Anonymous wrote:OP, I'm confused by your title. Do you think women can order flowers more effectively than men? Why are you only asking women?

Anonymous wrote:ORDER DIRECTLY FROM A LOCAL FLORIST!

I worked as bookeeper at a flower shop for a number of years. Let me explain how FTD, Teleflora, 1-800-Flowers, Pro Flowers and some online flower companies work, and why what you pay is so different from what you get.

When you order from a wire service (in the floral industry, FTD and the like are known as "wire services." ), this is what happens:

The service charges you $100 (as an example), and keeps $15-20.

The service has NO floral stock or floral preparation facilities of their own. NONE. So all orders are sent to local florists. (The same florists you can call directly!)

A local florist recieves $80 to fill your order. The florist has to put some of that money toward paying to be in the wire network. So they actually have <$80 to work with, and they have to use that to cover all their costs: the florwers themselves, the skilled designer labor, and expenses for physical location.

The florist also has to take out delivery costs if the wire service didn't charge you for this. That's $10 to $20 depending on things like distance, parking, delivery permits and so on. So now the florist has <$70 or <$60 to work with.

If you ordered a Teleflora/ FTD/ whatever branded arrangement with a particular container or gift item (something like this-- https://www.teleflora.com/flower-arrangement/thomas-kinkades-festive-fire-station-bouquet?prodID=P_T19X200A), then the florist has to buy that from the wire service. Result: they have EVEN LESS money to spend on flowers.

After all that, the $100 you paid Telefora, FTD, etc. gets whittled down to maybe $30--or even less--that can be spent on the actual FLOWERS. The lesson is: never, ever order flowers from a national floral company!


And here's a bonus tip: There are a LOT of companies that pose as local florists but are actually national networks like FTD, Teleflora, 1800. They use the exact same business model as above, but they put up individual "store" pages in cities all over. Ava's Flowers is one of the biggest of these.
Example of identical "local' pages:
Ava's Flowers "in" Waldorf, Maryland (shows in Google results for "florist in Waldorf" as "Wadorf Florist in Waldorf, Maryland": https://www.avasflowers.net/maryland/florist-waldorf-md/
Ava's Flowers "in" Santa Clara, California (shows in Google results as "Sanata Clara Florist" ): https://www.avasflowers.net/california/florist-santa-clara-ca/

In addition to Ava's Flowers, other companies that operate like this are Rosies and Posies, From You Flowers, Bloom Nation, and a TON of others that use fake local web addresses like FlowersIn[City Name].com. They also get fake local phone numbers in different area codes, so they can be hard to spot.

How to avoid fake "local" florists:

*** Use the American Society of Florists directory via aboutflowers.com/. They actively go after scam shops through their "deceptive advertising" program.
[list]Look at the store's website to see if it has a weddings section. Weddings are huge business for real flower shops, but the national companies that farm out to local stores generally don't do wedding flowers.

Use Google maps Street View to see if the florist has an actual storefront with signage and flowers in their store window, and the store's address doesn't show up in Street View as an office park or unmarked building

Ask the person taking your order questions that most fake companies can't answer. Some examples are: What's in season or on sale? What arrangements will give me the most bang for my buck (whatever that means for you-- size, use of expensive flowers, whatever? Can you give me an estimate of how much of the cost will go to fees versus labor and materials?

Anonymous wrote:Have you tried urban stems?

Anonymous wrote:Find a top notch local florist and use them regularly. You can specify what you want/don’t want. Don’t order from a National place. The quality isn’t even close.