By Josh Foley & Kelley Henry
Third-Generation Owners, Joyce Merck Florist • Gainesville, Georgia
Flowers have been in our family for three generations. We grew up in this shop — literally — and we are proud of that. But a few years ago, we had an honest conversation about how we were actually running the business. And what we found changed everything.
For decades, we operated inside a wire service ecosystem. It handled our orders, processed our transactions, and came with a point-of-sale system we just accepted as “the way it works.” The problem was, it wasn’t designed for the way customers order flowers today. And we were paying for that mismatch every single day — in time, in errors, and in money quietly walking out the door.
“We were forced to do a lot of extra work with our previous system, resulting in errors and missed deliveries.” — Josh Foley
The paperwork alone tells the story. Every order was printed. Enclosure cards were printed separately and matched by hand. Designers scribbled substitutions on paper slips. Drivers carried paper for signatures. At the end of each day, everything went into a box. When a customer called about a past order, someone had to stop what they were doing and dig through those boxes to find the answer — usually in the middle of a rush.
The wire service fees were their own quiet drain. A percentage off every order, year after year. When you are busy, you stop noticing it. When you sit down and actually calculate it, it is eye-opening.
We made two decisions that turned things around. The first was moving to a unified system — one platform where everyone in the shop sees the same information in real time. No paper passing between departments. When a designer makes a substitution, the driver knows. When an order has a timed delivery request, it does not get lost in a stack of printouts. When a customer calls, we find their order in seconds. When we are planning for Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day, we can actually look ahead, map out our delivery zones, and route our drivers efficiently — days before the rush hits.
For florists who are not technical — and we count ourselves in that group — here is the simplest way to put it: instead of information living on paper scattered across your shop, it lives in one place that everyone can see and trust. That single change made our team calmer, our communication better, and our mistakes far fewer. It also gave us something we had not expected: time. Time to focus on design quality, on customer relationships, on the parts of this work that actually drew us to it in the first place.
The second decision was harder, emotionally. We had charged $9.95 for delivery for as long as we could remember. Flat fee, no exceptions. Meanwhile, fuel costs had climbed, labor had climbed, and the time it takes to plan, route, and execute deliveries — especially during peak holidays — had become significant. We were quietly subsidizing every single delivery.
“We honestly thought customers would push back on new delivery pricing. Instead, the opposite happened.” — Kelley Henry
We moved to distance-based delivery fees, with clear options for standard windows, rush service, and specific timed deliveries. Customers barely blinked. In fact, they started selecting the timed options, paying rush fees, and adding tips on top. They were already used to paying for convenience in every other part of their lives. We were the ones who had not given them credit for it
Since April 2024, our average order value has increased by 22 percent. Average delivery revenue has gone up nearly 50 percent. Not because we caught anyone off guard — because we stopped undercharging for a service that takes real time, real labor, and real fuel to deliver well.
More than the numbers, our shop feels different now. Our holidays are planned instead of survived. Our team is not chasing paper. Our designers can focus on designing. Our drivers know exactly where they are going and when.
“Modernizing does not mean losing what makes you special. It gives you more time and energy to focus on what actually makes you special.” — Josh Foley
We are not tech people. We are florists. We say that because we want other shop owners to know this is not about chasing the newest tools — it is about having systems that work the way your shop actually works, instead of bending your shop to fit a system built for a different era.
If you are still running on paper and a flat delivery fee that has not changed in fifteen years, we are not judging you. We were you for a long time. But we would encourage you to sit down and ask yourself one honest question: if you were building this shop from scratch today, knowing what fuel costs, what labor costs, and what customers now expect — would you build it exactly this way?
The florists who thrive going forward will not necessarily be the busiest shops. They will be the ones operating with the most clarity — and the most confidence in the value they provide.
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