The No.1 Mistake People Make Ordering Flowers Online

How often do you order flowers via one of the online flower giants and pay a $15-$20 service fee for them to process your order? The answer is every time if you’re ordering from FTD, 1-800 Flowers, Teleflora, FromYouFlowers, etc. In addition to not giving you 100% of the value of your purchase price in flowers, they are also shorting the florist that usually ends up fulfilling your order. Most orders are routed to local florists for fulfillment and delivery. The online giants, whom we will call ‘order gatherers’ from here on, have a huge internet presence allowing them to gather the bulk of the flower orders that are placed online.After you complete your flower order, the order gatherer will pocket their service fee and find a local florist willing to fulfill the order at about 70% value. So, for $100 in online flowers you would typically pay an order gatherer $100 for the flowers, $10 for delivery, and another $20 for a service fee. At this point, the order gatherer will find a local florist who will take the order and will typically pay the flower shop 70% of the order value. Yes, that’s right. 70%! They keep your service fee and at least another $30 of your $100 order. So, at this point, $50 of your money has been eaten up in fees and only $70 is going to your flower arrangement. At this point, both you, the consumer, and the local florist are being inexcusably exploited by the order gatherers. Many local flower shops are struggling to keep the doors open due to the near nonexistent margins they are making because the order gatherers are originating all the business.So, what can you do? Order flowers online from your local florist! It’s that easy. Once you realize the convenience and savings you can then educate all your friends so they can get better service, greater value, and save lots of money on their next flower order. Pretty much every flower shop has a website that makes it super convenient to order from. Don’t see what you want on your local florist’s website? Give them a call. They can make anything you can dream up. Need to send flowers out of town? Your local florist is the resource for this as well. They have a great network of flower shops and can get your flowers delivered anywhere you need for a far better value than any order gatherer. The moral of the story? When you need flowers go to your local flower shop. Don’t waste your money on fees.