These order gatherers not only give a bad name to all florists but are responsible for the demise of many real local florists. They are also causing us to lose millions if not billions of local and state tax revenue since they do not operate from an actual local physical location. The following is what I have written as a call to action...
Attention Washington State Senators and Legislators,
Washington State House Bill #1471 (copy attached below) passed in 1999
which prohibited deceptive telephone advertising in the floral industry,
this needs to be amended to apply to internet sales as well. We also need
to amend the way florist's are taxed as the current system is no longer
working.
There is a serious loss of tax revenue for our state as well as all other
states in the US. Florists are taxed based on where an order originated
and not where the order is actually filled and delivered. This does not
work with internet based "order gatherers" who operate without a physical
location (or pretend to have a physical location.) Services such as
Wesley Berry Flowers, Just Flowers, From You Flowers, Ava's Flowers, etc.
all operate from unspecified locations and call centers in the US and out
of country (specifically India and Mexico.) They usually collect taxes as
well as large service fees when a consumer calls or orders from their
website but they then forward the order to a local "filling florist" for a
fraction of what they charged the customer and avoid paying local taxes
even though it is a service and a product being made and delivered within
a local area. Where the taxes they collect go (if taxes are even
collected) is unknown. Most likely they are keeping it as an additional
"fee."
I just did a test order through Wesley Berry Flowers and this is what they
would charge to have a delivery sent to Bothell, Washington:
Glorious Garden-Good $47.99
1 Mylar Balloon: $4.99
Service Charge: $19.99
H.C.: $7.30
Subtotal: $80.27
Deliver on 10/22/2013 to me
Notice that no tax is collected- which means that whoever fills this order
is purchasing product wholesale in Washington state and filling and
delivering the order without the local or state governments receiving any
revenue from the order.
H.C. refers to a “handling Charge” which they are collecting in addition
to a hefty service fee but of the above what the florist would actually
receive to fill this order is approximately a $20 credit on their
clearinghouse statement depending on which wire service they use.
Historically this taxing system worked because the majority of florists
belonged to “Wire Services” specifically FTD and Teleflora. The florist
would collect the tax at the origination point and send the order through
the wire service to another florist who would be responsible for filling
the order but all of the monetary value of the order would go through the
wire service including tax allocation. Once “sending only” services came
into the mix many florists dropped out of the big wire services and the
sending only florists without a physical location eliminated the need to
collect a local tax since they did not have a local presence.
To give a little insight on our particular business, since I took over as
manager of The Bothell Florist in June of 2010 we have ceased filling any
orders for these “order gatherers.” Although we are not filling these
orders our business is still gravely affected because they compete with us
on search engines for paid advertising, they misrepresent their locations
and they compete with us for domain names.
When you do a google search (or use any search engine for that matter) for
"Florist Bothell, WA" several thousand listings come up. On the first
page the top 3 listings are paid advertisers. We have used this pay per
click advertising method in the past but it is very costly and we have
found that many of the "order gatherers" will have people click repeatedly
to use up the money we put on it. We do come up first organically but
most people aren't aware of SEO and all the paid advertising that's going
on and will just assume that everything that comes up is legitimate. We
try to educate all of our customers on internet marketers but it is
impossible if they can't even find us.
I am also including for your reference screen shots of Google searches
with all the fraudulent "local" florists and specifically using Ava's
flowers as an example of the fake location claims. This practice of
claiming a non existent local location is done in every city and every
state where these bills have not been passed. The average American
consumer who shops for flowers online is not aware of these deceptive
advertising practices and is easily fooled especially when they are not
familiar with the local areas they are trying to send flowers to.
As for domain names our website is www.thebothellflorist.com because when
the internet first started a local floral company which is now out of
business bought up hundreds of local domain names. When this company was
shut down a year ago we immediately tried to acquire the domain name
"bothellflorist.com" but were outbid by order gatherers. Our Bellevue
store Bellevue Crossroads Florist recently tried to acquire the domain
name “bellevueflorist.com” but was outbid by Just Flowers, a sending only
florist based out of Los Angeles and India. Another example of this
fraudulent advertising is Shannon's flowers. They were a long standing
florist in Bothell,WA that closed 2 years ago. As soon as they closed
another internet marketer "flowerdelivery.com" bought their domain name
and has been running their site claiming to be "Your trusted Bothell
Florist" on Main st Bothell, WA 98011.
As of right now over 25 states have bills in place similar to the one in
Washington state referred to above. Six states have also adopted bills
that include the internet and go beyond the basic deceptive practices. I
have attached copies of these Bills including California, Texas, Oregon,
Vermont, North Carolina and Minnesota.
I am not sure how exactly to proceed from here. I know I can get a
petition together from the majority of Washington Florists who support
amending this law as well as adding to it. We have 2 National
Organizations in our Industry that support our cause: SAF (Society of
American Florists) and Florist for Change. SAF is where I found the
copies of legislation attached with the exception of the Washington bill.
Please let me know what else I should do to proceed with amending the
existing law and pursuing changing the current tax structure for florists.
Sincerely,
Laurel Stromme-Dede
Addendum:
We are sending this letter around to local Washington State Florists to
gain their support. Please add your thoughts, comments and signatures.
United we stand.
Hopefully the more people we can reach the better chance we will have to actually make change happen!
PLEASE ALWAYS ORDER LOCAL! IF A WEBSITE DOES NOT HAVE A LOCAL PHYSICAL ADDRESS
YOU CAN VERIFY AND DOES NOT HAVE A LOCAL TELEPHONE NUMBER YOU CAN CALL AND ASK WHAT
THE WEATHER CURRENTLY IS THEN THEY ARE NOT A REAL FLORIST AND YOU SHOULD HANG UP OR
CLOSE THE SCREEN!
I have copies of all of the above mentioned Bills and proof if anyone would like me to forward them please shoot
me an e-mail to bothellflorist@integra.net.
Promise next post will be pictures!
Floral Florist Flowers Tax Revenue Senate Legislation
