Is there any difference between on-line and calling FTD 15 years ago? No. In other words hasn't flowers always been available on-line so to speak?

I would more worry about different countries restrictions on imports. That's where your battle will be.

And just the same as the FTD service (really, nothing has changed at all except the access medium), one doesn't actually ship the flowers from say, San Francisco to New Dehli. The company contracts with affiliate florists located all over the globe and the ones closest to the specific location carry out the actual delivery. So a delivery of flowers in New Dehli would actually be flowers available in that area and delivered by an affiliate florist in New Dehli. Your biggest concern is developing that extensive base of affiliated florists.

Diddo...

A friend sent me flowers and they actually came from a South American country. I knew they were coming but that made me think about how the online flower business must work. Out of season, coming from weird places must mean direct from grower? The online flower business seems to be pretty high tech and more complicated than we might assume.

Florist "wire services" FTD & Teleflora have not changed in that the local florist makes up and delivers the arrangement. Nothing is sent through the mail other than a check or a bill from the wire service depending on whether you sent or received more orders that month.

FTD and Teleflora both offer their member florists websites with shopping carts for their customers. You can also do a lot of record keeping online and you most often don't call the other florist anymore you send the order online or using their Mercury or Dove network. Both provide advertising etc.

What has changed and is new is services that offer grower direct cut flowers to the public. Hallmark tested this sort of service several years ago. I have no idea if it is still available. I no longer am a florist next to a Hallmark store. I am not an online consumer of flowers, my experience is over twenty years as a retailer of flowers so I'm sure there are other services out there.

The Hallmark flower service allowed people to buy boxes of cut flowers in grower bunches sometimes with a vase tossed in and have them sent to a gift recipient. The selection was small and the flowers are not processed when they arrive. They are in grower bunches which is totally different than consumer bunches. All thorns, leaves, outer "guard" petals, weeds, brown petals, bruised petals etc. are still on the flowers.

The labor to process flowers from grower bunches to consumer bunches or bouquets or floral design is saved, which makes the flowers cheaper. However, many people don't like the way "raw" flowers look and don't understand what to do with them, decreasing vase life and satisfaction.

BTW, Columbia and Eucuador grow huge amounts of cut flowers. Most cut flowers you see in supermarkets or other high volumn bucket shops are South American grower direct which is generally much lower priced than US grown or Holland grown. Most carnations, chrysanthemums and roses sold today in the USA are grown in South America, the wholesale flower markets import them and then the florists by from them if they don't do enough volumn to import directly.

1800Flowers.com is a huge player in the sending flowers business.

FTD and Teleflora have either out competed or bought the other wire services, AFS, FloraFax and Redbook were purchased by Teleflora.

There are still some up-scale online services similar to the one you describe being offered by Hallmark. Calyx and Corolla ships amazing "bouquets", but I think they are only in the US. What you get is a box of flowers, but ohhh what flowers!! They come individually wrapped with stem containers and cushioned in tissue and look as though they were picked minuted before arriving at your door. You have an option of buying with coordinating vase or container or just the flowers. Not cheap by any stretch of the imagination but truly magnificent bouquets. Very extravagant but a great gift item - with the proliferation of a really wonderful and low cost selection of cut flowers available at nearly every grocery store, including those amazing $13 orchids from Trader Joe's, it's hard to justify spending that kinda cash unless it was a special gift. (don't know about you, but I am very reluctant to pick from my own garden - weird I know, when fresh cut flowers are a necessary fact of my life).

I used to receive a catalog from them that I'd drool over but haven't seen one in years. Come to think of it, pretty much anything that was formerly just a mail order business, like Calyx and Corolla, is now an online service - we have just substituted the computer and modem for the telephone.

Nope, I don't pick from my own garden. Pathetic isn't it? The florist has no flowers in the house.

I totally forgot about Trader Joe's orchids, thanks. I've never been a huge orchid fan. Don't know why, just like Euphorbias I guess. ;) Anyway, DH saw one on TV and wanted to know why we didn't have any so I brought him one home the last time I worked as a floral designer that was done blooming and headed for the trash. The little Phal bloomed again with no effort and for six months and now DH wants more orchids but three of my friends quit the floral business too and I don't have a source for free plants anymore. I don't like orchids well enough to pony up for them but at that price at TJ's I will.