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Why a Local Flower Shop is Best
What can go wrong when you order flowers online from a big-name third party?
Suppose you order an arrangement that should have eight roses, five—six stargazer lilies, eight—twelve carnations and many filler chrysanthemums. But instead, your recipient gets a crappy bouquet with three roses, zero lillies, eight carnations, and only some chrysanthemums, three of which were broken off at the stem.
Unfortunately, this happens to many customers. And it happens because of third-party online floral ordering services like FTD, Just Flowers, 1-800 Flowers, and Teleflorist.
How Do FTD, Just Flowers, 1-800 Flowers, and Teleflorist Work?
First, these websites are not connected to their own store that services customers. All work is done by local florists, who must pay an annual member fee of $1800—$3500!
When a local flower shop gets the order it receives only 90%—70% of the customer's payment. When combined with the annual fee, this leaves little money left to buy and arrange the flowers.
Example:
- Customer orders a $100 arrangement from a third-party ordering service.
- Of the payment, 10%—20% is fees, reducing product payment to $80.
- The local shop receives this, then keeps a profit of 10%—20%, leaving about $72.
- Then, about 5%—10% is lost due to the annual member fee, leaving about $60.
- Now, the local florist still might subtract $10—$15 for third-party delivery, leaving about $50.
- Employees must be paid also, leaving only about $30.
In the end, a floral designer can only add about $30 worth of flowers for this $100 order (about a third of which would belong the third-party floral service in the above example).
With only one-third the money left to use, a local flower shop has no choice but to cut corners, or they lose money by working with a third-party ordering service.
So, please get a better arrangement—support local flower shops!
Two Ways to Find Local Flower Shops
A common way:
- Google "local flowers" and call the telephone number of any local flower shop.
A better way:
- Go to yellowpages.com.
- Search for "flowers" at the location you need (more accurate than Google).
- Go to website of (or call) the local flower shop. They will take good care with you.