Firstly, FloraPages.com was designed specifically for the entire floral industry. Whether a grower of cut flowers, ferns or tropical plants; a distributor, wholesaler or a variety of merchants who support the floral industry, the Florapages Online Floral Community will provide goods, services and useful information that will benefit the whole floral community.

Secondly, for all practical purposes, the FloraPage Community (florapages.com) is a FREE site. That's right, any merchant who wishes to advertise their wares to local florists, wholesalers and distributors nationwide can do so without paying a fee to the FloraPages Online Floral Community. The only requirement is that they extend a discount to all FloraPage customers. The discount extended to our customers determines listing rank of the member. In other words, the larger the discount, the more prominent and visible their ad will be.

Thirdly, the LiveFlorist Referral Network (liveflorist.com) is NOT a new concept. Florists have always and still do refer orders that they either can't fill or can't deliver. In fact, that's the reason that FTD was started. According to the FTD website, "On August 18, 1910, fifteen American retail florists agreed to exchange orders for out-of-town deliveries. Originally called 'Florists' Telegraph Delivery', FTD was the world's first flowers-by-wire service. In 1914, FTD adopted the classic figure of Mercury as its official logo. Fifty-five years later, FTD expanded to include international transactions. The company was renamed 'Florists Transworld Delivery' to reflect its growing worldwide presence."

According to CGI (Computer Generation, Inc.), FTD was the first national floral wire service to successfully blend technology with traditional flower shops when it placed its Mercury“ electronic order system in FTD members’ shops. For many years, all orders that were routed electronically were processed through Mercury. However, in the early 1990s, with Mercury’s per-use costs escalating and competition becoming more intense, companies including Redbook Florist Services and Teleflora started to explore the feasibility of building their own proprietary networks.

Because the cost of wiring services continued to spiral, other companies like Flowerlink, National Flora, Calyx & Corolla and Florafax made their way into the booming flower market to survice only until they were merged or bought out. Even though the last two remaining wiring service heavyweights are FTD and Teleflora, there are myriads of solo web sites shipping or drop-shipping flower orders over the Internet. Not only is it difficult to deliver fresh flowers by this method, it is usually up to the customer to arrange the flowers out of the box. Another problem arises when the the customer has to listen to elevator music interspersed with mechanical voices instructing them how to push the right button sequences to place their order. And to cap it off, these internet sites cut a big chunk out of the local flower market sales. According to the last market analysis, the Internet handles over 58% of the total flower market in the United States and much of the global market as well. That leaves just a little over 40% of the flower market for the local florists.

I started this project over two years ago simply as an experiment, but the response to and the reception of the concept was staggering. I polled hundreds of florists and many manufacturers to find out how the "experts" felt about this idea. To my pleasant surprise, over 95% of the polled results were positive. The person who really started me in the endeavor, though, was my aunt Millie, who has since passed on. She was a florist for over 40 plus years and had often said to me, "If someone could come up with an idea that would deliver flowers in such a way that the florists had more control and could make more money, it would be the best thing that could happen to the flower industry."

The mission of the FloraPages Online Floral Community is just that; to connect America's retail florists to the massive traffic of the Internet through the Liveflorist Referral Network and to slice into that 58% of lost market for the local flower shops so that they can increase their profits and at the same time provide faster, fresher flowers with less cost to the customer. FloraPages is also in the process of adding members to the FloraPage Community who support the floral industry and the local florist. All support members of the FloraPage Community that supply walk-in coolers, cut flowers, ribbons, racks, transport systems, etc. will have to extend a discount to customers of the FloraPage Community. In this way, the suppliers can reach a market they never had and the the local florists, wholesalers and distributers can buy at a nice discount.

If you agree with me that:

• The major wiring services are taking too much of my money, from $1500 to over $4000 a year in some cases.
• I can't afford the "after-hours" service.
• I also can't afford the "Mercury" service.
• I don't believe in the "per-stem" charge on cut flowers.
• I would like to make more money in the flower business
• I would like part of that 58% lost market that is up there on the Internet.