Sending Smiles ~

Yes folks, they have arrived, come and get them! This years calendar (provided to us from our Floral Business Partner Teleflora) are especially pretty this year. We have them available at both our Flower Shop locations - Princeton Forrestal Village and 45 East Afton Avenue, Yardley Pa. Get them while they last! 

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...

For those of you who read my blog, you know I rarely make it overly "Salesish" but in the spirit of Christmas and knowing that many of you will be running around like crazy looking for gifts, I thought it might be nice if I point out some of my favorite offerings this year. The orders for some of our Teleflora product have started coming in and I have to say I really love the Christmas Cookie Bouquet. The mixing bowl is simply adorable and the arrangmenet really makes up nice. Because this is a Teleflora product, it's easy for us to help you send this to just about any location in the US and Canada. At $52.95 this really makes a sweet gift for anyone on your list and shopping online and hand delivery make it both fast and simple. Another Teleflora  product that I'm really liking is the Teleflora Lenox Holly-Day arrangement. The bowl is aspecially lovely and we have already sold quite a few of these, minus the flowers. That, to me, is the ultimate compliment as peo...

Today, after meeting with a bride and groom in the office,  I ran down to the Princeton shop to see the window display that Sheryl was creating. I knew she had been waiting for our Wizard of Oz containers to arrive from Teleflora and wanted to decorate one of the windows with them. Anyone that knows Sheryl knows she loves the Wizard of Oz!! She also loves her job of keeping our windows seasonal and updated for both of the shops. I love the thought that she puts into these windows, even working from home as she did creating the "yellow brick road" for this theme.  As usual she did an outstanding job and I was anxious to get a couple of cute photos showing her handy work. While I was taking the photos, two young boys came riding by on their bikes. As they rode by, they obviously noticed the "Oz" window display and prompty (and quite alarmingly) applied their breaks!! Actually, they scared the .... out of me. How cool was that? Here were young boys, probably about 10...