Online flower prices grow as you go

Posted: Thursday, February 12 2009 at 05:00 am CT by Bob Sullivan

Companies often advertise one price to lure customers into their stores, then charge a higher price. In days gone by, this was called “bait and switch.” Now, it’s called fees and surcharges.

On the Internet, this tactic has another fancy name: “landing price.” Advertisements include a low price to persuade customers to land on their e-commerce site. But by the time shipping and handling is piled on, the “out-the-door” price is substantially higher.

This tactic is most clear in the world of online florists, and most prevalent during Valentine’s Day. A quick survey of the top online florists shows that consumers using the two top sites typically pay at least 50 percent — and often as much as 100 percent — higher than the advertised price.

Take ProFlowers.com, which this week was running nearly ubiquitous ads with offers like this: $29.99 for a dozen roses and a free vase. But any consumer wanting the arrangement delivered on Valentine’s Day will pay at least $55, after shipping, taxes, handling and a Saturday delivery fee are added. Shoppers who agree to early delivery on Feb. 12 will save $10, but will still pay around $45 (when $10 shipping, $1.99 handling and about $3 in taxes are added in). That’s still 50 percent above the advertised price.

Making matters worse for shoppers: The total price isn’t revealed until the last possible moment — after the recipient’s name and address, credit card number, billing address and even the “Love, Bob,” note are entered. This reporter counted seven screens before the real price was unmasked. After all that typing, consumers are less likely to abandon the transaction.

ProFlowers says all its advertisements indicate customers will face additional fees

“ProFlowers advertising…clearly states that shipping and handling are additional costs,” spokesman Mike Rosen said in an e-mail. He said the company has not received any complaints that its advertisements are deceptive.

Rosen also pointed out that consumers can add the total cost on their own within the first click or two. But to do that, consumers must notice and click on a link named “details” while picking the delivery date.

“I don’t think you give consumers enough credit,” Rosen countered. “In this day and age customers understand this process better … and expect to pay shipping charges.”

At FTD, $19.99 flowers cost $42.77
ProFlowers’ strategy is relatively standard in the flower business. Shoppers at FTD.com may arrive at the site lured by the promise of Valentine’s arrangements that cost $19.99. But that price doesn’t include an additional $19.99 “service charge.” By the time customers click “order,” they are told the $19.99 flowers really cost $42.77.

But at least customers at FTD.com see the full price before they are asked to enter their credit card numbers.
Robert Apatoff, president of FTD, said his company was “transparent” about its pricing.

“People get that they pay for shipping and handling. You can’t just ship for free,” he said. “There’s nothing new about price point advertising…it’s consistent with the practices of the vast majority of online and offline retailers.”

He also said that $19.99 was a reasonable service charge when the additional costs of special handling and Saturday delivery are factored in.

After these two disappointing experiences, consumers might be too disheartened to try the third major online florist, 1800Flowers.com. That’s too bad, because on Tuesday the site advertised a $39 arrangement with free shipping. The actual price: $39, plus tax of a few dollars. A $34 arrangement without the free shipping offer would cost $50 for delivery on Valentine’s Day, but that additional charge was made clear the moment a delivery date was picked.

Our wilting economy
Shopping for Valentines flowers is a study in why the U.S. economy is so broken today.

In the end, the prices at all three sites are quite similar. Yet consumers shopping for flowers must jump through near-impossible hoops to actually comparison shop. (Only a reporter with too much time on his hands is likely to do it.) That means many consumers won’t make rational economic decisions based on quality or price, but rather will choose based on which company’s advertisements are most compelling — or, some might say, deceptive. In the end, it’s almost certain that the most up-front company, 1800Flowers, will lose sales because consumers think they are getting a better price from a competitor when they really aren’t.

Some might argue this is simply capitalism at work. In fact, the opposite is true. If this were a free market, all information about the transaction would be transparent, and the best product with the best price would win. Instead, the most convincing advertiser wins. Ultimately, this economic system — which is not capitalism — will put honest companies out of business and reward deceivers. The current list of troubled banks, home builders, mortgage brokers and retailers is a “Who’s Who” of well-marketed companies that had unsustainable profits built on false advertising. Their business models were a house of cards destined to eventually fail.

When the new administration in Washington wants to renew the promise of America and create change all consumers can believe in, it will focus considerable attention on creating a true free market, which will be made obvious by its transparency and lack of unfair trade practices.

Enough! Fourteen days of snow and ice and I am to a point where beyond a shadow of a doubt I feel a white Christmas should be of the card variety only. It is time to depart Oregon in search of a New Year far from an accursed cabin fever and endless nights where gloom and biting cold, barely burnished by illuminations of the season are ever-present. The airport has opened, the stranded hoards have thinned and day after anxious day of watching the departure times of Continental 308 for Houston gives a grasping, tenuous hope to the promise of a departure within a half dozen hours of that scheduled, once escaped from the still snow bound neighborhoods of Lake Oswego.

A chained up Jeep, an obliging kid enamored of rugged driving conditions and we have the match for what the state and various cities have left behind to challenge the daring motorist. With ample snow days to contemplate the disaster of cancellation or delay I have relieved Continental of an accrued liability and cashed in a bunch of air miles for a big seat on the sleep depriving 6.00AM flight rather than the physique and psyche damaging small seat of the 12.10PM.

I make a lousy prisoner and the relief I feel as we skate, de iced down the runway in the direction of Mt Hood could not make me happier than a Cuban gaining dry foot status on a Florida Key. Piercing the icy grey clouds gives rise to a lightening horizon and fading stars. All of a suddenly the world expands and holds opportunities once more. How spoiled am I? Enough to have no qualms at all at the prospect of a nine hour layover in Houston given the on time escape from the city of frozen roses.

Nine hours in which to ready myself for the ten hour ride to Sao Paulo, Brasil and a celebration of New Year involving the donning of new white underwear in which to jump seven waves while making seven wishes and all on beaches that suddenly hold the population of a couple of the worlds most populated cities. It is so much more fun than jumping snowdrifts on the way to the office. Caipirhinas vs Cocoa… hardly fair, is it?

The big seat gives rise to a big sleep and before I know much more I am 7000 miles distant and in the midst of 15 million people and counting. All 15 million appear to have a car, in fact some of them have two, thus two license plates, ensuring they can drive to work even on the days that one of their plates is barred from driving… in order to cut down on congestion and pollution. While it may be nice for car sales and parking garages, it turns the original intent just a little  farcical.

Sao Paulo spreads beyond the curvature of the earth even as viewed from the fifteenth floor of one of the apparent million some odd high-rise condominiums. I have never before seen a city close to these proportions before, not anything remotely akin and it seems to dwarf all my impressions of NYC, Atlanta, Phoenix, Seattle and while the high rises in Miami are for sure taller they might only amount to one neighborhood in this sprawling mass of humanity and concrete. The airport was a breeze and with no checked bags and very friendly immigration formalities I am out of the big seat and onto the street in less than seven minutes and safely onto my destinations/bases for the week in the neighborhoods of Perdizes & Limoa that occupy opposing banks of the river. Interestingly enough I make the drive from the airport in the friend of a friends bullet proof car. I don’t know what to think therefore I try not too.

First order of the day is a shower just prior to further hospitality being showered upon me. How good does it feel? The intent of all this Brasilian style pampering is in having me vital enough to ascend to dine and dance atop Sao Paolos tallest building. After all, having long impressed upon me that life does not start until midnight is it not now time to dance to the Bossa Nova? Up there on that dance floor, beneath ones very feet, the lights of the millions and those of a tropical Christmas disappear into the distance. Added to this magic environment, a touch of opaqueness provided by a smog and one might be tripping the light fantastic through the Milky Way. In peering over the deck rail while taking a breath of “fresh” air it is impressive and alien/worrisome to be in the midst of this panorama. I am in a seething anthill and am clueless as to who might be in charge or even if there is any form of social order or constraint among so many. What the heck, I am in very good hands and the motto in for a penny in for a pound is going to have to hold water…right?

My debut dancing to the Bossa Nova measured as a success but not likely to get me on TV I am granted three hours sleep before dashing through empty streets to Congohas airport for what turns out to be a canceled flight to Rio De Janeiro. After much vagueness by a clueless and hardly stressed counter staff and watching much expressive latin annoyance in an ever building clientel for the flight to nowhere we slide on down to the GOL counter and get a lunchtime ticket to Rio with scant promise of a return. Sao Paulo’s endlessness finally receeds and the wing tip has the coast line and a series of islands off it. Huge thunderheads dot the horizon and the islands gather their own cloud masses and spin off lenticular clouds. It is very exotic, as is the approach into Rio, its greenness in contrast to the golden beaches and blue waters and yes sure enough there are the rocky outcroppings that are the Sugarloaf and the mass bearing the giant figure of the Christ with outstretched arms. The approach reveals a string of beaches, Copacabana, Ipanema, Flamengo and Barra each host to its own city and favela and each having, of course, a football team named after them, which in aggregate make up the greater Rio.

Ocean going vessels lay at anchor awaiting harbor and global tug- boats await the oil-rigs under construction. The runway is very short and leaves not a spare meter for lax braking, it points directly at the Sugarloaf which is doing vanishing acts under veils of cloud, much as Table Mt in Cape Town does. It is mere minutes to being on the road again and this time we are in the company of a Carioca, (one born and bred in Rio) Alessandre and his family. Plans call for hopping aboard the cable car up the Sugar Loaf and then a helicopter flight over the beaches, the city and the favelas. The hours long queue in the baking sun looks to be the death of that whole escapade. Not so when armed with a Carioca, as with little ado, and few details we are suddenly being whisked up to the first station and then to the second where we wait (with beer) for the cloud to blow off and reveal all the world famous views, which duly show themselves. We pick up the helicopter after cajoling a young guy from Croatia to share the tab on a very scenic flight over the apparent rich and the obviously poor separated by green hills, monolithic rock slabs and beautiful beaches populated by the parasols that shade the beautiful throngs and thongs of the Latin Beauties of lore, all awash in a warm Atlantic.

To be Cont….