Ordering flowers

To order flowers, a consumer can order from a local brick and mortar flower shop, or choose an online flower delivery, or order flowers by telephone or mail. Traditionally the local florist shop executed most flower deliveries, until the internet spawned new companies that would collect orders and relay them to the florists.
Local florists
Local florists serve their geographic regions and usually deliver within a 5 mile radius. Some florists in more rural areas may extend their delivery limit. Their inventory consists of flowers bought wholesale from a dealer or delivered to their store from a local or international grower. When looking for florists online, the consumer should make sure to call and ask the company if they are a local florist shop or if they are an internet company. Internet florists sometimes appear like they are a flower shop, but really are only order processing sites that will take an order, charge an additional premium, and send the order to the same local florist to deliver the order.
Local florists will be able to tell you what is available and can usually offer more unique and personal services than an online service. It may seem cheaper to order online but this is a common misconception because you are paying a fee and do not have any help. A sales person at a real flower shop has knowledge of their inventory and what is seasonal locally at the time you are ordering which will usually mean you will get a fresher and more reasonably priced arrangement.
There are some famous florist chains, and many other individual florists across the country. Most florists are family owned and operated and all aspects of the business are supervised closely by the owner which means better quality of flowers than an online business or supermarket.
Online florists
Online florists have found a niche in the flower industry as middlemen between the consumer and the local florist. There are two types of flower products:
* Flowers deivered by local florists.
* Flowers shipped from a flower grower.
Online flower companies such as FTD have been successful at marketing flowers on the internet. When a consumer orders a local florist delivered flower product, that order will be sent to the local florist. But the consumer ends up paying more for those flowers than they would if they just called the local florist. The online flower company generally charges an extra amount for shipping, handling, and order processing fees, which the local florist would not have charged. But now finding a local florist is made easier with companies like Florist Exchange and the yellow pages and has become the favorable option.
Often online florists will try to appear to be a local shop when they are in fact just an order forwarding service, these companies are called "order gatherers". This is a problem because a consumer may pay more than they would if they just called a florist directly and the online florist may say a product is available when it is not and the florist has to substitute. These online florists sometimes just put a picture of an arrangement to make a sale but the florist they send the order to does not know what the picture looks like. This can lead to unhappy customers. Another type of online companies are direct from grower models in which they will serve a large area from a central warehouse and use courier services for out-of-town services. These companies allow customers to buy flowers at lower prices by eliminating middle men from the supply chain and reducing both the cost and transit time.
Wire service
Almost all florists (brick and mortar, and online) are a part of a wire service. Being a member of an order gathering enterprise, allows a local florist to send and receive orders across the nation while receiving a commission. If a customer wishes to send flowers to a relative on the other side of the nation, they have traditionally gone to their local flower shop to have this done. The local flower shop would then send the order to delivering florist and both florists would receiving a commission for the order. This has allowed for the growth of the florist industry. When the internet grew in popularity, online flower companies then used the wire service as a method to efficiently collect many orders and send them to florists across the nation. This new competition has been seen as a threat to the local florist and florists view online florists as order gatherers who steal their orders.

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