Back to Blogging and a Passionate topic

Wow! I can't believe it's been 6 months since I posted on here!
That is unacceptable!!, since my original intent was to post at least WEEKLY.... jeesh.

Well, time to jump back in, cuz I have lots to talk about.
Today I would like to post about something I feel really passionate about. ORDER GATHERERS.
What is an Order Gatherer? you ask....
Well, an order gatherer is basically a company that creates a name and phone number, spends a lot of money on advertising to get their name in phone books, internet searches, etc., to get consumers to call and place floral orders through them. They are not flower shops. They do not have active working florists on their premises and they don't carry flowers or deliver flowers. They are simply a phone number and there to "gather" orders and collect your money, and then pass your order along to a REAL flower shop to fill the order.
Why is this a bad thing you ask?
Well, let me explain that.
When you use an Order Gatherer -(I will refer to them as OG from here) sometimes up to 30% of the money you pay, the money you think is going towards your flower purchase, is getting eaten up in fees spread between the "middlemen". By the time your order gets to the actual Filling Florist, you have paid a service fee to the OG , sometimes upwards of $20, and they don't tell you this. The fees may be listed, but are misleading, many customers assuming that they are the "delivery fees" for thier order.

A perfect example from my shop is when an OG called me on Valentine’s Day, this year. It's a very long story, which I would be happy to share in detail if you're interested, but in a nutshell... The call came in as a person posing to be from another Flower Shop. I chose not to take the order because I was pretty sure it was an OG. When the original sender called on Monday morning to try and get his order filled.... we had a long talk. I found out that he had been charged $85 for that OG to take that order. They charged him a $20 "Rural service charge" even though the address was just in Toledo.
I told him that they had offered me $58, which included delivery. He had ordered a Dozen Yellow Roses. They were going to let me deliver a half dozen Red Roses with Stargazer Lilies.
This is a pretty typical OG story.

In this ever-changing industry... we struggle to keep our little flower shops in business. Because of the OG's and other deceptive practices, Consumers have come to believe that flowers are a rip off... and in cases like that above story, they are! But most genuine Florist Shops strive to create beautiful arrangements at affordable prices for their customers. Flowers portray such a beautiful message for so many different occasions. They truly are a wonderful gift.
Unfortunately, the OG's and other deceptive practices have found a way, they feel, to CASH IN, on what they see as easy money, deceiving the customers and giving the Floral Industry a bad name.

So now that you know.. do yourself a favor- Skip the middlemen and the deceptive practices and ALWAYS ALWAYS use your LOCAL Florist. Even using well known names like Teleflora, FTD, 1800 flowers, etc... isn't recommended by me because ALL of the OG's belong to those wire services. They'll take your order and then send it through the wire service to be filled by a real florist... skimming their fees off the top, first. It's really sad how it all takes place.
So that's my story.. hope you all feel a little more informed :)

Spreading sunshine, one stem at a time..... :) Kim