Florist Business Methods, THE TRUE. Part 3

Continuing the last post Florist Business Methods, THE TRUE. Part2; today we will see the remaining Florist Business Methods which have been used in order to send flowers to another part of the nation:

F. Direct Shipping. 

G. Direct Florist to Florist.

H. Direct order.

I. Marketplace.

Note: we are going to assume that the Originating Florist (OF) is located in Charlotte, NC; the Filling Florists (FF) is located in LA, CA, and the usual Order Gather (OG) additional fees of $9 - $15 are not charged.

F. Direct Shipping.

The OG or Wire Service Order Gather service sends overnight boxed flowers to the receiver, using for this purpose courier services like FedEx, UPS and DHL among others. The flowers come directly from their flower storage and logistics facilities; this is called “Direct-Shipping”. This process is far more lucrative for the OGs and at the same time vastly more intrusive on the retail community as it completely cuts the florists out of the operation. 

With Direct Shipping the flower shipper get all the money paid by the customer, and the receiver obtains an arrangement evaluated on $60 to $90 from the original payment of $100; all depends if the box of flowers does not have any delays in their transit, logistic problems, refrigeration shipping issues etc. Also the receiver has to deal or create an arrangement by himself with these boxed flowers but, not always the receiver is willing to deal with that.

Local Originating Florist (OG) and Filling Florists (FF) are eliminated here, meaning neither no profits nor sales for them.

G. Direct Florist to Florist.

Customers buy from his local florist he pays $100; the local Originating Florist (OF) get between $18 to $22, he uses phone calls or fax in order to place the order with the filling florist. The filling florist after subtracting delivery cost and financial fees gets $71 to $77; at the end the receiver obtains an arrangement evaluated on $71 to $77 from the original payment of $100. In this way the florists can get better profits due to the elimination of the middle men known as order gathers and/or wire services.

This model is one of the best for the filling florist, 22% profits, and the best one for the originating florist in terms of profits, 77%, but exist the cumbersome process for the Originating Florist (OF) to find the correct filling florist, deal with the florist, setup the payment method, value etc. this process can not be so easy because is not a standard method and each florist (originating and filling) can have different politics and techniques to process and accept orders, setup prices, delivery charges etc. 

H. Direct order.

The customer contacts directly the filling florist, by far this is the best one of the models, the customer receive all or most of the promised value of his order, and by the same token the filling florist get the maximum profit because he does not have to split it with OG, the Originating Florist (OF) and the wire services and all the cost associated with them. 

Many times the customer goes to his local florist in order to allow them to handle his order. On the other hand, most of the customers seek for local filling florist on yellow pages and/or web search engines when they want to send flowers to another area; but, here is a drawback, customers after seek using yellow pages or/and web search engines and without the knowledge about how to disguise Wire Services Order Gather and Order Gathers from real brick and mortar filling florist; frequently, their orders finish on the system of Wire Service Order Gathers, Order Gathers, and maybe but not frequent in marketplaces.

I. Marketplace.

Lately a new form of flower’s commercialization had been implemented; is akin to eBay service does. This marketplace is an internet platform that allows a local florist to upload his products, local zip codes of delivery coverage; setup his own prices, even, the florist can create a storefront on this market place.

On the process, the customer arrives to this web marketplace; there he buys flowers that will be fulfilled by his chosen florist. The marketplace gain between 10% and 20% for administration, SEO (search engine optimization) and transaction fees on every order and the rest of the money goes to the fulfilling florist. This model is very good for the filling florist, but at the same time this service is comparable to an Order Gather service with the difference that the filling florist roll is very active here, rather filling florist profits are very attractive; but, on other hand, the clients that should go directly to the filling florist website are getting attracted to the marketplace website. Some of the percentage of money made by the marketplace in each transaction is designated to a search engine optimization leaving the filling local florist website hooked in some sort of disadvantage when a customer performs a search in any web search engine; as time passes the website of the florist will fade off from search engines or have to compete very hard against the marketplace trying the get relevant positions on the search results. Many times the OG joins this services only using the incorporation information, but not necessarily having a brick and mortar presence.

More info about some negative facts about marketplaces. 

As aforementioned before, it is understood that the most profitable system for local filing florist is H. Direct order. By the same token, the most profitable system for local Originating Florist (OF) and local filing florist together, is G. Direct Florist to Florist.

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