Florist News: October 2007 Archives

The discussion about the decrease in florist wire service membership made a few of us ask why and how the latest BloomNet directory only shows 6,978 members yet a 1800flower.com press release from May 2007 pegged the number at "more than 9,500 BloomNet Professional Florists."

We asked more than one source to check the figures on the electronic directory and got affirmatives on the 6,978 number for North America.

Has BloomNet lost more than 2500 florist members in just a few months? That's a huge discrepancy...

According to recent florist wire service directory updates, there's a significant shift in the numbers of member flower shop affiliates in North American. The latest figures, which include both the US and Canada, as of the Oct. 1, 2007 electronic directory releases:

FTD
13,876 records including 313 new and 1151 deleted for a net change of <-6%>

Teleflora
25,913 records including 411 new and 1243 deleted for a net change of <-3.2%>

Bloomnet (1-800-Flowers)
6,978 records - previous records numbers unavailable. Per the annual report from FY 2006: "over 9,000 members as of July 2, 2006"

Membership directories are updated quarterly.

With rising wire service participant costs and decreasing numbers of orders flowing through the systems (primarily due to drop-ship boxed flowers being sold by national marketers like FTD.com and 1800flowers.com) declines in membership aren't a surprise, but the sheer numbers do not bode well for the floral industry.