Flowers insolita Blog

When you place an order for flower delivery at 1-800-flowers.com, FTD.com, or ProFlowers.com, at the end of checkout, they will charge you a fee for their service.

In case for 1-800-flowers, it’s $12.99 and they call it “Shipping and handling fee.”

You might think that the fee is reasonable, because they will deliver your flowers to the recipient. Any florist charge a delivery fee, right?

Wrong. 1-800-flowers’ “Shipping” fee is not a delivery charge. The actual delivery charge is already included in the price of flowers. This fee is a “Service charge”, an additional profit, that they keep and has nothing to do with delivery.

Now 1-800 went a step further. They are offering “FREE shipping and handling.” We believe that this promotion is quite misleading, because the actual delivery charge is not waived (it’s included in the price of flowers you order).

What they are waiving is their mark-up profit called “Shipping and Handling” fee, the extraneous money that you would not pay if you called a local florist directly.

Over 100 retail florists around the country signed a complaint letter to FTC (Federal Trade Commission) to investigate.

Needless to say, we are one of the signatories.

In Nov 11 issue of USA Weekend magazine, Linnea Johansson, author of “Perfect Parties: Tips and Advice from a New York Party Planner”, offered the following “tip” for Holiday parties.

“Flower arrangements can be a total rip-off,” Johansson says. Instead, buy one kind of flower, in one color, in bulk. “Make your own multiple arrangements,” she says.

First of all, we must appreciate Ms Johansson for her strategically placing the word “can” in front of “rip off”, as it makes her statement impossible to prove wrong. Any merchandise or service “can” be a rip-off for sure.

Yet coming from a (supposed) party expert, we believe that her statement is nonetheless libelous and merits our formal response.

The essence of her accusation is that professional flower arrangements for a party are overpriced relative to the value you get from the arrangements. She goes on to imply that you can create arrangements of the same value, just by going to Costco, buying flowers in bulk, and arranging them by yourself.

She failed to mention, however, that most likely you can’t create professional arrangements, unless you are a pro. Our lead designer (Lori) has over 30 years of experience in this field. She was chosen as one of the best designers in Long Island. By trusting us as a florist for your party, what you are paying for is not just a bunch of flowers, but actually years of professional experience and skills that should make your party a great success.

Apparently, Ms Johansson sees absolutely no value in our professional experience. OK, then, shouldn’t we also skip the service of a professional chef like Ms Johansson, because it “can” be a total “rip-off”? Of course not. Most of us can’t cook like a professional chef.

We believe that Ms Johansson could have made her point across without insulting other profession she apparently knows nothing about.

Also check out “Real Holiday Flower Tips for Linnea Johansson” written by Cathy at Avante Gardens (Anaheim, CA)

On my way home today, a Honda smashed into the passenger side of my car.  I’m really p*ssed.

It happened at the intersection of Rt25 & Round Swamp Rd.  It was raining and dark.  Worst of all, the traffic light was completely out.  Every car was stopping at the intersection because the light was out.

This Honda probably didn’t see that the light was out.  It smashed right into my car when I was making a left turn.  I saw it coming; it made no attempt to slow down.  If I had not made a quick left turn, we would have had a head-on collision!  Jesus!

According to Fox News Texas, a man is suing 1-800-flowers for a million dollars. He alleges that 1-800-flowers revealed to his wife a secret that he had sent a dozen red roses with a love note to another woman, and got into trouble as the result. Here’s the quote:

A Missouri City man is suing an online florist because they sent his wife a receipt for flowers he ordered – the problem is the flowers weren’t for her.

Red roses are supposed to symbolize love, passion, happiness and romance – but all that changes when your wife finds a receipt for flowers you sent to your girlfriend. [snip]

In April 2007, Greer, who was in the middle of a divorce, used the company website, 1800flowers.com, to order a dozen red roses and teddy bear for a woman who was not his wife.

According to Kennitra Foote, the attorney for Greer, “a couple months later 1800flowers sent a thank you card to his home and his wife who he was reconciling with saw the card and said who ordered flowers and why?”

After Mrs. Greer called the company, she was sent a copy of the receipt by fax along with the note he sent with the flowers and what he purchased.

The copy of the note included with the purchased items read “Just wanted to say I love you,” which was sent to the girlfriend.

After reading it, Mrs. Greer wrote her husband Leroy a note of her own [see the picture below] before refiling her divorce papers.

According to Leroy Greer, she decided to ask for more money. He told FOX 26 News that he “was gonna give her $150,000 and $4,000 a month in child support. She was satisfied with that.”

Mr. Greer said finding out about those $100 roses caused his wife to demand a $400,000 lump sum plus $6,000 a month in child and spousal support.”

Mrs. Greer declined the request to interview with FOX 26 News, but 1-800-FLOWERS sent a statement to FOX 26 that said:

“We take pride in creating relationships with our customers by recognizing and thanking them for their business. We take all matters relating to our customers seriously; however, we are not responsible for an individual’s personal conduct. Beyond this, it is the company’s policy not to comment on pending litigation and legal matters.”

Foote said “People are going to swing one way or another they’re gonna think he doesn’t deserve anything he just got busted he should just take it, but its more than just his reputation or him being an adulterer.”

According to Leroy Greer, it’s about his soured marriage. Greer is seeking more than one million dollars in damages.

I can’t wait to see Lori showing up in Judge Judy.  When that happens, of course she must wear a T-shirt with our logo and telephone number on it, so that million people can see it.

Judge Judy is one of my favorite programs.

By the way, here’s one of my favorite episodes: I found it on Youtube.

The case is about a cop (plaintiff) and a young girl (defendent) who was pulled over for speeding by that cop.  Whe she was pulled over, she told the cop that her father was also a cop (which is true), trying to get a break from him.  He simply ignored her plea and gave her the ticket, which was the right thing to do.  Now angry over his “rude” treatment, the kind of treatment which she apparently has never experienced in her 21 yrs of life, she filed a complaint to the police department, which triggered the investigation.  He was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing.  Now the cop is suing the girl for false allegation.  Watch…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Qp-hY_Zsk[/youtube]

Now Richard is taking extended leave, I am back in delivering flowers again. Since I like driving, I enjoy delivery. BUT, there are also things I hate…

(1) Unleashed dogs

While it is illegal to let a dog loose, I see at least one or two unleashed dogs per week. Maybe the owner is believing that his/her “leetle” puppy can’t hurt anyone. But they don’t understand that, for that “leetle” puppy, a delivery man is actually a total stranger invading his/her territory. It is any dog’s instinct to protect the territory and the way they do is to bite the invader.

Please dog owners, leash your puppies. It’s not only dangerous to delivery men, but also potentially harmful to your dog, too. If your dog bites a person, your dog will be labeled “dangerous” by New York statue. Depending on where you live, you may no longer keep your dog.

(2) Unmarked houses

When we deliver, we need to be able to see the street number on the house. Unfortunately, there are many houses that do not post their street numbers. I see one of those “un-marked” houses everyday.

Then all I can do is to guess. If I try to reach “3 xyz st” and can see “1″ and “5″, I assume that the house between “1″ and “5″ must be “3″. It works this way most of the time, but not in rural area such as in Lloyd Harbor.

Oh my, Lloyd Harbor is a delivery nightmare. The houses in Lloyd Harbor are located in the wood, accessible only through a tiny private road. Sometimes several houses have their mail boxes put together at the entrance of the private road, so that mailmen don’t have to drive into the private road.  But we have to.  Now, OK, I see number 2, 4, 6, 8 in each mail box. So I drive into the private road and, at the end of the road, see four houses standing apart from each other in the wood. Please tell me which one is the number 4???

Flower delivery may not matter that much, but imagine you had an emergency and called 911. Unless your house is clearly marked, the emergency vehicle won’t be able to locate your house quickly.

So please put up a distinctive sign with your street number or your name, preferably both, right in front of your house, somewhere a driver can see from the road. The good place is on the mail box if it’s located in front of your house, or right next to the front door.

People sometimes ask us why flowers are so “expensive”?

OK, my answer is simple: flowers are not expensive at all. In fact the price of flower arrangements has been flat for the last 10-15 years. During the same period, the price of gas tripled, while the average price of meal in a restaurant doubled. Everything went up, except for flowers.

Considering all the human efforts put into making a flower arrangement (from grower to importer to wholesaler to retail florist), I cannot help wondering how come flowers are so cheap now.

Question: What kind of gift item can you purchase for a mere $50 these days?

With a simple phone call to a high-end florist like us, $50 would purchase a tasteful flower arrangement that can be (1) customized to your taste and (2) hand-delivered to your recipient on the same day.

Or, you can go to a shopping mall by yourself, if you don’t mind spending your time to look for a nice gift that costs less than $50. However, you can’t customize it to your taste, for that kind of money. After finally deciding on what you want (a pair of inexpensive sandals maybe?), you then drive to a drug store and buy gift wrapping materials. Exhausted, you go home and wrap your gift, only to find out you’re too tired to bring it to the recipient today…

Or, you can spend hours on the Internet, looking through all those virtual gift shops. You then suddenly realized that the gift must be delivered right a way. You click on the delivery option, and they say you’ve got to pay $20 for “over-night” delivery. Only $30 left for the gift itself! You also remember that last time you ordered one of those, the actual item you received looked a lot cheaper than the picture shown on their web-site. You never know what you’ll get…

Fore more information about the impact of flowers as a gift, see “Flower Fundamentals” at aboutflowers.com (Society of American Florists, of which we are a member).

We would like to warn our loyal customers that there is a scam website called “flowersinsolita.com” (without a dash/hyphen ‘-’) which has nothing to do with us, flowers-insolita.com.

Their sole purpose of existence is to trap the customers who are looking for our website and re-direct them to paid advertisers, earning commissions in the process.

Does this mean that our website is popular enough so that this Internet scam artist (see below) thinks it’s worth stealing our identity?

Here’s the scam artist pretending to be us:

Navigation Catalyst Systems, Inc.
2101 Rosecrans Ave. #2000
El Segundo, CA 90245

I’m sure this is just a basement “company” run by a low-life geek who probably has no talent other than taking advantage of hard-working Americans.  A quick google search for “Navigation Catalyst Systems” brough up a ton of scam reports.

The harder you an’I work,

The less and less you an’I make,

Welcome to America

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiqiNYTpLkY[/youtube]