preparing for the holidays table of contents 2
President’s Letter
3
Travels with Tom
4-5
Design and Education
6-7
Member Spotlight
8-9
Technology
10
Small Business Saturday
12
Christmas 2013
24
Valentine’s Day Sneak Peak
The lazy days of summer are behind us and your shops will soon see a flurry of excitement as they fill with holiday shoppers. Over the past few months the team at Teleflora headquarters has been hard at work finalizing our latest product assortment for the season. Once again, the product design team has hit it out of the park with a lineup that will undoubtedly be a home run with your customers. Teleflora products feature exquisitely crafted pieces developed with versatility in mind – not just for this season, but also for many to come. From our beautiful hand-blown red glass bowl to our best-selling annual Kinkade keepsake, our containers offer a wide variety of options to suit every taste. As Don Hotton of Jory’s Flowers in Concord, Ca., ramps up for the holiday, he’s looking forward to featuring Teleflora’s Christmas products as the stars of his product lineup: “The Christmas container lineup from Teleflora is very well thought out this year, great quality and the versatility in the makeup of the assortment will surely help drive sales this December!” When it comes to the holiday season, having a game plan is key, and it’s never too early to start thinking about your strategy. To help you plan for the season, we’ve put together a holiday toolkit on MyTeleflora.com with the goal of giving you the tools you need to be as successful as possible this holiday. In addition to all of the valuable content in our traditional holiday toolkit, we are featuring an exciting new social media kit that you can use to brand your Facebook, Twitter and Google+ pages with images, sample posts and status updates. These great tools will help you maximize your online activity leading up to Christmas. By now, you should have received your Floral Selection Guide (FSG) update kits containing marketing tools to help you merchandise your shop for the holiday. Fun, festive displays help generate attention and sales, so make sure to hang those posters prominently in your window and around your shop! Tim Farrell of Farrell’s Florist in Drexel Hill, Pa., decorates eight windows every holiday, and is meticulous about the look and feel of the windows: “I limit the overall design style and focus instead on color scheme. In addition, I keep the lighting consistent. I always use white light, never color because I want the product to be the only color in the display.” Another key component to great sales this holiday season: leveraging the power of our eFlorist Self Administration Tool (eSAT), the perfect tool to help you prepare your online storefront as you get your shop ready for the holidays. At Jory’s Flowers, Don also shared with us the importance of merchandising his site for the holidays and makes sure his site is ready: “eSAT gives me the ability to create a page just for Christmas that I merchandise with Teleflora’s holiday products along with custom products of my own.” Remember, you can log in anytime, day or night, to set up holiday pricing, exclude delivery dates, change your delivery fees for holiday periods, or set up entirely new categories, at no cost to you.
myteleflora news | oct/nov 13
For eFlorist members unfamiliar with eSAT, we recommend checking out the free webinars offered through eFlorist University. Upcoming sessions will help you learn how to set up holiday pricing and customize your delivery dates and fees using eSAT. If you’re unable to attend live presentations, recordings of the webinars are available at eFloristUniversity.com anytime. You’ll also find a host of downloadable materials on the page to help you manage your eFlorist site more efficiently. If you’d prefer to have our eFlorist support staff update your site, please plan ahead, and submit your requests by early December to avoid missing any deadlines.
2
Teleflora’s Winter Kisses Bouquet TWR12-1A
From our outstanding keepsake products to our customer-focused services, everything we do is to help make your business a success. I look forward to working together for another great holiday season. Sincerely,
jeff bennett {president of teleflora}