Flowers insolita Blog

A well-known dot-com flower company (whose name begins with a number) has been busy promoting “Free shipping or No Service Charge” ad campaign.

A misleading word play.  Here’s the truth…
Most consumers will not get what they might think they are getting: Free delivery of florists-delivered products.  Delivery charge is hidden and consumers still pay these charges.

What consumers don’t pay this time is a middleman’s commission called “Service Charge” which, if they call a local florist directly, they don’t have to pay in the first place.

Please see the chart below.

In this example, a consumer is sending a $40 bouquet.

If she calls a local florist directly (right column), she would be told how much her delivery charge would be ($10 in this example).  With sales tax, she would be paying a little over $54 in this example.

She would have to pay >$15 more if she went through .com flower companies.

Take a look at the left column.

First of all, her delivery charge would be “included” (meaning “hidden“) in the price listed in their web page.  It doesn’t matter which .com flower companies she goes (FT*, 1800*, or whatever, all the same).  Delivery charges are always hidden.

What does it mean?  Well, what it means is that, to order a $40 bouquet, she would have to order a $50 bouquet on their web ($40 plus $10 hidden delivery charge).

If she ordered a $40 bouquet, thinking that she is sending $40-worth of flowers, she will be disappointed….

Or not.  Because she won’t be seeing the flowers delivered, she won’t know how tiny her gorgeous “$40″ bouquet would look like, – the fact that these .com companies are fully taking advantage of.

Wait….  It actually gets even more interesting.

During checkput, they will charge her a “Service Change” (or “Handling Charge”), usually in the range of $12-15.  She would think this is a delivery charge.

Sorry, but she is wrong.

This “Service Charge” is a middleman’s commission that this .com company keeps in their pocket.  It has nothing to do with delivery fee.

All in all, she would end up paying $69.51 on their website, >$15 more than is necessary.  Isn’t this a rip-off?

We believe it is, and can be completely avoided if consumers call a local florist direct.  Virtually all of us have 1-800 numbers and many of us now have a website for you to place order online.

Maybe our site is a little more inconvenient than national .com flower websites.  But you don’t pay the middleman’s commission here!

What this national .com company is saying in this ad campaign is that, because they are afraid of losing sales, they will remove this middleman’s rip-off fee for the time being.

Should you jump onto this opportunity to take advanatge of this “free” offer?  We are not so sure about that.