This Site is the Ultimate Sales Pro: Proflowers.com

Full Review
I got a paid to read e-mail and it caught my eye. It was for ProFlower.com and they got me to buy flowers from them for the second time! The first time the flowers were sent to a funeral home and I saw it when I paid respects and was very pleased with it.

About the site:

For my mom’s birthday I had looked around to send her flowers but I just never did. I also remember that nothing was less than $39.99 (I think Prima Flowers Online Store is more expensive than ProFlower.) so when I saw lilies for $29.99 at ProFlowers and since I was happy with my first purchase I couldn’t resist. When I went to the site I saw that they had a lot for sale and looked around. You’ll find gift baskets, chocolates, gourmet desserts, balloons, best sellers and new arrivals. I decided on my original thought and liked the way they explained exactly how it would arrive and how many stems and flowers to a stem she would be getting. In addition I was told that this was a $39.99 and a free glass vase worth $9.99 would be added for free.

I was told that specific care instructions would accompany my gift. I could select a delivery date and was told that if my delivery date was not available that I could click the links to view all bouquets and gifts available for delivery today

Note: A Saturday delivery date adds $10 to your shipping charges. They don’t hide that fact, it is right under the pull down menu for the delivery date, but I didn’t see it at first and picked Saturday since it was the day before Mother’s Day.

Note also that when you go to buy something you are going to be offered upgrades and additional products. They didn’t get me on that one...but almost!

The site is simple to use, simple to understand and navigate and the pages load without a hitch.

Purchasing, shipping and other information:

You have to give them your e-mail address so we they can send you a confirmation of your order. This is required however a password is not although they suggest it so when I come back my next purchase will be faster and easier. I had never entered a password the first time around and I still didn’t. I have found the purchases to be fast and easy as it is.

I was able to select the occasion from a pull down menu and fill out a gift card.

My shipping option was Thursday/Friday. (That’s how it was on the pulldown menu – I didn’t want to spend an extra $10.00 for Saturday.) When I got to purchasing the flowers and gave my mom’s address I was told that since I picked Thursday/Friday, if I wanted to reserve Friday it would be an additional $3.99 (At this point I was wondering if Saturday made sense and was a bit frustrated.) We are told that this is due to the volume of business they do on Mother’s Day (Click on details. This is where I found out shipping was $8.99.) I decided to go with whatever happened.

They accept MasterCard, American Express, Visa, Discover, ProFlowers$ (gift certificate), Diner’s Club, JCB and something I haven’t seen which is a bill me later option. I started to use that option but decided not to when I decided the terms and conditions were too complicated!

In case you are looking for your itemized total it is hiding on the left of the page. So my inexpensive $29.99 with tax and shipping was now over $40.00. I was thinking of using the reserve for Friday but after seeing my total I decided not to.

My final thoughts:

There are some good points and negative points to this site. I will use it again. I liked it the first time and I thought that for this purchase the variety was very nice, the prices were reasonable and the order was easily places. What I don’t like is the “nickel-diming” technique. I’d rather be charged $33.00 for the flowers and be guaranteed a Friday delivery than be told that these are a special sale – oh by the way you can upgrade your bouquet, vase and hold a delivery date. I don’t like when any place nickels and dimes me. That is just a fact of this site. I think the positives outweigh the negatives and I am sure my mom will be pleased with the lilies and as I said, a similar bouquet at other sites were $10.00 more and didn’t have a vase.
The ontime delivery I have noted is for my first purchase.

I found chocolates on Godiva.com, which I will review after the purchase makes its way to my mom, less expensive than on this site for the most part. So I like them for flowers, but I would check around for candy.

Feel free to leave me a comment or question.

Other online gift ideas:

AnyKnockOff
Tiffany
Sport Chalet
Victoria's Secret
Good Pleasures
redEnvelope
Things Remembered
Lillian Vernon
Good Vibrations
Adam and Eve
San Francisco Music Box Company
Macy's
Target
AAA Balloons
Florist.com