It's true. Some POS and website vendors compete against their own customers. These providers do an end run around their paying florist clients, sell flowers and gifts directly to the public, then pass those orders back to the florist at a 30% discount.

Let's think about this for a minute...

• You, the florist, pays your web/POS provider in good faith.
• That web/POS provider uses that money to compete against you in SEO, pay-per-click, Facebook and Google ads etc. and in doing so...
  • Drives up your online marketing costs as you now have to compete with them for those clicks, ads, etc.
  • They get a portion of the orders that should have gone to you
• You then have to settle for 70% of the order and you do all the work

This is a shocking practice. It means that...

• the florist is actually enabling and funding their competiton
• the florist is getting an order that rightfully should have been theirs at a 30% discount
• their POS/web fees are being spent on online marketing (SEO, pay-per-click, Facebook and Google ads) that campaigns that siphon their orders away, and also increase their own online marketing costs
• their POS/web fees are contributing to a larger problem – teaching the public to buy from order gatherers rather than real local florists

The simple truth is that every single time the public buys flowers from anyone but a real local florist (or a website they control) it hurts not just the shop that should have received that order but all florists. We want the public to buy from real florists, not huge order gatherers.

FloristWare Will Never, Ever Compete Against You

We make and support software. We have not and will not get into the business of selling flowers (or gifts, or anything else) to the general public. Those are YOUR customers. We want to help you sell to them and service them better, not steal them from you.

It's one small part of our Fairness Policy, but it's also just common sense.