Frequently Asked Questions
About FloraServ.com
About FloraServ.com's Dropship Program
How to Sign Up
Products
Benefits of Using FloraServ.com's Wholesale Dropshipping Services
Dropshipping and Wire Services in General
Day-to-Day Operations
Payment Information
General Information
About FloraServ.com
What is the history of FloraServ.com?
FloraServ’s parent company, Windowbox.com, was founded in 1997 to serve
container gardening aficionados over the web, and began designing and dropshipping
plant-based gift items for ProFlowers.com in 1999. Today, FloraServ.com is
a leading product provider for almost all of the major online floral businesses.
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Who are FloraServ’s other customers?
We do not publicly discuss our customer list, but we can tell you that we ship for almost every big name in the business. Give us a call, and we’d be happy to go into more depth!
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Who is involved in FloraServ?
Founder Ben Swett is a life-long gardener and former Quaker Oats Brand manager.
Investors and grower partners include a who’s who of significant southern
California growers: The Paul Ecke Ranch, Monrovia Nurseries, Nuserymen's Exchange,
and Altman plants. Most full-time employees are recent college graduates.
During holidays our work force swells by a factor of 8, with most of the new
hires coming from the disadvantaged neighborhoods around our warehouse.
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Is FloraServ a grower?
FloraServ purchases plants from various farms. Most come from such California growers as Matsui Nurseries, Nurserymen’s Exchange, and our partner, The Paul Ecke Ranch. We also contract grow special varieties. Once we receive these plants, we then repot, finish and dress them in our Vernon, CA facility; minutes away from downtown LA and the Los Angeles wholesale flower terminal. Because we buy from a variety of growers and often use the spot market, we are not limited to selling our own crops. We take deliveries several times a day, so you are guaranteed freshness (most plants are in our facility for less than 12 hours).
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About FloraServ’s Dropship Program
What is the FloraServ Dropship program?
We provide you with high quality images, copy and pricing for our everyday and seasonal exclusive products. Once we receive your orders (by 4 PM EST), we ship them that day via FedEx and email back tracking numbers at the end of the day; by 9 PM EST.
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Does FloraServ sell directly to consumers?
No. FloraServ is wholesale only, and only registered florists with active
accounts have access to our products and prices. We sometimes sell plants to the public on Windowbox.com, our sister gardening website: in that case, we will never price an active sku lower than SRP. We encourage all customers to maintain our SRPs.
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How will my orders be branded?
All plant orders are clearly labeled as coming from you. The return address will reflect your company name, but will have our address. Your name will be on the gift message, and we will include your catalog inside the box and/or any stickers with your branding on the outside of the box.
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What should I know about department of agriculture shipping restrictions?
Certain states are highly restricted: for example, special permits are needed to ship from any state into California or Arizona. Many Florida companies cannot ship into California. FloraServ, a California company, is not limited from shipping into California.
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Sign Up
How do I setup a new account?
It's simple.
Step 1. Complete our online sign
up, and we will create your account.
Step 2. Download our Terms of
Service Agreement, and fax it back to us.
Step 3. We'll send you a password, and you can get started!
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How long does the signup process take? How soon before I can start taking orders?
The timeframe can vary, but generally, we take about 2 days to verify the
information from your sign up and Terms
of Service Agreement. Then, we'll send you an account login. Once you've
been given an account, assuming you've got a credit card, you can start selling!
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Products
Where can I see an example of your products?
To see an example of our day-to-day products, click here. Or, to view and download images of all our products, sign up to become a FloraServ dropship customer.
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How can I obtain updated images, and listings, of your products?
After you’ve completed the sign up process, you can visit the download page
on our member site and download or view all the information that you’ll need.
Check back periodically for changes and new images. As updates become available,
we’ll also send out emails to an address that you provide.
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How often are your products updated?
We are continually striving to improve our selection and lead the industry with innovative and desirable products. Accordingly, product development - both for the holidays, and for year round use - is always in progress.
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Product Selection
You should decide which items you want to carry, and where on your site
they should go. Once you’ve done that, you will be able to download a list
of our everyday line of products from the member site. Or, you can also lift
images off the site and resize them. Or if you prefer, you may give us your
image specs (usually a pixel size and file size: “90 x 120, <4k,” etc.) and
we’ll email images to the contact person we have on file.
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Product Copy
We’ll provide you with copy for every product we offer. You can then modify
it as necessary to fit the look and feel of your site. Once you are signed
up, you can visit the member site to download product copy.
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Will FloraServ ship exclusive products?
Yes, if volume warrants. We will also discontinue a product from general circulation for the right volume commitment. If this seems right for you, call us and we can discuss your options.
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Product Samples
We are happy to provide samples of our work, though we may charge a nominal
fee.
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Benefits of Using FloraServ.com’s Wholesale Dropshipping Services
What makes FloraServ.com different from other dropshipping services?
- Quality Focus: We take this seriously - we understand the cost of getting customers, and we are dedicated 1) to the satisfaction of your customers, and 2) to the joy of their gift recipients.
- Full Product Line: We are a “one stop shop” for a distinctive, full-service, on-line plant department.
- Unique Products: Our products are the opposite of generic: We use innovative containers and professional photography to help give your website a polished, high-quality look.
- Advantageous Location: From our home in Southern California, we have year-round access to excellent and diverse plant varieties, as well to leading domestic ceramic manufacturers.
- Late Order Deadline: Each day, we take orders until 4pm Eastern time, for next day delivery. Tracking numbers are sent to you nightly, for easy customer service via the FedEx website.
- Custom Products available: For your high-volume customers, we can produce samples and short production runs of customized items.
- Experience: We create and ship products for a majority of the largest and most demanding on-line florists. What can we do for you?
- Service and Our People: We are the “Plants to
the People®” people. Our crew has a great attitude
and the technical and horticultural skills needed to help this part of
your business be profitable and trouble-free.
Dropshipping and Wire Services in General
How do the wire services work?
After consolidation, only FTD and Teleflora remain. (800 flowers is also creating a wire service, in part to increase margins on their own orders). Wire services are a system by which one florist takes an order, and sends it to another florist in the network, who fulfills the order from their inventory. The order usually has direct charge, plus a "transmission fee" of $3 and sometimes a "delivery fee" of $8 - $12 can be added to the cost of the order. The florist who sold the item to the customer (the one that got the order) gets to keep 25 - 30% of the cash generated, then keeps about 7% and the rest goes to the fulfilling florist. While most fulfilling florists do a good job, they can make mistakes, and often turn down orders during busy holiday periods.
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How is dropship fulfillment different from the wire services?
Dropshipping:
With dropshipping, florists get…
- A consistent product: all plants look like the photo on the website, rather than whatever the fulfilling florist has in stock.
- Consistent quality in plant, gift message and delivery: All plants come from the same green house, and are packed carefully by experienced experts.
- The quality and accountability that comes with Federal Express Shipping (orders are easy to track from a central source, making follow-up customer service a breeze).
- Higher profit margins.
Wire Services:
Wire services can handle same-day delivery. The best we can do with our dropshipments is next day air.
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Order Confirmation
As described in the Terms of Service, your tracking numbers will be available in the "order history" section of our website on the afternoon of shipment. If necessary, we can transmit them to you in another format, such as an emailed CSV file or automated FTP transfer.
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Shipping Account
We ship on our FedEx account, then bill according to our shipping rates,
unless a customer prefers that we use their account. In this case, if you
provide us with your FedEx account number, we are happy to set up 3rd party
shipping.
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Day-to-Day Operations
Order Transmission
Orders should be entered through your account on the FloraServ
member website. There, you will find it easy to either upload a CSV file with
a batch of orders or enter them individually. For larger customers, we will
happily integrate both our order system and our confirmation/tracking system
with your company's data flows: our team has experience integrating systems
with many large web retail operations.
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Payment
Accounting Information
Initial shipments will only be shipped with a valid credit-card, on a pay-per-order basis. Should your volume and credit history merit it, we may switch you to weekly invoices, due in 10 days, or bill weekly by credit card.
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Credit Terms Policy
Credit terms, and special holiday shipping terms, will be offered in a separate credit terms contract. Credit Terms will only be available to large customers with approved credit.
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Pricing
Prices may drop with volume. More details will be provided if necessary.
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General Information
Why plants?
Research shows frequent floral buyers are more than twice as likely to buy plants, because they consider their long-lasting beauty to be of greater value than cut flowers. Also, the relative hardiness of plants has distribution benefits: plants can be shipped by 2-Day air (saving money) and are less likely than flowers to be damaged. These days, plants have special cachet as "green gifts" that clean the air and fight global warming.
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