Cemeteries aren't so scary ... or sad

When flowers are lovingly left at grave sites and tombstones, cemeteries can really be quite lovely.
A recent thread in a forum I belong to was boohooing the fact of less-than-robust sales of flowers at cemeteries particularly over Memorial Day. And, how sad it was to see empty tombstones and bare (devoid of flowers) cemeteries.
So I wanted to share with you how pretty a cemetery can look when decorated, in this case, with fresh flowers.

Mr. Robinson became our customer after his wife passed away and commissioned us to provide flowers for his wife's grave, a new arrangement every season (in silk). This year, he passed away too, and his daughter asked us to provide fresh arrangements for each of her close relatives, as they were all buried in close proximity. The cemetery looked so pretty at his graveside service. I hope you agree. Now she will be taking up her father's charge of providing flowers seasonally at their tombstone. What a good daughter!
So, as a reminder, next holiday, birthday, anniversary of your loved one, please remember them by placing some flowers on or next to their grave site. Note to self, Momma's birthday is July 9th - and high time to get some new flowers on her grave.

The Treehouse Florist "jumps in" with fellow florists to support The 3/50 Project

The 3/50 Project is dedicated to saving the brick and mortar stores that our nation is built on.

3 – What three independently-owned businesses would you miss if they disappeared? Stop in. Say hello. Pick up something that brings a smile. (Research reveals that flowers create instant delight and happiness, and increase enjoyment and life satisfaction.) Your purchases are what keep these businesses around. The staff at The Treehouse Florist and their employees not only appreciate your business, but they also shop locally, spending money with other merchants to support local businesses. Who said "It takes a village"?

Some of the local businesses The Treehouse spends its dollars with:

McKnight Appliances

Paesano's Pizza

Corbin's Auto Repair

50 – If half (50%) of the employed population spent $50 each month in locally-owned, independent businesses, it would generate more than $42.6 billion dollars in revenue*. You could spend all $50 at The Treehouse (we'd like that!), or spread it around to other local businesses. Imagine the positive impact if 3/4 of the employed population did that!

Some of our employees' favorite businesses in town:

Bonkey's Ice Cream

People's Bank

Boomtown Tattoo Studio

Matthews Garage

Hodle Tavern

68 – For every $100 spent in locally, independent stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll and other expenditures. So if you buy a $100 flower arrangement at The Treehouse Florist, $68 of that money stays in the local economy of southern York County. If you spend that on a national chain, only $43 stays here. If you spend that $100 online then $0 comes back - zero, zilch, nada. So remember, when you shop 1800flowers.com, you are adding nothing to the local community.

1 – The number of people it takes to start the trend … you.

Pick 3. Spend 50. Support your local economy.

*Employment statistics courtesy U.S. Labor Department 2/6/09 report; 68/43 stats courtesy Civic Economics 2008 study

Nice Gift!

A bride from our early years in the shop was celebrating a milestone birthday for which her husband ordered a vaseful of roses for her party. Care to guess how old she is?
We'll let the pictures tell the story, as the order is filled. Is it ....

Nope.                                                                             Is it...... Nope

Yep, she's 50.
And when I was asked if I had a vase big enough for 50 roses, I said, "Oh, yeah, sure". But let me tell you, I don't think I could have gotten any more in this vase. And very heavy ... definitely a two person delivery.
Happy Birthday, Diane. Hope you loved your roses - you sure have a wonderful hubby.

Yeah, that's right - It's all about HER!

For those guys who think that Valentine's Day isn't a big deal to their wife, fiancee, girlfriend, wannabee girlfriend, or someone they want to attract, please think again. It's all about you showing that you think she is special to you, at least on the one day that everyone counts. If every woman in the office, except yours, received flowers, chocolates or some other gift, it's a BIG DEAL. So next year, don't be one of the guys we heard from the last couple of days who were trying their best to get out of the doghouse. Of course, we'll be more than happy to help you on either side of Valentine's Day, but your life will be a whole lot nicer when you get your gift to her before or on the big day. Just thought you should know.

Our New Website

We've been working diligently together with our new florist website provider, Epic Flowers, to update our website over the past couple of months. This change brings us a lot of flexibility and a host of new options, not to mention a much friendlier web presence.  One of the greatest features it provides is mCommerce. Some of you might be asking “what exactly is mCommerce?”.

Great question!  For starters,  Wiki defines it this way:

"Mobile Commerce is any transaction, involving the transfer of ownership or rights to use goods and services, which is initiated and/or completed by using mobile access to computer-mediated networks with the help of an electronic device."

So, basically, it means you buy something using mobile access, like a smartphone.  This definition can be expanded to talk about "True mCommerce", which uses a site that is re-formatted for mobile use.  You may not have noticed it, but all of the big boys are on it!

Below are the standard sites for eBay and Amazon, and next to them, the mobile versions, re-formatted for the iPhone.

So, why is this important to you?

If you’ve tried to do any online shopping from local businesses through your smart phone, you’ve probably found the process to be less than desirable.  The reason is that most independent eCommerce sites are not capable of providing a truly mobile formatted page.  So, you end up zooming in, zooming out, and fumbling through the shopping cart process.  Mobile formatting changes all that.

Here are a couple of screen-shots of what the The Treehouse Florist’s new mCommerce-ready site looks like on the iPhone.  We know you’ll love this new feature, because you no longer need a computer to order flowers on-line. And, we hope you enjoy browsing our new site from the comfort and ease of your smartphone.

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2010 - What a Year!

OK, I haven't posted in over two months, and now twice in one day. That's what waking up at 4AM will get you. So, before this month gets totally away from me, I thought I would recap this year here at The Treehouse Florist, and share a few personal events as well. Maybe you could consider this my Christmas card letter that I never send out. And not one tree was felled to share this!
January is typically a quiet month, as we spend a little time out of the shop visiting family and friends, not to mention preparing the tax documents and getting ready for the Mother of all floral holidays - Valentine's Day. In our six years, this was our best Valentine's ever.
While mulling over the previous year's sales and taking a hard look at our business and where we wanted to take it, we made the decision to leave all of the wire services. First, BloomNet in March, then Teleflora at the end of May. Since we had our website with Teleflora, we needed to act quickly to replace it. Flowershop Network was our answer, because we could get a decent looking website up in short order without too much work, and we could still relay orders for our customers. But, getting our own custom website was our goal by the next year.

Business this year included bouquets for the The Dance Academy production of Peter and the Wolf, adding on more churches for Sunday altar flowers, the most weddings we've done in a year, bringing home the blue ribbon from the local Flower Show for our design of Mardi Gras, joining flower forums and meeting some of the nicest, talented and helpful florists you would ever want to meet, getting a FB page, starting a blog, and most recently, getting our custom website up and running in less than a month (who knew?). Our special thanks go out to Brandon and EpicFlowers who helped make this all happen - yep, you guessed it, he's one of those special people I met in the florist forum.
Now that we have our new site up, hoping for a great Christmas season, and then having time to spend with family and friends.
On a personal side, my daughter and her husband bought a lovely home, and we got to spend some time with the grandboys. My son found his dream job, even if it is in DC. And we lost our mom to her battle with Alzheimers and heart disease, and then last week, a young man, my daughter-in-law's brother. A sad ending to an otherwise good year.

$10 off a $40 arrangement and a Merry Christmas!

All this week, we're giving you $10 off, if you order any $40 arrangement for delivery or pick-up anytime this month. But, you need to place your order by Saturday, Dec. 18th to receive the discount. Just consider it our little Christmas present to you. And if you stop by with the little ones, we have Candy Canes for them, complete with a card telling the Story of the Candy Cane. See you soon!