An arrangement of flower e-tailers has blossomed in recent years, unaffected by the withering of dot-coms selling other goods. Nearly a half-million online orders for Mother's Day bouquets are expected in May, contributing to the $1.3 billion in online flower sales expected in 2001.
When choosing among the sites, your biggest decision may be how you want the flowers sent: arranged in a vase or shipped in a box directly from the grower via Federal Express.
Bouquets that skip the display case stay fresh longer, say Hallmark.com and Proflowers.com, two of the largest vendors of flowers sent by FedEx. The trade-off is that the recipient must arrange the flowers herself. Yet Hallmark and Proflowers earned high marks from customers for accurately describing, fairly pricing and properly delivering bouquets, according to a survey by BizRate.com, a ranking firm.
The two online florists with the most sales, however, don't use FedEx, choosing instead to pass orders to local florists. Both services, 1-800-flowers.com and FTD.com have good track records: Each refunded or replaced fewer than one in 25 orders last year.
Online customers pay a slight premium for convenience. The bouquets themselves are about the same price as those found at local vendors. But service fees average $8 an order, a couple of dollars more than many florist shops charge. All sites mentioned here allow senders to call a hotline for a refund or replacement if the bouquet arrives damaged. Proflowers has the longest satisfaction guarantee (seven days).
To test these services, we compared four leading sites. We picked two that use local florists, 1-800-flowers.com and FTD.com, and two that use FedEx: Hallmark, for its unique presentation, and Calyx & Corolla, for its exotic blooms. To see how the services perform under pressure, we placed the orders on Feb. 12 to be delivered on Valentine's Day to three addresses across the country.
We sent comparable bouquets, priced between $49 and $68. The service fees ranged from $8 for FTD and 1-800-flowers to $14 for Calyx & Corolla.
Our recipients liked all the bouquets and no favorite emerged — although we confirmed that the flowers sent by FedEx did stay fresh longer.
Sites may stop taking orders by May 8 for Mother's Day (May 13). And because Mother's Day is on Sunday, FedEx will not deliver on the holiday. FTD.com and 1-800-flowers.com plan limited Sunday delivery.