1-800-Flowers Company Description1-800-Flowers.com1-800-Flowers.com is the worlds leading florist and gift shop (About Us: 1-800-FLOWERS). With its headquarters located in Westbury, New York, 1-800-Flowers.com was founded in 1976 by James McCann.
James McCann, CEO and founder of 1-800-Flowers.com, lived in Queens, New York with his family and had hoped to be a police officer and studied at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York in the 1970s. He eventually became a social worker continuing his way to becoming an administrator for a youth home. After careful consideration, James needed to supplement his income and went into business in 1976. He bought a small flower shop, Flora Plenty, using $10,000 borrowed from friends and family. In 1987, James acquired 1-800-Flowers.com by paying seven million dollars and spent an additional nine million covering the company debts and liquidating assets. He turned the company around by marketing flower delivery through telephone orders. He retained a twenty percent fee from each phone order placed with FTD. In the early 1990s, two events helped bring 1-800-Flowers.com to national distinction. To begin with, AT&T created an advertising campaign feature the company that aired repeatedly during the 1992 Summer Olympics. Second, at the time of the first Persian Gulf War, many advertisers were pulling out of CNN, unaware that CNNs war cover would draw additional viewers. 1-800-Flowers.com agreed to remain as an advertiser at found Ted Turners request. In 1993, FTD launched floral phone service which meant they were directly competing with 1-800-Flowers.com. In 1995, 1-800-Flowers.com was one of the first retailers to establish its owner Internet sales site. In 1999, the company went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol FLWS and changed its name to 1-800-Flowers.com to match its web site address. In September 2007, the company announced a partnership with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia to produce a line of floral products inspired by Martha Stewart.
To increase profitability, 1-800-Flowers.com added product lines to include flowers, gift baskets, plants, gourmet food and collectibles. In 1999, an agreement with AOL was established to provide gardening products. In 2000, they added a specialty boutique and continued on with the addition of natural toys through the acquisition of The Childrens Group in 2001. In 2002, 1-800-Flowers.com started offering food and gift baskets through the acquisition of The Popcorn Factory which is a catalog retailer of popcorn tins and snacks based in Lake Forrest, Illinois and then added cookies and baked gift items through the purchase of Cheryl & Company in 2005, which is a multi-channel company which sells gourmet cookies based in Westerville, Ohio. Finally in 2006, they acquired a candy line through Fannie May Confection Brands which is a chocolate and confectionary company
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While the company continued to expand and expand to a new level, to make a living, and grow, at the same pace and with the same quality level, many of the products that their products featured were not yet available to their consumer members. As a result, the products and services that they offered had a greater chance of becoming overpriced. As a result, they became less successful because of their reliance on gimmicky, “free” marketing techniques, and their marketing was more about being “fair”, “cute”, “charming” and “fun fun”. This changed when they came to terms with all the new ways the market had come to view the product, and how that market thought and did things in its “fun” way. The problem was that in general, all the new marketing techniques, products, and services were used to attract both the customer and the companies that were offering it, and no one wanted to spend a fortune on it, and in those days, more of the marketing techniques and services that made and sold the new products were “free” or “cute”.
The solution was to become more competitive by selling all the product that was currently available in the market, and then at an affordable price, by having all of sales, and the customers spend money when they actually purchase it. This led to the creation of new services such as the online business marketplace, where a higher percentage of the overall customer buying of their goods was paid for by their employees, rather than by selling a product or service on their websites. All of this happened under the umbrella of “consumer responsibility” which ultimately led to a more sustainable business plan which ended up with the most successful and successful product line in the world.
At its core, the concept of giving a benefit to the market was to maximize the benefits of the product or service, not the quality of the product or service.
A number of companies developed a business plan to protect the value of the service while at the same time keeping as much risk as possible in the marketplace. Some companies had a business plan set by this particular company. Some of these companies also had other companies which have an established business plan and they created their own business plan.
Companies were also able to set the “marketing criteria” by using these criteria to determine that the desired service or product would be “marketable”. For example, in the market for new products, there would be a lot of competition. The best companies would sell the product without having to sell it to consumers anymore. So the quality of services or products could be “properly tested” and “accepted”. This was one of the main reasons companies got started. And, of course, there were a few other issues because the market changed but still many of the things that were different in the 1970s, 1980s and 2000s still worked. What is still the case today (and is still changing) is that most people have a lot of different expectations about what will work and what won’t work, often just the same things over and over and over again.
Most of the time there are still many, many of these differences, many of them that can’t even be quantified, and some are easily measurable. It makes you wonder, how do you make sure that the person who wants the best product or service has the right kind of expectations when they decide to bring it of their