This could be a blog that listed the “Top 10 florists of [insert city]” – we have all seen those. However, maybe you want to decide for yourself rather than have someone tell you. Maybe you are not sure how to find a florist and always go for the same choice every time – boring, but reliable and can get very ‘same old, same old’ feeling.
Here’s a guide on how to pick a good florist and some alternatives you may not have thought of.
How?
First of all, let’s start with the how. How do you want your flowers to arrive? Will the person be in when they are received? There are two options here:-
Delivered - you can have your flowers delivered by the florist, in which case someone will need to be in to receive them, but the flowers will arrive arranged and ready to be popped into a vase. Convenient. Handy. Saves the recipient doing anything with them aside from putting them in water.
Letterbox flowers – obviously much easier if the receiving party is out, the flowers arrive in great condition, not quite fully open, but convenient if the recipient will not be in. They would need to arrange the flowers themselves, but a lot of the ‘letterbox florists’ will have a ‘how to’ leaflet enclosed on how to get the best from the flowers and sometimes it is nice to arrange your own.
Either of these options are good for local, national and international delivery. How to pick one is entirely up to you.
What to look for in a florist
Things you can look at for both:-
What do they offer? Is it just flowers or do they offer gifts as well—if that is what you are looking for?
Where are they? Are they local to the point of delivery? Sometimes it is nicer to go with the local florist that is close to the recipient. To find a local florist, put the postcode into your preferred map, then click on ‘nearby’ and put ‘florist’ in the search box.
Standard or something different - You could call the florist and made an order over the phone with a bit of a description of what you want in the bunch–give the florist something different to work with and could be more creative than your average bunch you see on line ‘that everyone gets’.
How do you choose one?
Well, same way you chose anything, really. Could be an advert you had seen, an offer you took someone up on, someone sent you flowers from that florist, or could be word of mouth – how many times have you been to a restaurant because someone else said ‘oh, that’s a nice place’, ‘they have good food’?
All well and good, but what if you are not local? Normally, florists (like anyone else on the internet) will have reviews. Look at the most recent reviews, but don’t just take the last one. Look at the last say, half a dozen, see what they say. If more than half of those are not great, maybe look a bit further down the list. If they are consistently not good reviews, look at the next one on the list. You want to look at recent reviews and take a rough overall picture.
Go for it
Last of all, just go for it. Select one on whatever criteria suits you. Whether it is what they offer, the price, the selection, the reviews, the locality, the convenience–whatever it is that made you look and say ‘that looks nice’; go for it. You never know, they may turn out to be your new best florist.
If all of that is too much or you just don’t have enough time in the day to do this, just drop me a line. I can find one for you!