Valentine's Day is Coming, Don't Get Suckered by Unnecessary Floral Services

Skip the FTD, the Teleflora, the 1800Flowers, the ProFlowers, and the Flowers Across America

Countless businesses advertise flowers on television, on the radio, in the papers and on the Internet. It's easy to get suckered in by numerous flower marketing go-betweens.

Aggressive branding has resulted in almost universal recognition of the floral go-between giants - Teleflora, 1800Flowers, FTD, ProFlowers, and Flowers Across America. But did you know that these companies do not make the floral arrangements you send to your loved ones? They are simply go-betweens for you and a florist in the city you are sending flowers to.

I worked as a florist for close to eighteen years so I got to see how a number of these services work from the florist's perspective. These well known flower businesses are actually marketing businesses that get a substantial piece of your money without actually adding to your customer service or product quality. In fact, they may be reducing the quality of the flower arrangements you get for your dollar as well as the quantity.

The way florist go-between services or wire services work is they provide a service to customers and florists which bring them together. Before Internet use was widespread, this was a valuable service. Now that customers can easily access most florists directly through the Internet the service provided by floral go-betweens is pretty much useless and still costs just as much.