Comparing Some Major Online Florists

(CBS)  Valentine's Day is one of the biggest occasions for the sale of flowers. And there are many ways to buy them.

One of the most popular is to purchase and send online.

But is what you see always what you get?

On Monday, Early Show financial contributor Vera Gibbons ordered from five different online florists, to find out if ordering that way is all it's cracked up to be.

The bouquets arrived Monday evening, and on Tuesday, Gibbons compared how close some of the most popular sites came to matching what they'd promised.

BOUQUET #1: FROMYOUFLOWERS.COM: DOZEN SWEET ROSES

The bouquet is called "Dozen Sweet Roses." It's advertised as "a dozen red roses accented with bupleurum, and ... delivered in a clear vase." The jpeg is of a dozen lush roses, with slight accents of green in between. It comes in standard, deluxe and premium. Obviously, the standard is the cheapest, and that's what we ordered.

COMPARISON TO WHAT ARRIVED:

The vase is completely different than pictured. It was pictured as a plain glass vase with a rounded top, and it came as an etched cylinder. There are more leafy greens in the bouquet than was pictured. But the roses looked healthy and otherwise it looked as advertised.

PRICE: $50.00

BOUQUET #2: PROFLOWERS.COM: TWO DOZEN LONG-STEMMED RED ROSES W/FREE RUBY

The bouquet is advertised as two dozen roses accented with some leafy greens and baby's breath. In the picture, it looks like a very modern arrangement, a tight grouping of flowers forming an almost spherical shape. ProFlowers advertises itself as modern and cutting-edge, a great departure from your cliché bouquet.

COMPARISON TO WHAT ARRIVED:

This was by far the most disappointing bouquet. The flowers didn't look healthy; some looked half-dead. There were a hell of a lot more greens in the bouquet that was delivered, really more of a bouquet component rather than an accent. PROFLOWERS DELIVERS IN A BOX, as opposed to a vase. That may put them it at a disadvantage when delivering. The vase comes in the box, and the stems of the flowers are in moist sponge and wrapped in plastic.

PRICE: $60.00

BOUQUET #3: TELEFLORA.COM: RED ROSE PASSION BOUQUET

This bouquet is advertised as 16 luscious roses in a hand-blown ruby vase. It's supposed to be lightly accented on the lower half of the bouquet with pink wax flowers.

COMPARISON TO WHAT ARRIVED:

This bouquet is pretty true-to-form. Like most of the other bouquets, there's a lot more green filler in this arrangement than pictured on the Web. There are wax flowers in the lower half of the bouquet, and most of the roses look pretty healthy, with one or two exceptions. However, this bouquet is pretty expensive, and it doesn't really look it. Therefore, not a great value as far as we're concerned.

PRICE: $120

BOUQUET #4: ZEZEFLOWERS.COM: ONE DOZEN LONG-STEM ARRANGEMENT

This particular flower seller, like ProFlowers, advertises modern arrangements. For this florist, we actually called them and did not rely on the Web site, since none of the arrangements on the site matched what we were looking for. We specified a loose, one dozen, long-stem arrangement for Valentine's Day. They sent us a picture of what they were sending.

COMPARISON TO WHAT ARRIVED:

The picture looks quite different from what they sent. The flowers were much darker, which is quite a dramatic change from the traditional flowers of Valentine's Day. If you're looking for the classic arrangement, this seller is probably not for you. The greens were more of a filler than pictured. An expensive arrangement, but different and creative.

PRICE: $125.00

BOUQUET #5: FTD.COM: ABUNDANT ROSE BOUQUET

The write up on FTD's site says, "Two dozen roses make a grand entrance in this beautiful arrangement. Arranged in a classic glass vase and accented with dainty limonium, this bouquet is sure to impress. Perfect to celebrate an anniversary, or any occasion." The vase in the picture is tall and cylinder-shaped.

COMPARISON TO WHAT ARRIVED:

This bouquet looks full and abundant. And in that sense it works very nicely. It looks as if you really got your money's worth. However, the flowers they use as accent on the Web site, Limonium, are NOT the accent flowers that arrived in the bouquet. The accent flowers in what we received are small purple daisies. Also, the vase that arrived was round and heavy, not tall and cylindrical.

PRICE: $145.00

BEST OVERALL AS DETERMINED BY GIBBONS: FTD

BEST VALUE AS DETERMINED BY GIBBONS: FROMYOUFLOWERS

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: PROFLOWERS

To get tips from Gibbons on buying flowers online, click here.

[carrier_pigeon]

CBS desperately needs to either remove this review or UPDATE IT!!
I would never recommend FromYouFlowers.com and according to the general conscensus of hundreds of other people who read this review and "attempted" to use them, neither would a huge majority of unsatisfied customers.
http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews109579.html
If that website isnt enough type FromYouFlowers and "scam" or "undelivered" in to any search engine and watch as the negative comments populate your screen.
AVOID FromYouFlowers.com at all costs!!

[CrapsdealerYO]

What a crock! I ordered 4 bouquets for Mother's Day on FromYouFlowers.com purely on the recommendation from CBS. Well, disappointment isn't a strong enough word for what I experienced. I placed the order well in advance and when the flowers were delivered today, only ONE of the bouquets was what I had actually ordered and been charged for. Two of the bouquets were rather generic looking, and certainly not even CLOSE to the price range of the flowers I had chosen. To put the cherry on the whole event, the beautiful expensive arrangement of roses I ordered for my mother didn't arrive either. A completely different arrangement was sent to her, and upon further investigation on the website, I found it under the "Sympathy" arrangements. THEY SENT MY MOTHER A FUNERAL ARRANGEMENT FOR MOTHER'S DAY!!!!! Are you kidding?!?! I will never again use an internet company for any flowers. I would have done this the correct way and went to a locally owned flower shop had it not been for the fact that I work in a casino and sleep during their normal business hours. Lesson learned. From this day forward, I will request a day off and work directly with a florist and not with online companies who not only lie to the customer but make the florist look bad. Shame on you Vera for appearing to promote this type of business and shame on me for falling for it.

[Spifferino1]

Proflowers sucks. There is $14.95 that ProFlowers orders tack onto your credit card INDEFINITELY until you call to cancel their 'Easy Saver' program. Easy Saver is embedded in the ProFlowers ordering system and this is a way that they can charge your credit card or checking account automatically until you call to cancel.

[kene999]

I have to echo dorwin36, stick with a major florist. I took your advice on flowers and ordered from fromyouflowers.com for Father's Day. This article is featured on their home page. Thanks for the tip! They didn't deliver on Father's Day as promised. Called Monday, they were nice, said they'd deliver that day and upgrade the size. It didn't arrive. Then a mysterious second charge appeared on my card from them for $0.01 (???). I called twice today, they were polite, up until the point where I asked them to cancel, then they put me on hold and disconnected me. I finally got them to say they cancelled it on the third call, but I'm skeptical that the charges will actually get cancelled, it was a very quick "Ok, thanks, we'll cancel it. <Click>".

[dorwin36]

As the segment suggest most online flower shops do deliver what they advertise. There are hundreds out there and the best thing to do is get feed back from other users. Do your do diligence and find out if the online florist has a money back guarantee. How many local florist offer a money back guarantee. Seek out user reviews and ratings to increase your confidence. That's what we do at <a href="http://www.flowershopdeals.com">flowershopdeals.com</a>. It's probably a good idea to stick with the larger more established online florist with large networks of florist anyway like FTD or Teleflora.

[swagga8]

I am a real florist in Sherwood, AR with real designers. Ordering online can be very deceiving. You, most often, are under the impression that you are speaking to a florist when you are actually speaking to a sales person sitting at a computer who , more often than not, doesn''t know anything about flowers. You will pay more ordering from these type of businesses. Your local florist can give you professional and personalized service that you can trust. Thanks for doing this segment. sherwoodflorist.org

[leahlitin]

*This is in response to Mondays segment on this topic* I am outraged at all the misinformation givin in this report. As a REAL florist this has been very insulting. To suggest price gouging is a very uneducated statement. If the amount of reserch that went into this segment is the norm for the early show, then I will disregard any further information discussed on this show. A florist runs on a much lower margin of profit during this holiday. As far as using a on-line clearing house to order flowers, thats like throwing $20.00 out the window. Always contact a local florist with a local address to get the best quality and service. And to the producers of The Early Show, you really should have slept in.

[kibbie5]

When my sister had a mastectomy; I called FTD.com and ordered a Spring Flower Arrangement in a standard glass vase. It cost around $80 with delivery. I live in a different state but I was able to go visit my sister two days after her surgery. I was embarassed when I saw the "weeds" that were delivered to her. I will never order from FTD.com again.

[rosepetals4]

I am florist from Asheville NC and absolutely agree with farahpayton''s comments. Just to add, many florists feel that on-line "florists" are ruining the floral industry. First, because they have huge advertising budgets and technical savvy, they are, in fact "taking" orders from local florists. Many also do this through deceptive advertising by not disclosing all their per order fees, not disclosing their actual physical addresses and by luring a consumer into thinking that they are actually located in the town or city that the flowers are to be delivered to. Proflowers and From You Flowers show up in the search engine results as "Asheville Florist". After getting an order, the order is sent back to a local florist, highly discounted from the price that they received. The other thing that they are doing is they are driving down price points in general.America, many local florists are unable to stay in business because of these companies. The public would be better served by always using a local florist.Mike [e-mail]