florist's opinion

Pros:  smooth sales pitch

Cons:  they take over 1/3 of your money before a FLORIST sees the order

Full Review
Understanding flowers by wire, one needs the florist's perspective. For instance, did you know that when you wire flowers thru companies such as this one and the big dot-com you see on TV, these are offices that take around 1/3 of your money before passing it along to a florist?

You spend $50, they deduct their "service fee" 6.99 to 9.99, sales tax, another $3-4, so you have now $39, they get 20% of that, the wire service gets 7%, so the florist who buys, the flowers, vases, delivery vans, and designers gets only $28.47 of YOUR money to do it's magic. The scheme is predicated upon the sender not seeing their gift, the recipient not complaining, and the florist either being too inexperienced and naive to do math properly, OR overpricing and underfilling the order. The lack of money available to the filling shop to do our magic is not a great incentive to give your loved ones the gift of flowers you intended, rather has become another scheme where unscrupulous services allow every Tom, Dick, & Harry to get a cut of YOUR money.

The most savvy florists (like myself) refuse orders such as these that we know have been "clipped" by an office before being passed along, and prefer to work directly with the sender, not a middle man taking over 1/3 of the money. And when you complain they are quite unresponsive and offer a "coupon" on your next purchase? And you should complain, because you won't get your money's worth!

How to get your money's worth? USE the web (NOT directory assistance) to find florists IN the city you want to send flowers to. MAKE SURE they are IN that city (some lie). Ask them for their local address and how to get to their shop. Get a "feel" for who you are Trusting your Feelings to. There are lots of unscrupulous "web marketeers" now also working on diverting you to THEIR site, located across the country with pages such as "sending flowers to...", assuming you will order online and have no idea your order got skimmed like you were trying to avoid.

The local florist most likely won't be so "smooth" at separating you from your money, those big offices have highly trained sales staff-that's all they need to know (nothing about FLOWERS), how to SELL.

But you WILL get your money's worth, from someone who lives locally and cares about their local reputation.