orders really hurts a lot of shops.

2. Florists leaving the services altogether. When they have a customer who needs out-of-town delivery they either deal with a filling florist firectly or, as a courtesy, help the customer find a florist in the destination city and encourage them to place the order themselves. I have seen both of these approaches work very well.

3. Florists who have gone out of business. I've seen stats that show that the number of retail florists steadily declining. Once they are out of business they are no longer WS members. This is the worst possible way to account for the declines in membership.

I'd very much like to see stats on wire service membership as a percentage of total retail flower shops - in other words are there fewer member shops once you account for the fact that there are now fewer shops overall? The problem is that getting a current, accurate count of retail flowers shops (which themselves are somewhat hard to define) is very difficult.

A "revolution" of sorts, continues to play a key role, in the positioning of current REAL FLORISTS in the realm of today's high paced, retail free for all!!
Traditional "wire service" methodology within the florist business. has changed in such a way, as to almost "exclude" REAL FLORISTS from the business of selling flowers, at the lowest possible price.
I say "thank you" to them!!
Though great contributions have been made by the florist to ws to florist transfer of customer orders, two things have transpired.
1) Customers have a larger selection of venues, from which to purchase their floral "gifts", and
2) Customers wanting same day delivery, for their gifts.
The wire service, and direct ship online vendors CANNOT compete with the "traditional REAL FLORIST" for this type of shopping, and with so many florist businesses now realizing the differences in importance, have done one of two things...
1) have decided that they are too old to change, keep up, and have either folded their businesses, which accounts for the continuing "drop" in wire service membership, OR,
2) Have decided that to compete with direct shippers, online vendors, that have been EMPOWERED by the wire services, by dropping the traditional wire services, because of the "threat" they now portray, to our REAL CUSTOMERS!!
The current crop of florist shop owners, have NO USE for floral retailers that work directly against them, and are "dropping" their costly affiliations with those that support the degradation of our industry, in favour of "retaining" high morals in our industry, by providing top service, top quality products, and same day delivery capability.

Wire service membership continues to decline because of the real reasons sited by Mark & Mikey above. In addition, hard-working REAL florists are part of the Baby-boomer generation. Many are beginning to retire, and electing to close their shops and sell off the real estate instead of passing on the shop to the next generation.

Wire service numbers will continue to decline, as will the number of REAL florists. Sad and sorry state of affairs in many communities!

Cost of doing business in General I feel is the biggest factor. As a small business owner my concerns are focused on the effects of the economy from inflated housing and the decline in quality higher paying jobs available within the United States .

These effects on the economy are being contributed by larger companies ignoring the fact that all goods are continuing to be sold to the consumer at discounted prices and forcing manufactures to sell their products just above production cost. Relying upon volume to justify the discounted sale of these products contribute to cutting back on the quality of products (more manufacturing cuts down the line as well as the purchase of lesser expensive products overseas) as well has labor costs.

As florist we see this happening to our industry where operating cost continue to rise. Thus we have the same solution that manufactures face by cutting back on Cost of Goods and labor. As larger companies continue to devalue our products the consumer cannot ignore the discounted price compared to the actual price that a small business needs to charge to survive. We will continue to see more small business disappear under the current big business model.

Our goals for surval are clear. We must eliminate the cause of our undervaluing of our products and stop enabling Order Gathers and Larger Wire Service companies that influence and most of the time dictate the price that our products are selling for. We must then figure out away to regulate our industry by setting guidelines for how much products should be sold for within each individual market.

It is only then that we can began to see the return of profitable returns from owning a small business within the floral industry.

The decline in the number of florists belonging to wire services will continue to slide downward. All too often, as we have seen, these same wire services that once were designed to assist florists have become their biggest competitors. Consumers must realize, that when they order through a wire service (FTD.com, 800flowers.com or Teleflora.com) web site or 800 number that they pay a service charge of up to $14.95 that the company always keeps, as well as these companies keep up to 29% of the order value.

Consumers will always get a better value as well as better service by dealing directly with a local florist.

Great reasons above!

Another cause: My generation, generation X is moving into that age market where they buy flowers. This generation uses computers. Weather they use crapflowers.com, the Floral Terrorist Divison (FTD) or order direct from that local florist, this is how they operate....computers.

Another reason is people are understanding that the "service" they get from a local florist using a wire service is a hit and miss service. PLUS they are paying two middle men for it.

Until there is a day where the customer can goto a floral network that lets you see the flowers in real time from 10k miles away, there will be dOGs, OGs and WS all offering a half-baked service. My idea of webcamflowers will be the future, it's just this industry is so behind it's hard to talk to florists about it. I do know one company who likes talking about my web 2.0 idea, Safeway Grocery stores and hooking up a network with their 400 florist departments at webcamflowers.com.

Of course I am joking, but it is sad to see corporations taking the lead over us.

Nice seeing you guys and I have my half/ass blog linked to you guys and like coming here over FC. :)

Mark Anderson -

Great points. All three explanations contribute to the decline in wire service memberships. Hard to tell if one is more dominant than another right now but if I had to guess, it would be #1.

Mikey -

Most florists still want the convenienece of using a wire service to transfer orders to other shops (without feeling like they're subsidizing competitors), and if/when a reliable alternative comes along I suspect a sizable group will migrate elsewhere.

Rather than chosing a wire service based on features and benefits, many owners are asking 'which one of these companies is doing the least damage to my business?.'

Cheryl -

Good point. I have a bookmark file of news articles about flower shop closings and it grows weekly. But - there seem to be a fair amount of new shop opening stores, too.

Eric & Mark -

National companies can establish prices but, as you know, they cannot 'make' any florist take their orders. As a means of self-preservation, a growing number of local florists are simply refusing to fill for order gatherers and are aggressively marketing in their own areas.

Unfortunately, most shoppers don't understand about all fees charged when going through a thrid party - until they see what was delivered.

Brandon -

Great points made in a fabulously snarky way. ;-) We'll eventually get there - just not fast enough.

An industry expert's advice to florists for surviving all these current trends is to make yourself relevant to your community. This was one recommendation in an annual State of the Industry article published in Florists' Review specifically Jan '06 by O. Stanley Pohmer, Jr.

Yes, Cathy the wire services can establish SRP's, but in reality they can only be considered guide lines, and only reflect how low the same wire services will go to try and sway consumer choice. They are fighting for the bottom of the barrel price wise, and continue to degrade the true value flowers offer.

The other reality is that their pricing structure, removes any potential profit margin for the filling florist. As I have stated previously, they keep up to 29% plus $14.95 of the total order sale value, leaving little for the filling florist to use to provide a good value for the consumer.

When any consumer uses a wire service web site like FTD.com, Teleflora.com or 800Flowers.com or one of their 800 numbers, they would be well advised to remember that the word consumer is spelled CONsumer, and always deal directly with a local florist.

FTD just initiated a new gimmick to steal even more $$'s from small retailers. A penalty system of $10, $20 , and twice the value of an order can now be assessed to a filling florist basically by not reviewing every single order received in one's network terminal within two hours.
The penalty structure reflects the timing of failure to act relative to the arrival of the order. In this initial penalty program the WS is focusing on the prompt rejection of orders. Of course, the same day delivery will be the most costly to the filling florist at twice the order value's. There seems to be no exclusions or excuses as defenses.
Two troubling trends can develop from this :
1. Penalties from failure to fill the order as "requested"
2. Penalties for being untimely on a delivery.

With the raising trend for same day delivery showing up on WS terminals, the filling florists are, in addition to the difficulties mentioned above by previous posters, now faced with more ways to lose money to the WS's.
The parting shot by FTD using the claim that the penalty revenues generated by this, and possible future programs, will go to the "sending" florists are little less than satire.
In my shop a sending shop are akin to WS and OGs.
In the co-operative days this wouldn't fly, but in the current industry climate the individual small shop owner is at a clear disadvantage.