Please Avoid Order Gatherers! Call Your Local Florist

If you've ever hear of Proflowers.com or Just Flowers.com or From You Flowers.com, then you know what I'm talking about when I say "Order Gatherer." If you don't, then let me inform you. Order Gatherers are floral websites that advertise as if they were located in any given city that a customer searches for online without actually being in that city or physically delivering arrangements there. Put another way, if you do a Google search for "Crossville, TN florist" then probably two out of the top ten results will be websites for florists actually located in Crossville, TN. The rest will be Order Gatherers...websites devoted only to taking orders, and once they have taken the order and received payment, they then forward the order to shops actually located in the delivery area with promises of 100% satisfaction, same-day delivery, and guarantees of certain products.

The simple search listed above (Google search "Crossville, TN florist") returns results at the top of the page that are advertisers who pay a lot of money to have their ads appear at the top of the results page. These are what we in the floral industry like to call "Order Gatherers." The simple Google search that I performed brought one of the top 3 worst order gatherers...Just Flowers. com.

These insidious companies lead their customers to believe that they are actually located in the city that the search results say they are, however you can search every small town between Crossville and Nashville and 9 times out of 10 you will have a search result that lists an order gatherer as serving the city you are looking for.

This is devestating to small floral shops that don't have a large advertising budget and can't afford to secure a top listing on every search engine out there. As a consumer though, one must ask what is the downside to this development. Sure the flower shops are upset because they are loosing business, but what why should you as a flower-buying customer be concerned about the emergence and online dominance of order gatherers?

There are many answers to this question. To begin with, the customer is being misled to believe that the florist they are ordering from has a store located in the city where they are sending flowers. This is not the case. Order gatherers are located all across the country, and rarely ever in the city to which you are sending flowers. From You Flowers, for example is located in Old Saybrook, CT. However they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee and a guaranteed delivery on orders sent to Crossville, TN...orders that they never physically design or deliver! Customers are promised specific products that companies like From You Flowers can NEVER actually deliver upon. (Actual example from our shop) A customer orders a funeral arrangement from From You Flowers who promises that red gladiolas which appear in the picture on their website will be sent to a funeral in Crossville, TN. From You Flowers uses Teleflora or FTD to send the order to us during a period of the year when gladiolas are out of season and are not available. We substitute for a comprobable arrangement, however we receive a call from the sender complaining because he did not receive gladiolas like he was promised. When he placed the order, he was promised by the From You Flower call center representative that he would receive gladiolas in his arrangement. From You Flowers, however, never bothered to contact a florist who actually serves the area and ask if glads were available. This hurts local florists because when products that appear on order gatherer's websites are not available, they must reject orders or substitute for other products and risk complaints, and hurts consumers because they don't receive the product that they actually order.

The point of this post is to warn you to avoid order gatherers and ALWAYS call your local florist when you need to send flowers. Even if you need to send flowers out of town, you should always consult with your local florist and let them send the order or at least get a number to a florist that is actually located in the city to which you are sending flowers. Never trust order gatherers...they will always let you down!!

As always visit us at http://www.giftsfromthehearttn.com/ Unlike an order gatherer, we will never promise what we can't deliver!