A quick look at how order gathering works, how much it takes from flower buyers, and how much it hurts flower buyers.

An order gather tries to come between a flower buyer and a flower shop. They effectively masquerade as a real local flower shop, convince the customer to place an order, then try and get a real florist to fill that order... but only after they have skimmed off a profit of 30% or more.

This pie chart shows some of the story. The customer pays $65 for flowers and delivery, the order gathering operation skims off almost $20, and passes along the bare minimum to the flower shops that prepares and delivers the flowers.

It might seem crazy but there are companies, known as order gatherers, that want to trick you into thinking they are real local florists. They'll promise you something like this...

...and deliver something like this:

How does that happen?

The order gatherer takes your money, as shown in the receipt for the flower shown above:

They then try and get a real local florist to fill the order for them, but for a lot less money. This is what they actually sent to the filling florist – the florist that would do the work of preparing and delivering the flowers.

The order gatherer charged the customer almost $50 for the product, but they only passed $35 along to the real flower shop that actually did the work. Please note that this is in addition to the standard industry share that they would have received.

The shop that prepared the order didn't have a chance. They were told this was a $35 order as opposed to a $50 order. They didn't even get a picture to work from. The customer gets upset, the recipient gets upset.... nobody wins except for the order gatherer.


Learn more about order gathering and choosing a real local flower shop.