Giving flowers feels great, and people seem to love receiving them too. She was truly appreciative of the flowers, and I firmly believe flowers are the best possible gift for so many people in so many situations. Any time the question is "what should I bring?" the answer is almost always bring flowers.
Sending flowers, from real local florists, is also something I consider to be a responsibility. Those of us who work at FloristWare depend on the success of real local florists and supporting them is something we take very seriously.
Every employee gets flowers on their birthday. If they get sick, they get flowers. If a client loses someone special and we know about it we send flowers. It's an important part of supporting the industry that supports us.
It can be hard to witness the hypocrisy of some of the other players in this industry. One in particular champions the shop local movement from a website they had built overseas. Rather than use one of the many existing (and outstanding) web developers serving the floral industry, they chose to save money by outsourcing the development of their website.
It doesn't have to be like that. All FloristWare employees are North Americans. They spend their salaries here in North America, and we believe they get paid well enough to be able to enjoy and send flowers.
With one small exception, all of our contractors are North American too. The exception is a server admin consultant, based in Europe, that spends a few hours each month working on one of our internal servers. He does an incredible job for us, and we're very lucky to work with him, but the relationship started when we could not find a North American with his expertise. It was not about saving money (he is paid very well) but about finding the right candidate for the job.
There are other great companies making e-commerce websites for florists right here in North America. Two of the very best providers of floral websites – Strider and Epic – recently merged and are now offering an even better product. And all of the money stays here in North America, among owners and employees that appreciate flowers.
