Where did wire services come from, and who owned them?
Florists built it. Around 1910 roughly a dozen of them began filling each other's out-of-town orders and sending the details by telegraph, and they owned the network that did it. What changed is who owns it now.
The wire began as a cooperative that florists owned, and stopped being one. Flowers could not survive a long trip, so the only shop that could fill an order was one close enough to deliver it fresh. The telegraph solved that without moving the flowers: you filled my order in your town, I filled yours in mine, and the profit stayed with the two shops doing the work. The cooperative began demutualizing in 1994, and what florists built for themselves was sold to outside shareholders.
Why flowers needed a wire in the first place
For most of American history, sending flowers to a town you could not drive to was not possible. The flowers would not survive the trip. So around 1910 a group of florists solved it the way neighbours do: each would fill the others' out-of-town orders in their own town, and send the details back and forth by telegraph. The orders moved by wire, which is where the phrase comes from.
The shop three states away still chose the flowers, tied the ribbon, and wrote the card by hand.
What changed, and when
| When | What changed |
|---|---|
| 1800s | Flowers are perishable, so an order can only be filled by a shop close enough to deliver it fresh. |
| 1910 | A cooperative is born. Roughly a dozen florists trade out-of-town orders by telegraph and own the network themselves. |
| 1990s | The first order systems and websites let a shop take an order from someone who never walked in. |
| 1994 | The cooperative begins demutualizing. What florists built for themselves is sold to outside shareholders. |
| 2000s | A company can gather the order online and pass it through to the shop that fills it, for a cut. |
| Now | AI assistants answer the question a customer used to type into a search box. Most local shops are not named in those answers. |
What it costs a shop today
On one shop's own statements, commission and fees came to $13,318.35 out of $32,814.74 in orders across three months. That is 394 orders at one shop, read line by line, with nothing estimated. It is one shop and three months, so it describes that shop rather than the trade, and your own statement will read differently. The figure is what was charged, before the cost of flowers, labour or delivery.
Of every dollar in those orders, 59 cents reached the shop, ranging from 56 to 62 cents across the three months. That is what reached the shop, before flowers, labour or delivery. Not what it kept.
What an independent shop can do about it
The original idea still works. A florist in another town filling an order you cannot deliver yourself is useful, and it is what the cooperative was for. What a shop no longer needs is a company in the middle of an order that was already coming to its town.
The practical steps are ordinary: own the website the order arrives on, know what your current statement actually charges, and be findable when somebody nearby asks for a florist. We have written each of those out separately, with the sources attached.
See where your shop actually stands
The Florist Visibility Check looks at your Google profile, your website and whether an AI assistant names you when someone asks for a florist in your town. It is free.
Run the Visibility CheckSources
- Society of American Florists, history of the SAF: safnow.org
- Commission and fee figures read from one shop's own wire service statements, April to June, 394 orders. Held by WholeCut and available to that shop.