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Date: 03 Sep 2007
Time: 04:47:30 -0700
Remote Name: 203.223.153.107
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From: p - philtheflorist.com
Date: 08 Jan 2005
Time: 12:54:17 -0800
Remote Name: 209.181.225.106
snip ---> “DOING THE DOO”. Those that have taken the independent path…what are you doing, how have you made the switch
here is my response and "self preservation" is "what has turned 'me' into a born-again florist"
DOING THE DOO the florisrs independent path…
i am writing form first hand experience, on how to break away form the traditional, dying in the trenches, ways of selling flowers.
i am a clear thinker and am good at finding ways to get things done.
once we did our financial's after our first 5 years in business (moved from backyard greenhouse to a pretty big greenhouse with an existing feeble flower business) we realized that the wire service affiliation )was costing us allot more than we bargained for.
then we saw the breakup up of ftd when it lost member ownership - this was the point i immediatly saw my relationship with ftd end as FTD at that instant became the competition -
soon after we dropped afs as well i needed a way to still get orders to other florists so now i call floirsts direct using free internet florist listings - i have done this since 1999
- i saw this florist direct send approach, as my ticket to freedom.
- we personally call out all of our orders and the benefit of this is two fold.
1)firstly we get a chance to talk to real florists, nationwide and we are able to keep a pretty clear check on the pulse of this industry, and i am sorry to say most are racing, fast well beyond what is healthy.
2) we want to make sure our customers get the best value for their money - we charge 9.95 to do these call outs and tell them they can do this themselves online and save the money
- our customers really appreciate my honesty as i explain to them the traditional ways of sending flowers are of a by-gone era.
when i call these florists direct - i introduce myself, asking if they accept "florist to florists orders away from the wire services" most say yes some actually swear at me.
at the close of the sale i give them my price we discuss the sales tax issue and then i ask if they 'offer a discount' some do some do not.. which is fine by me.
when we did pull the ftd plug, it took us two years to finally get away from ftd they kept our final payout that long - hoping we would simply go away.
as to the tendering of you sales, will have to come up with an alternative to the ws point of sale systems (POS) to be truly independent
we choose the "old school" approach to running our shop, which includes hand written delivery tags and enclosure cards, this made an easy choice for our 'business of doing business', as it were...
we do non rely on computer generated cards and delivery tags (besides up sell to real greeting cards has been great revenue add on for us)
we use a sharp cash register model a 402 with sales categories set as we need them and a swipe credit card terminal - with merchant services by our local bank.
what about bookkeeping??
we use quickbooks - and yes it has been a bit tedious and time consuming as we have had to manually enter the days sales from the cash register daily tapes into the quick books application
there are new, traditional cash registers that port directly to a pc and quick books, we are going to make the upgrade after v-day.
now as to marketing and house charges allot has changes in the last 2 years for us - our main stay od a DOS program called telemagic - this has worked very well for promotional mailers and house charge billings --
now we find our selves not relying on the print media much and using our web site for most of our promotional announcements.
at days end i know all of my hard work is to benefit my family, my employees and well as my neighborhood, offering personalized charm in doing business.
i remain optimistic and see a profitable future.
phillip