Flowers really are the best gift you can give but a practice known as order-gathering can ruin the experience – how & why you should avoid order gatherers.

In the flower business the practice known as order-gathering involves a middleman (who adds no value to the process) that takes your order, then gets a real florist to fill that order. The problem is that the order gatherer also “skims” a big chunk of money off the order.

Order gathering usually starts with a website, something like this:

You might order from the website or you might call the toll-free number. Either way you are now dealing with an order gatherer.

They have great photographs of beautiful flowers, and you might order something like this:

You pay for it to – as shown on the receipt:

That’s the first part of order gathering – getting the order.

The second part is where it gets ugly. The order gatherer has no way of actually filling or delivering the order. They need a real local florist to do that, so they try and find one.

Unfortunately they want to keep as much of your money as they can. That means they are going to share as little as possible with the people that actually make and deliver your flowers.

To keep the biggest possible chunk, typically 30% minimum, they usually order something smaller than what you actually paid for. Here is an example, showing how order gathering means that almost $20 gets skimmed off the order we’ve been discussing.

The filling florist, and real local florists really are great people, does the best they can but with such vague direction and so little money they don’t have a chance. They aren’t even really told exactly what you ordered. And, even if they were, they aren’t given enough money to do it.

What actually gets delivered ends up looking something like this:

Absolutely nothing like what you were promised. Not even close to what you paid for.

This is order gathering, and almost everybody loses. You don’t get what you paid for. The recipient doesn’t get the gift you intended. Only the order gatherer, a middleman that added no value to the process, benefits.

Don’t fall victim to order gathering. Follow these simple steps to make sure that you deal with a genuine florist. You’ll get better flowers and better value, and you’ll be reminded why flowers really are the best gift that you can give.