Tips for selecting a florist for Valentine’s Day Flowers
Hello, and welcome to our blog,
Knowing who to call to order flowers for your Valentine can result in disappointment. Knowing the difference between a florist and a florist call center florist will greatly reduce your chances of disappointment and will save you money.
Do you know the difference between a florist and a florist call center?
First you must understand that there is a difference and what a big difference there is.
Florist have a brick and mortar location, designers, sales people and drivers.
Florist call centers, have sales people only. These sales people work in an office or may even work remotely from home, with dogs barking and kids screaming in the back ground. You won’t know because you won’t hear them. Haha! many call center florist have never touched a flower or grown a plant in their lives.
A Florist will take your order either by phone or from their own website, create the design shown and the shop driver will delivery to the recipient. Some florist provide a service to take care of your out of town deliveries also. In this case they will take your order and relay your order to a florist that is located near and delivers to the recipient. Most will charge a small fee to help cover the cost in time. They will carefully select a florist they have a working relationship with to fill and deliver your order.
A florist Call Center will never design your order, they actually will never even see, smell or touch the product you have ordered. What they will do is transfer your order by phone or computer to a florist that is local to the recipient to have the local florist design the arrangement and deliver the product. They will charge you fee for this service typically ranging from $15.00-$20.00 on top of the delivery fee and the product price. In many situations the delivery fee is included in the “product” price leading you to believe that you are not paying a separate delivery fee. I assure you most every single florist in the USA charges a delivery fee, so when the call center sends them an order to fill the first thing they will be doing is subtracting the fee they need to cover delivery cost. The $15.00-$20.00 dollars will remain with the company call center, not a penny of that fee will be sent to the florist for fulfilling your order to Aunt Liza. The call center employee will push your order through a network of florist with little regard for reputation, or design capabilities, of the florist they transmit your order to. The florist will receive the order and make a determination whether they can fill it based on criteria such as whether there is enough money given to complete the order, do they have the flowers in stock that are being requested or a proper substitution for the product sold. If that florist rejects your order it will go on to the next florist in the system. The order may be accepted immediately or it may run through the system for hours being rejected over and over again. In many cases it will miss the selected delivery date, and arrive a day or several days later.
If you place your order with a florist they will send your order either by computer or call directly a florist to procure your floral request personally. They will no typically within a few hours if there is not a florist to fulfill your order and will get back to you promptly to make a plan for proceeding.
Local florist will rarely have 20% off coupons or free deliver, or $10.00 off, etc. and while those advertisements maybe enticing and appear to seem like a great value, you will be paying a premium for a much less then premium service of someone that is just pushing a button.
Your local florist will handle your order with care. They will notify promptly if there is a problem with placing your order into the hands of a fellow florist to be filled and delivered.
#1) Call your local flower shop, or shop on their website for orders to be delivered in your city and surrounding towns. Otherwise you will be paying $15.00-$20.00 for some else to get the order to the same florist that you can call or place an on-line order with.
#2) If you’re not familiar with a local florist Google “florist near me” or “florist in (recipients zip code) and take a look at their website, making sure they are local to the area.
Google results will look like this:
#3) if you are unsure whether you have found a Florist Shop and not a Florist Call Center, ask questions such as what is your street address? Can I cone there to select my flowers?
#4) VERY IMPORTANT if you know the name of a local florist Google their name. Be careful not to fall for call center impersonating local shops using their shop name in their ads.
Here is the names of a few of the many call centers on the internet.
Just flowers
Avas flowers
From you flowers
Use your local florist to deliver in your local area, rather than place an order with a call center who then has to place your order with a local company anyways.
Look at their designs... are the photos in their website their designs or are they stock photos that are seen all over the internet, and are heavily photoshopped, and are difficult to duplicate the way the photo depicts.
Google your local florist, flower shop near me, or florist ( and destination zip code).
Place your order with a local florist and trust that you did things the proper way and have confidence in it arriving on the day you selected.
Send flowers and smiles,
Joan Coleman and the staff at Coleman Florist inc. serving Syracuse and Onondaga County
