If you work in the retail flower business you are affected by order gathering. It's a common yet shady practice where a middleman, one that adds no value to anyone, tries to come between a flower-buying consumer and the retail florist that consumer wants to order from. The order gatherer effectively tricks the consumer into believing that they are the florist that will be filling the order, and collects payment for the flowers.
They then call a real retail florist and try to convince them to actually fill your order, but for much less than what you paid.
If that seems weird imagine a pizza place that did the same thing. They have a fake listing in the telephone directory, or a fake website, all designed to make you believe that they really are a local pizza parlor. They might even use the name and address of a known local place.
You then order a large pizza and they charge your credit card. They then call a real pizza place and try to convince them to make and deliver that pizza for about 30% less than what you paid. The only way to make that happen is for them to order a smaller pizza, maybe with less stuff on it. The bottom line is that you don't get the pizza you ordered, and the middleman gets a big cut for just screwing things up for everyone.
Order gathering, especially deceptive order gathering, is bad for florists (who see the bulk of the profit go to the order gatherer) and the consumer (who gets less than what they paid for). It's bad for the entire floral industry because every time an order gatherer gets involved the idea of flowers as a gift are diminished for both the customer and the recipient.
It might seem like no smart person would ever fall for it. I work in the business and I've fallen for it! Deceptive order gatherers are really good at what they do – if they weren't they wouldn't be such a problem.
There are a lot of posts that get into more details about the problem of order gathering in the flower business, and also tips on how to avoid order gatherers and be sure you are dealing with a real local florist.
