Floral wire service

A floral wire service, also known as a flower relay service is a company established primarily to facilitate order exchange and fulfillment between local florists and/or third-party sales agents of floral products. Floral wire services offer proprietary networks, clearing house services and operate as affiliate marketing schemes.

History

The first floral wire service, established by a group of 15 US florists in 1910, was Florists' Telegraph Delivery Service (FTD). The group was formed as a cooperative and was mutually owned by its members. Members exchanged orders via telegraph messages and hence the name 'wire service' was used to identify the order exchange business model. In 1965, with the introduction of international order sending, FTD changed its name to Florists' Transworld Delivery.

In the 1920's, a group of British florists formed a similar 'Flowers by Wire' group. This group, also a business cooperative and affiliated with FTD, began operating under the name Interflora in 1953. By the 1970's, most European countries had their own Interflora units.

In addition to the cooperatives, independently owned and operated for-profit companies built their own proprietary networks including Teleflora and 1-800-Flowers with their BloomNet division.

Operations

Similar to travel agents, wire service affiliates' main functions are to act as agents and sell products and services on behalf of local florist suppliers. Unlike other retail businesses, sellers are not required to keep stock on hand. A flower arrangement or other floral gift is not purchased from a supplier unless a customer requests the item. The flowers or other floral gift are supplied to them at a discount. The profit is therefore the difference between the advertised price which the customer pays and the discounted price at which it is charged to the agent. This is known as the commission. A wire service affiliate selling agent typically earns 20% of the product and local delivery price, plus services charges. Additionally, many florist wire services pay performance rebates to affiliate resellers.

Geographic Misrepresentation

For their first 90 years of existence, wire service participation was limited to local florists. Members were prohibited from advertising outside the markets they directly served with their own delivery vans. As telephone technology advanced, especially the development of remote call forwarding and toll free numbers, some florists and affiliate marketers used these tools to reach consumers beyond their immediate service areas and then used wire services for fulfillment.

In one scheme, wire service affiliates purchase local telephone numbers and list corresponding business names which include the name of a city and the words 'florist' or 'flowers'. Calls made to these numbers are routinely forwarded to distant call centers where telemarketers collect the orders and relay them via a wire service back to local flower shops, generally subtracting undisclosed fees. The seemingly deceptive marketing practice has been the subject of numerous media reports [ [http://www3.whdh.com/features/articles/hank/BO34644/= Hank Investigates: Phony Florists] November 20 2006] [ [http://www.wsoctv.com/specialreports/2827236/detail.html= Where Are Your Flowers Coming From?] WSOCTV Charlotte, NC ] and a warning bulletin from the US Federal Trade Commission. [ [http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt036.shtm= Petal Pushers: Is Your 'Local' Florist Really Long-Distance?] April 1998]

With the increased use of the world wide web to purchase flowers, affiliates have also used geographic misrepresentation via doorway pages to mislead consumers into believing they are purchasing from legitimate local florists.

Twenety-four states have now outlawed geographic misrepresentation by floral product sellers in Yellow Pages and in online advertising.

Major Wire Services

* BloomNet (Wire Service division of 1-800-Flowers)
* Blossoms Network
* B Brooks
* FTD
* Interflora
* Teleflora
* Teleflorist

References

ee Also

* [http://floristdetective.com/wst_page13.aspx How Flower Wire Services Work]