Sometimes retailers affect suppliers beyond the business of buying and selling. Take
Proflowers.com, the flagship web site of Provide Commerce Inc. Proflowers runs on a model that transfers to flower growers many of the tasks formerly handled by middlemen. That’s taken growers into new territory by putting them in the business of packaging and shipping as well as supplying product. But it’s also pushed many into the forefront of web technology, installing high-speed Internet access into remote areas that hadn’t had it before.
To help keep growers organized under the additional responsibilities, Proflowers' web communication to its domestic growers transmits information on orders to be filled as distantly as a week in the future–but the system only lets them print the current day’s orders, packing slips and shipping labels, CEO Bill Strauss tells Internet Retailer.
“We don’t want them to print the orders ahead of time–that increases the chances they might make a mistake. They might pack it a day earlier or a day later, and you can imagine the problems that would cause,” says Strauss.
Strauss, who says Proflowers pays growers a premium for the extra service, adds that it’s helped spark the spread of high-speed Internet access in some remote rural areas that still didn’t have it. “When we started this six years ago, we actually installed fax machines at the growers, and we had fax servers here that sent the orders. But over time, growers have installed high-speed Internet access on their own as they’ve seen their business with us grow. It’s been that profitable for them,” he says.
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