Sunday, October 20, 2013

Great Results (BIG Smile)

Update on the Feb. 23 post:

We have been wire service free for seven months!  We were forced to pay them more money for three of those months, but it was a fourth of what we paid before.  It has been a long, somewhat difficult journey adjusting to all our changes.  The worst thing is our Point of Sale system.  We have not been happy with the way it works or with the technical support.  After Valentine's Day next year, we may change to yet another POS system and hopefully, we will like it better.

The most important thing I just have to say is this:::::    We have saved nearly $10,000 dollars in expenses since March 1 !!!!!!.   Happy Dance!!!   And.............. our sales have increased slightly, proving that we don't need any stinking wire service to maintain or increase our sales!!

Thank you, that is all the bragging I need to do right now.
Later.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Cool in the '60's, Cooler in 2013

You could never guess what this pretty scene used to be!  Way back in the day (the 60's, I think) florists were compelled to be in FTD to increase their sales and to offer the service of sending flowers out of town for their loyal customers.  One of FTD's requirements was that each flower shop had to have a cooler in their front room that displayed fresh cut flowers.  
Fast forward to the 80's & 90's when the cooler motor died and the current owners did not want to fix or replace it.  FTD relaxed their rules about the display cooler, luckily. And small town shops don't sell enough fresh flowers to walk in customers to justify the expense of a cooler in the front room in addition to the big walk-in in the workroom.
Now jump to 2006 when I inherited that cooler.  I've been trying to figure out what to do with that white elephant for the last almost seven years.  I tore the doors off of it first and opened up the space, but that didn't satisfy me.  Later on, I painted it a happy, buttery yellow color.  That was okay for a while.
Last month I started to wage war on that poor old cooler again.  This time I pulled and tugged, and ripped every single piece off of that thing that I could.  I ended up with it as open as I could make it without tearing it and the office completely down.  The covering was stripped off the walls, revealing  black walls covered in creosote or something water resistant, that was rough painted & very textured.  With inspiration from my pal, Keith, I got out the bucket of antique white paint and a dry brush and I slapped a sparse layer of white over those rough black walls and the picture tells the rest of the story!!  A coat of black paint on the floor finished it off and I am tickled to death and have to tell everybody about it!!
I was going to put some white shelves in there, but I just got those beautiful Billy Jacobs canvasses in so I hung them in there, instead.  I think the galvanized bucket, cabinet, and pitcher look great with the shabby walls, along with a couple of other wood pieces we have painted.  I am in love with this little corner of my little flower and gift shop!

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Big Changes are in store for us and I hope you don't realize what is going on!

After much angst &  hand wrenching,  I have mailed the certified letter to Teleflora telling them we are terminating our membership.  Why is this such a big deal?
First of all, we use a Point of Sale system powered by Teleflora, we have a website maintained by Teleflora, we send and receive out of town orders through Teleflora, and Teleflora processes our credit cards.
Our Point of Sale system is the equivalent of another human working in our shop.  It does a huge amount of work for us everyday.  Now we must learn to use a whole new system.  This is a big deal.
I have committed to the installation of a new POS and I hope we catch on quick as we learn how to use it.  What if I picked a terrible system and we hate it and it doesn't do everything we need it to do???  What will I do???
We have had a new website in the works for six months now.  It is almost ready to use.  Our new web address is www.ravennakyflowers.com..  Thank you, Pam.  The website is the least of my worries, thankfully!
Teleflora demands a whole lot of our money every month in membership fees, magazine subscrptions, advertising, products, floral selection guide updates?, website maintenance, and the list goes on & on & on.
That is the price we have been paying for the convenience of clicking a button to send an order to another florist in another town.  We lose money every day by paying Teleflora this extravagant amount of money.  As we say goodbye to Teleflora, we will be building an address book full of the names of the florists in a lot of different towns that we will have to call ourselves.  There are a lot of towns that do not have any florists that belong to a wire service, so we already have a list of florists to call in these town.  We will be spending a lot of time finding florists in a lot of towns so we can continue to do this service for our customers.  I am so relieved to finally get out from under this big bill from Teleflora each month!
The last issue is our credit card processing.  I have committed to a new processor.  I hope I have made the right decision in choosing the one I have.
See why I don't sleep well?  I am getting so tired just talking about this.  I need a nap before the game starts.