1 800 FLOWERS.COM Was Better than I Expected
Written: Jun 15, 2012
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Earlier this year I won an award at work and received a prepaid American Express card with it. 1-800-Flowers.com was one of the on-line merchants that were a partner in the rewards program, so I decided to use 1-800-Flowers.com for my wife’s birthday. On-line reviews do not seem to give the thumbs up for 1-800-Flowers.com. However, 1800Flowers.com is the only on-line flower store that is a partner in the rewards program so I did have much choice.
The Shopping Experience
The web site has tabs for flowers, baskets, fruit bouquets, cookies, Fannie May chocolates, and popcorn and other goodies. Some of the tabs take you to a page on 1-800-Flowers.com and some of them take you to 1800baskets.com. It may be the same company but it appears to be two different web sites united under one main home page with six tabs.
Anyway, I selected flowers and I selected birthday flowers for the occasion and a page with photos of 171 flower arrangements was displayed. I picked the shades of pink and red ($60.00 to $90.00 depending on options), which came with a red glass vase, a bow, and a flower arrangement consisting of a dozen pink roses and a dozen red roses and some smaller flowers and greenery in between.
On the next page I entered recipient zip code and delivery type and the delivery date. On this page you could also add extras and the bow was such an extra. I did not add various stuffed animals, balloons and such. After that page you add your selection to the shopping cart and you select quantity, the delivery date one more time, you have a chance to remove (or add) items, and then you click the check out button.
Then you get to a page where you have to login using an account or as a guest and once again you have to press the check out button. The next page is the secure check out page and here you enter the shipping address and this is where you enter a complimentary message to the recipient. After pressing checkout/payment you enter the payment type and after pressing the confirm button you are done and a printable conformation page is shown.
I have three complaints about the web site. I thought there were a few too many pages to click through. However, it is not a big deal. What bothered me more is that it was not until the secure check out page following the check out page (page five) that you got a chance to enter a recipient message. You certainly want a recipient message when you send flowers and when you can’t do that until after you press the check out button there should at least be an indicator that you can enter a recipient message after check out, earlier in the process. Because of this situation I unnecessarily called customer service because I got nervous when I did not see anywhere to enter a message.
My third complaint is that the delivery charge did not show up until the confirmation page. Sure I expect a delivery charge but this charge should be displayed up front and not after you have gone through all the selecting, filling out address and billing information, writing a message, logging in, check out, etc.
Customer Service
As mentioned I called customer service because I did not see anywhere to enter a message. I had already filled out the information, logged in, and pressed check out. I saw the secure checkout button but in my mind that meant I was almost done and still I saw no box for messages. I did not want finalize the purchase without a message, so I called customer service.
The person had a foreign accent, just like I do, and did not seem to know how the web site worked. She just wanted to take my order, but I did not feel like repeating all the information including my message to the customer service representative. I just wanted to know where the add-message feature was. She had to contact someone else for that but we finally got there. She was friendly, and that is a plus, but it did not give me a good impression that she did not know much about the web site and that she spoke with a quite strong accent. Everything seems to be outsourced to foreign call centers now a day.
Product Experience
The flowers arrived at the right address at the right time with the correct message and the flowers were actually gorgeous. They looked like the flowers in the picture and usually that is never the case. The picture is always better. The roses were large and fresh, the vase is beautiful and the arrangement was very nicely done, and now five days later they still look good. Sure the flower arrangement was $90.00 plus a delivery fee of $15.00 so I expected it to be good, but I was still positively surprised that the flowers looked so good, considering on-line reviews. After all the general impression I have of on-line flower delivery stores is that you get crap that does not look like the picture at all.
We’ve received smaller items from 1800basket.com and 1800flowers.com before and have no complaints but this is the first time I buy something myself from their web site. My impression so far is good but should it change it the future I will update this review.
I can recommend 1800flowers.com but I cannot highly recommend them because of the issues I had with their web site. I would give the web site three stars, and the delivered product five stars, which is four stars in my opinion.
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? shades of pink and red flower bouquet
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About the Author
Member: Thomas Wikman
Location: Dallas, TX, USA
Reviews written: 1244
Trusted by: 217 members
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