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Why Use A Local Florist

Why Use A Local Florist

County Line Rose 10712 County Line Road Hudson, Fl 34667 is YOUR LOCAL FLORIST, call us direct and talk to us, the FLOWER PEOPLE in REAL TERMS.

Contact Information: 352-597-9829, 727-862-7673 or use our online secure website: www.countylinerose.com. We are a Real Florist with over 25 years of actual floral experience. We are here to satisfy your floral needs and wants directly...we are real people designing real flower arrangements not Order Gathers (OG) or Telemarketers who never touch flowers and have very limited floral experience...they do know how to take your money!!

Order Gathers are Middleman: Call your Local Florist Direct...Increased quality, save money, save jobs and Floral Needs and Wants much better served.

FTD and Teleflora are the two biggest Order Gathers. They use foreign call centers and overseas foreign workers to take your orders and to take your money. Put Americans back to work, call your Local Florist....save money, better product and save American jobs. Buy American!!

Most floral consumers have heard of FTD and Teleflora. They are the two most recognized wire services in the floral industry. Traditionally, they offered services for real local florists to send and receive orders for a reasonable cost. They still offer these services to florists, but with advances in technology and utilizing the internet, they directly compete for customer orders with their florist members. The wire service network costs have substantially increased over the last few years to a point where it is no longer a viable method of sending or receiving orders for many florists - especially in light of the competition.

'Order Gatherer' (OG) is another term familiar to many wary floral consumers. 'Order Gatherer' is defined very simply: Pursuing floral orders from areas that you do not serve and for areas that you do not serve for the sole purpose of relaying those orders to real local florists that do serve those areas. The OG then receives a 'rebate' from the wire service for their efforts - on top of the 20% commission from the sale and any 'service fees' charged directly to you - the consumer.

Here is an example:

A customer in Florida calls to order a $69.95 rose arrangement from an OG in Texas for delivery to Ohio. A delivery fee of $8.95 and a service or handling fee of $12.95 is then added. The total charge to the customer is $91.85.

The OG then relays the order to a Real Florist in Ohio that designs the rose arrangement and delivers it to the recipient. For this, the OG receives: The service or handling fee of $12.95, the rebate of $7.00, and a commission of $13.99 for a total of $33.94! Remember, a flower has yet to be touched and the order value has been reduced 37%.

As you can see, order gatherers are simply middlemen. Traditionally, real local florists were the middleman and played an important role in getting flowers delivered out of their local area - and we still do. But, with the advent of the internet, more and more customers are purchasing flowers on-line and order gatherers are not the real local florist those customers are likely looking for. Many OG's are telemarketers and online marketers in an office setting. These are the most deceitful of order gatherers. We strongly recommend that these marketing middlemen be avoided when placing your order. Call us and we can help. We keep a growing list of them.

Now, how can you tell if you are dealing with a real local florist, an OG, or a florist OG? A simple rule of thumb is always effective:

Location, location, location! Where are they physically located? Their physical address should be on the main index page of their website. If it is not, you can check the 'About Us' page of their website. If you are unable to tell where they are located viewing these two pages, then you are almost surely dealing with an OG.

What is so bad about these order gatherers? After all, 1800flowers.com, ftd.com and teleflora.com are all OG's. Aren't these names synonymous with quality floral products? Well, let's see:

1800flowers.com - The mother of all order gatherers. 1800flowers.com takes the order and sends it to one of their real local florist members in the recipients town. The real local florist receives only 71% of the money you paid 1800flowers.com. When you order $50.00 worth of flowers from 1800flowers.com, the real local florist gets paid $35.50 for $50.00 worth of flowers. Are you getting your money's worth?

ftd.com - The oldest and most widely recognized name in floral delivery. ftd.com takes the order and sends it to one of their real local florist members in the recipients town. The real local florist receives only 73% of the money you paid ftd.com unless the real local florist is also a member of 1800flowers.com. In this case the real local florist receives only 71% of the money you paid ftd.com. When you order $50.00 worth of flowers from ftd.com, the real local florist gets paid $36.50 for $50.00 worth of flowers. If the real local florist is also a member of 1800flowers.com, they only receive $35.50 for $50 worth of flowers. Are you getting your money's worth?

teleflora.com - The only privately held company of the three. teleflora.com takes the order and sends it to one of their real local florist members in the recipients town. The real local florist receives only 73% of the money you paid teleflora.com. When you order $50.00 worth of flowers from teleflora.com, the real local florist gets paid $36.50 for $50.00 worth of flowers. Are you getting your money's worth?

Keep in mind, that the percentages surrendered by the real local florist are not the only wire service cost to the real local florist. There are membership dues and fees that can be $500 per month. Wire services are expensive for the real local florist and they don't receive all of the money you paid the wire service OG. Are you getting your money's worth?

How about a look at some of the deceitful practices used by OG's.

Eugene, Oregon has a florist listed in printed and online directories called Guaranteed Florist Inc. Guaranteed Florist Inc. has a local Eugene, OR phone number and a physical address of 907 River Rd. #95A Eugene, OR 97404. In reality, there is no such address and your phone call is rolled over to an office in Mission Viejo, California. A little information on Guaranteed Florist Inc. can be found on the Los Angeles Better Business Bureau (www.labbb.org) under guaranteedflorist.com, flowershopping.com, or 11flowers.com as they are all the same company. Oh, and they all have the same 'F' rating.

flora2000.com states they deliver to more than 150 countries using their network of Master Florists. Interesting. By the way, they are located in Gibraltar, Europe. They may have a "master florist" program in Europe, but we've never heard of one in Oregon.

albanywebsites.com aka: flowerhand.com out of Albany, New York states right on the 'About Us' page that they are not a florist. So, we advise customers to stay away from them when you need a florist.

americas-florists.com brings us an outdated directory and OG combo site out of BC, Canada.

localstreets.com is not a real, local florist. They are located in Santa Clara, California and they sell flowers in a box that you must arrange yourself. One dozen roses shipped from who knows where: $59.99. And, you don't get any "frilly fillers or greenery." Wow! We sell them arranged and fresh, like a real local florist should, for less than that.

digitalflowers.com appears to be owned by FTD. There is no location information on the site. Customers must not want to go to ftd.com enough. Wonder why?

partypop.com is a great site if you are looking for a national company that is nowhere near Eugene. Lots of links to an internet flower broker called flower.com.

flowers-nationwide.com is a doorway page into wesleyberryflowers.com. Now this is bad. wesleyberryflowers.com is well known to florists across the country as being very deceitful to consumers by making them believe that wesleyberry.com is a local florist. Actually, Wesley Berry does have a real flower shop - in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

New discovery: flowers-nationwide.com now appears as an online directory that helps consumers find a real local florist - wrong! The entire website is an advertisement designed to dupe the customer into calling Wesley Berry's order brokering business.

e-florist-inc.com looks like the latest incarnation of the infamous Alif Somani in Vancouver B.C. Alif is the CEO of urbanflorist.com. All you need to do is search the www for "urbanflorist" or "alif somani" to know that it would be wise to stay far, far away from this or any other florist business operated by Mr. Somani.

Please check back as we will be adding to this site frequently - much like middlemen continue to add new sites and new gimmicks to entice consumers away from real, local florists. Click for special information about ProFlowers or click to go to the Florist Detective.

Love Is Not Drop-Shipped

Fairfield Flowers is a real, local florist that does not believe ProFlowers, an online flower marketer, is being honest with consumers about local florists. Furthermore, Fairfield Flowers believes that ProFlowers Valentine's Day advertising sinks to a new low in marketing their direct-ship flowers.

ProFlower's claim is that ProFlowers delivers a superior product at a better price than a real, local florist. ProFlowers Valentine's Day advertising states that, "Love comes fresh from the field" and, "Like comes from a florists cooler." ProFlowers seems to be attacking real, local florists after their unsuccessful bid to claim Proflowers flowers were shipped "fresh" from the farm. In fact, ProFlowers flowers are shipped from warehouses across the United States where they are held pending shipment.

Another claim that ProFlowers makes about their flowers is they will be delivered when the customer specifies, not when a florist decides to deliver them. This is interesting to us as ProFlowers does not make their own deliveries. Therefore, they cannot be in control of when the delivery is made. They do use the reliable package-shipping companies UPS and FedEx and just like package delivery, ProFlowers flowers are left at the door when the recipient is not home - no matter the weather.

If you have any questions about this information, please contact us by phone at: 541-689-8807 or 800-835-9171. We also provide more links on our order information page to help consumers find a real, local florist online.

Make this Valentine's Day a memorable one for all the right reasons and order from a real, local florist.

The Florist Detectives

You're a smart shopper

You know that the best flower arrangement value, quality and service on the web comes from dealing directly with the real local florist that will actually create and deliver your order.

Why would you want to trust that special arrangement to some guy sitting behind a computer terminal that doesn't know a gerbera from a gigabyte?

And how come it's so hard to figure out the actual local florists from the weeds of affiliate companies pretending to be 'your' local flower shop?

This site is dedicated to providing consumer information to answer those very questions. Along the way, we'll highlight some of the seemingly deceptive and misleading advertising practices used by faux local florists to confuse, misdirect and plain-old fool the gift-giving public. We'll also provide resources to help you find real local florists.

It's tactics used by deceptive floral wire service affiliates, the ones that generate the letters we receive from defrauded and deceived consumers, that prompted us to create this site. A quote from one recent letter sums it up:

"What should have been a simple, sincere gesture of sending flowers was cheapened by the actions of this (order gatherer) company. Despicable."

Tips to Avoid Being Fooled by Flower Order Gatherers

* Check the Home and About Us pages for the physical address of the business.

* Ask 'What is Your Address?' when you call on the phone. If they decline to provide it, consider calling another florist.

* Check the Contact Us page for a local phone number. It should match the area code of the location to where your flowers are being delivered. If the contact information consists of an email address only, be suspicious.

* Call the local phone number. If it is answered 'Flower Shop' without providing the name of the florist, ask which shop you've called. If they provide a different answer than the one you've dialed, you may have reached a gatherer/broker.

* On the phone, ask for the business' location and driving directions. If they fail to provide these details, consider calling a different florist.

* Ask the florist to itemize all charges. Be especially cautious about companies that charge relay fees, same-day fees, service fees, shipping fees and handling fees. Local florists generally charge for delivery (which you also pay through a broker) but the other surcharges are completely avoidable when ordering direct from the florist who will actually make your arrangement.

* Google the phone number. If it appears under many different business names with different locations, be suspicious.

* Be aware that just because an ad or website name says "City Name Florist", it doesn't mean the company is located in or actually delivers to that city.

* If following a link from a search engine ad, find the site's home page. Order gatherer sites often contain directory-like links named after states, provinces and cities. Each page will appear virtually the same except for the city name.

If you are a US consumer and have been deceived by a call center posing as a local florist or have been mislead by flower advertising, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wants to hear from you.

TV, Newspaper and Web Coverage of Phony Florists

Phantom Florists - Fox 5 Investigative Report, Washington, DC

Buyer Beware: 'Local' Florists Might Not Be Local - WBNS TV10, Columbus, OH

FTC Warns Against Phony Florists Posing As Local - CBS 13, Sacramento, CA

Valentine's Day Flowers - 3 On Your Side, CBS3, Philadelphia, PA

Flower Shopping? Get Real - Human Flower Project

'Local Florist' Might Not Be - Akron Beacon Journal, Akron, OH

Ask questions in picking a florist - Akron Beacon Journal, Akron, OH

"The Internet makes it easy to order the crappiest, overpriced bouquets..." - SmartMoney.com

Hank Investigates: Phony Florists - WHDH-TV Boston, MA

Your Local Florist Might Not Be Local At All - WISN ABC12, Milwaukee, WI

Telemarketers Posing as Phony Florists - KSBW-8, Salinas, CA

Where Did Your Flowers Come From? - WCCO-4, Milwaukee, WI

Finding A Florist - Terri Gruca, Consumer Reporter, WCCO-4 Milwaukee, WI

Man Warns About Flower Scam - The Denver Channel - 7 News, Denver, CO

Cutting Out The Florist Middle Man

Informed shoppers know that 'cutting out the middle man' and ordering direct from a local real florist saves them time and money and allows them to get a more accurate idea of what will be delivered. How does some company in India pretending to be in New York have any idea what the local US or Canadian florist has in inventory? Well, they don't...which is why buyers must agree to accept this disclaimer before they'll accept your order:

1. The picture above is indicative of the product being delivered, and the product being delivered may not look exactly as shown.

2. Sometimes, the delivering outlet may substitute, without notice to me, flowers, container or accessories from those as shown incase those are not available. This is acceptable to me.

3. I will not deny payment to XXXXXX.com on account of a substitution in flowers, container and/or accessories.

You're basically asked to agree that if you don't get what you see, it's not really their problem. It's yours.

Order Gatherer Rewards

The sad fact is that some of the well-known floral wire services give one set of rules to real flower shop members and virtually ignore many of those rules when it comes to some large-volume broker agents, 'internet only', 'online only' and 'virtual' florists.

Some believe that the once vaunted integrity of the florist networks has now degraded into a fight to the bottom of the (flower) bucket. Instead of suspending memberships of companies that use false claims, deceptive location information, and misleading prices, these wire services often fight with each other to offer higher and higher rewards (in the form of rebates and other incentives) to some of the most egregious weeds on the web and in your local Yellow Pages.

That's right. There's a bounty on the head of each consumer that florist wire service brokers can route through themselves and the wire services before finally redirecting your order to the real florists who will actually make and deliver that special bouquet. And the side trip can cost you as much as an extra $25.00.

Despite reading ads that say 'local florist' and 'family owned and operated' you may be phoning a local family owned and operated call center.

Also, see our Valentine's Day shopping tips for further advice about ordering roses and romantic arrangements for your sweetheart and avoiding disappointment with online purchases.