Fading Florists Blame the Internet for Direct Sales

Posted on March 6, 2013 Written by 7 Comments

 

By Paul Pannone

In a progressing eWedNewz story direct sale of products by manufacturers to consumers that cut out the middleman (retailer) is no longer affecting just the apparel business.  The Internet links consumers, wholesalers and buyers directly to the source, decimating the streams and layers of business.

Organizations like 1800flowers make it easy for consumers to send flowers but make it impossible for independent florists to compete.

 

Private discussions stemming from a current eWedNewz story say Alan Dessy should be run out-of-town on a rail because of his practice of selling consumers direct. Privately some manufacturers and sources say they admire his brilliance to execute where business is eventually heading anyway. But along the way retail stores and business owners have another view.

Lisa Marie Dwyer of Creative Ambiance told eWedNewz the following:

 ”Just want to give you my 2 cents today about the direct sell thing.

As a florist I have recently come face to face with this in my own business. As you know florists are fading and there are fewer and fewer each month (around here it seems. ) I was at the flower market to pick up my order last week and discovered that a local hotel was no longer purchasing flowers from florists, but direct from the market. I was shown that the casino in CT was doing the same. Worse news came when I discovered that one of my competitors for a job was a local grocery chain.

Big business is going to kill us all eventually. It has not stopped with dresses, shoes or accessories. This big business = $ saving mentality is killing America. Do these consumers care that I have a family to support? NO- I spoke with the caterer later in the day about the client she referred to me using the grocery store for her wedding and soon discovered that the store would not be providing set up but expect the caterer to do it. I felt like asking the bride if she was purchasing a meat platter from the store for the caterer to arrange and display as well. Where are people’s heads???  They are certainly not thinking of who has their best interests at heart. We put our heart and soul into everything that we do. The grocery store is going to drop and go.

Dwyer included the post on her own Facebook page, garnering statements from her friends, including Annmarie Therriault of Couture Bridal .

“Four bridal shops in Rhode Island in the past 8 months have closed due to people using us for dressing rooms and then ordering online. Soon there will be no places to go to try on dresses, feel fabrics or make those memories with their families trying on dresses in a fully equipped store with knowledgeable stylists if this continues. SHOP SMALL BUSINESS>SHOP LOCAL.”

The battle cry of smaller operators against Box Box stores is not new. But, painfully, small independent businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to fight off the growing advances of large operations in their fight to win over consumers.

What do you think? Will independents ever win against big stores?

eWedNewz

All Rights Reserved

2013

 

Filed Under: Anti Fairy Dust, bridal, Bridal Dresses, Direct sales online, eWedNewz, Florists, General News, Ongoing Story Coverage, Ongoing Story Investigation, Paul Pannone Tagged: , , , , , , ,
  • http://www.MyOwnBridalShow.com/ Ray Brown/My Own Bridal Show

    For small business I don’t think it’s about “winning” (sorry Charlie Sheen)…it’s about “competing” and getting their fair share!

    To compete you HAVE to differentiate, create value, be competitive (not the
    cheapest) and engage your targeted prospects at all levels in your marketing
    campaigns. With Google search queries focused on “local search” as
    the highest priority, small businesses DO have the opportunity to differentiate on
    the internet but generally fail to do so.

    An Example: Most small business websites have an “About Us/Me” but
    rarely tell much about themselves and often are trying to create the illusion
    they are something larger than they really are. People WANT to know who they are doing business with. Why not let people know who you are and that you are a small business engaged with and focused on client service and satisfaction? Pull the curtain back and let them see you for who you are and results you create…then let them decide who they “feel better” about doing business with. You’re not going to win them all, but you will get your fair share based on creating a deeper online connection and offering more value and better service than the “big boxes”.

  • James Simpson

    I have recently entered into the wedding market assisting a local city-owned venue (restored mansion) that has a non-profit running it improve their bookings with weddings. So far, so good…about one solid inbound lead and appointment per day. However, I’m hearing about country clubs with many, many millions of asset capitalization that are charging no more than a per person catering fee ($40-$50) to use their facilities and including the set up and all services.

    It is my feeling that the wedding industry vendors that do not have irreplaceable, low margin, established, non-retail hard assets on the ground (like a venue), will have a difficult time meeting the pricing thresholds of wholesale providers. Flowers, dresses, accessories, even the cake and rings are now available online or from Costco…even the supermarket. Local jewelers are telling me they’re not certain what to do next…the big diamond sales are gone, which means they also lose that connection to the new family that has sustained them. Joann Fabrics has a “wedding” aisle. One venue I know of uses Giant Eagle as their sole source of cakes. (Cake baker makes $7.75 per hour at Giant Eagle and has no benefits.)

    To me, this seems like another iteration of the buy local movement failure. Joining costs a substantive fee, and communities are charged with creating non-profits to support the local movement. However, the most the buy local movement can claim as success, and I’m somewhat involved there, on a national level is anecdotal at best. They actually quote 1%-3% increases y-t-y for their affiliate member associations as proof of their “community” value.

    I’m thinking we’ll soon have Walmart Weddings. Food from hot-dog-on-a-stick, flowers from grocery or the silk flower aisle, officiant is the store manager, and the beverages are provided by the guy that hawks the food processors in the fruit and veggie dept…

  • http://www.facebook.com/wa.jacqui Jacqui Wadsworth

    The plight of the small business is really more complex than
    fighting against big box stores. Small
    businesses are fighting on an 8-fold problem.
    They must compete with big box stores, internet sales sites with
    legitimate products similar to their own, knock-off sites with products
    appearing to be similar to their own, and sites with used products with better
    name brands from gowns to decorations, compete with their own industry’s
    manufacturers who are getting online, they must do the best job they can in
    economic downturn times with less staff, which leaves less time for learning
    better business practices, and for having an online presence in a social
    networking world, and they have less cash reserves with which to do all of the
    above. Small businesses who find their “niche”
    will do well and those who continue on with old business paradigms will be
    gone. The amazing fact is that so many
    people are continuing to jump into the bridal and wedding services industry
    thinking it’s a cash cow industry.

    Of interest is the amount of wedding experts with “twenty”
    plus years experience now giving seminars on how to double your existing
    business. I think all those people are
    people who couldn’t make a go of it in their field, and now just want a payday
    for poor information based on the mistakes they made that put them out of
    business. The sad news is that desperate
    people will fall for that crap because they love the business. The even more pitiful fact is whatever put
    the so-called experts out of business is probably all old news because our
    industry is changing so quickly. That’s
    a lose/lose proposition.

    The market is telling us, at least in the gown business,
    that the average bride’s willing to pay $349 to $1299 for her gown. Small retailers who can’t find a way to meet
    this price will be out of business within a year. Manufacturers who refuse to provide lines to
    sell to their retailers to support what the market has defined as the average
    bride’s price point will find themselves becoming retailers if they want to
    stay in business. Wedding times are tough and it’s past time for
    an evolution of the manufacturer/retailer relationship.

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  • http://twitter.com/petalandbean Petal and Bean

    Why the affiliate link for 1800 flowers right in the article?

    • eWedNewz

      Because; that’s where I put it….

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