Flower Delivery UK, or why send flowers via a relay service

The remarkable rise in technology in the last few years is rendering or will some parts of the Flower Relay service worldwide. Why should that be?

Organisations such as Interflora and Teleflorist (Teleflower) have been in business between 40 – 60 years. Before the advent of the computer orders taken in one part of the country for another part, were initially sent by post or by telephone or both, and initially very small area’s were covered. As time went on the organisations became bigger and had a greater coverage then gradually it was possible to send flowers to many places around the globe.

 Both organisations became bigger and bigger and had to have clearing houses to deal with the memberships and administration, huge Telex machines were used to transmit and receive orders from all over the world, then in small steps the computer was being made more available to the everyday user, they gradually became smaller machines, micro digital technology and fibre optic means of transmission or what we call today Broadband, have escalated to what we have now with speeds of transmission that information now travels at light speed around the world and who knows what the next 10 years will bring.

It is even now possible to type anything in to a computer in the language of your country and have it translated into the language of the receiving country.

The relay organisations have at the same time expanded into multi national companies worth many millions of pounds, who in turn are now providing everything for their membership which far extends beyond the realms of selling flowers, its something they have to do as the pressures from other industries selling other than their own product and knowing that the technology now in place really makes what they are doing almost redundant, although you will never hear them admitting to that.

However having said that, most Florists that you see out on the high street belong to a relay service of one form or another and in the last 10 years other names have joined the market place. Why do Florists stay with them when there is this technology about?

It’s really quite simple, each business is after as much as it can get, the market place is so competitive these days and you have to stay ahead of the game if you can, yes you have your own website to promote you and your product, yes you give the customer the means to order and pay online but yes you keep your relay service as well because humans are creatures of habit, and they will continue to use these services out of convenience but one day it will happen as more and more people go online, and more easy to use systems are available and because everyone knows that to send flowers direct yourself will get you a better deal than any relay service could give for the money you wish to spend.

Say you send a bouquet valued at £40.00 plus delivery, the value of the bouquet at the receiving end will be approximately £33.00 after all the administration charges have been extracted, sending yourself will still get you your £40.00 or its equivalent value wherever you have sent it.

Thats how it is, senders don’t like to think that the recipient will not get what they have paid at the sending end but there’s nothing that can be done because each relay organisation will take out its charges before the executing florist gets paid, so if they have not deducted the proper amounts from the value before they make up and send the flowers then they will be out-of-pocket. The florists art is that he/she has to make the bouquet look worth the money paid by the sender.

Cutting out the middleman as they say will get you a better deal, the florist is able to to make the bouquet up to full value plus they get their money straight away rather than two months later, it’s a win win for everyone.

Now I am not trying to do any organisation out of business far from it but I am just pointing out a better way, and one of those ways is when you want to send flowers to say America you can just go to your browser and type in Florists in New York (as example) you will instantly get a list on your screen or you could type in Flower Delivery in New York and hopefully a directory site will come up, and point you to someone close to the address your sending to, which should have a link to their website.

Vice Vera you want to send flowers here to London then again type in Florists in London or Flower delivery in London and away you go.

Having been in this industry for 40 years and been a member of both Interflora and Teleflorist I know first hand of all the problems I have had and will continue to have with regard to what I have written and I know by choice which way I go when I have the opportunity.