Sending Smiles ~

Don't you love the Internet? We do but with the invent of the internet came a very bad thing for florists ~ The dreaded Order Gatherer. What is an Order Gatherer you ask? It's a business who sometimes claims to be a physical floral store, located in a town where they really are not located. How do they stay in business? By acting like they are a real florist , they "gather" orders and then turn around and send them via a floral network such as Teleflora or FTD back to real florists who then fill them.  Why is this bad?  First off, it's bad for the florist, because the orders are "stolen" away from them and then often resent back to them at a lower price than the consumer pays.  Second, this is bad for the consumer because they are often paying a high fee almost $20 in some cases, that goes to the "order gatherer" directly and not into their floral gift. Some even do what we call skimming, which means they pay the florist even less than

Let's face it, if you are in retail, your life is very hard during the holidays. Just as the office people are getting time off to go shopping and cook, those of us working retail are working long hours with little sleep and socializing. But that being said, we do manage to find some time to have some fun and goof off. Even Kevin and I, who work more than our employees (to the tune of 80 hours + at this time of year), still manage to see friends, go Christmas light looking, eat out and go to the mall. Hard to believe, but true! This past weekend our area got about 14 inches of snow. The staff all dug out and made it in safely and the flower production began!! Today Sheryl started the transition of the window displays from Christmas to Winter. Why so early? Mainly because we have sold so much of our Christmas product, there is nothing to display in the window! That's a good thing being over the next two days, the Christmas product must roll out and make room for Valentine'