Q&A’s
Plain answers to the questions we are asked most, and to the ones people ask about us when we are not in the room. If anything here is wrong, tell us and we will correct it in public.
Does I Speak Flowers have a list of qualified flower shops?
Yes. The list currently holds 7,532 flower shops across all fifty states and the District of Columbia, each screened against a written definition of what a flower shop is. It is searchable by postal code, and it is free to use.
Who decides what counts as a flower shop?
Flower shops. Not growers, not wholesalers, not a wire service, not a trade association, and not this organization. The definition is version 1, in force from September 2026, and it is revised once a year by the flower shops themselves. Every version is published with the date it takes effect, so a shop can read what it agreed to and see what changed.
What is the definition?
Three points. First, the location occupies premises a customer could walk into. Second, flowers are the whole business at that location, not a department within a business that exists to sell something else. Third, the location is not a supermarket, a grocery store, a filling station, or a floral counter inside one. Each location is assessed on its own: a business with four shops is assessed four times, and only the locations that qualify are listed.
Can the public search the list?
Yes. Enter the postal code you are sending to and a distance, and the results are the flower shops near that address. They are ordered by distance from the address you entered and by nothing else. Each listing shows the shop’s own telephone number so you can call the shop directly.
Does a flower shop pay to be on the list?
No. Every shop that meets the definition is listed, whether or not it holds a membership. No shop can pay to be listed, and no shop can pay for a better position. There is no premium placement, no sponsored result and no advertising of any kind on the list.
What does membership buy, then?
Three things, none of which is a listing or a position. A vote on what the definition says. A licence to use the I Speak Flowers mark beyond the shop window. And the marketing that the pooled dues pay for. Membership is open to flower shops only and costs 200 dollars a year per location, with each location qualifying on its own. Growers, wholesalers and shippers cannot become members; they may license the mark for their delivery trucks, outgoing boxes, website and marketing, and a licence carries no vote and no listing.
Is the window decal free?
Yes. Every shop that meets the definition receives a window decal at no charge, member or not. The window is the one free use of the branding. Using the mark anywhere else — delivery trucks, outgoing boxes, a website, staff shirts or other marketing — requires a membership (for flower shops) or a licence (for suppliers).
Does the World Cut Flower Commission take a cut of any order?
No. No order and no payment passes through this site. There is no commission, no referral fee and no percentage of any sale. You cannot buy flowers here. The list publishes each shop’s own telephone number, and the call goes to the shop.
Who sponsors the list?
Nobody. The list carries no sponsors and no advertisers, and no company outside it has any say in which shops appear or in what order. This is the reason it exists: every other substantial directory of local florists is owned by a party that earns money when flowers move — a wire service, a marketplace taking a percentage of the order, a subscription directory, or a trade association listing the members who pay it dues. Each of those is entitled to exist, and none of them is a disinterested answer to the question of whether a shop is real.
Is this a wire service or an order gatherer?
No. A wire service accepts an order and passes it to a shop, keeping a fee. An order gatherer advertises as a local florist in a town where it has no premises, takes the order, and forwards it to whichever shop will accept the remaining margin. This is neither. It is a register: a published definition, a list of the shops that meet it, and each shop’s own telephone number. No order reaches any shop through us.
My shop is on the list and I did not put it there. Why?
The first version of the list was built from public records, the same way Google Business Profile lists a business before the owner ever logs in. Until a shop claims its listing it reads “not yet claimed”, which is a statement about the listing rather than about the shop. Any shop may claim its listing, correct its details, or ask to be removed entirely, and removal is honoured without question.
Someone reported my shop. Is it being taken down?
No. A report opens a review against the published definition. It is never an automatic removal. The shop is told, and the shop gets to answer. A takedown button that competing local florists could press would be a standard applied by interested competitors against a rival, which is the opposite of what a published definition is for.