FWIW this is not just an Australian problem, it is a problem in most countries. I believe the origin of this genre of order takers, not florists, is Teleflora, and we have Teleflora Australia. Companies as well as proper florists can be members to take and deliver orders, as well as Teleflora directly.
They categorise themselves as ‘floral relay services’ not florists, and ‘support local florists all over the country and handle the sending and receiving of international and domestic floral and gift orders to and from Australia.’
In a way similar but different to the myriad online sites that essentially are booking agents for tradies and most anything else one can need, whose only staff is the web developer and an agent (outsourced?) to answer a phone number. Some of those sites have contracted people to deliver, and some will essentially take an order/booking and do the equivalent of an airtasker search for someone to do the job at the price around the time, or arrange a drop shipment from a supplier to you.
Many code their web sites to respond to searches, such as ‘cleaner Eltham’ and one gets all manner of booking services ‘Cleaning Services Eltham’ who might have an office in Sydney or further. At some point I suspect the internet as we know it will collapse under its own weight of such rubbish and have to evolve.
