Gone are the days when you had to trek into the city to find a decent florist to order flowers from. With the modern day convenience of the internet you can order beautiful flowers from the comfort of your own home. But for someone who is purchasing flowers online for the first time the steps can seem a little confusing. Fear not, we’ll walk through the steps for buying flowers online together.
Step 1: Decide What Type of Flower You Want
The first thing you need to decide is what type of flowers you want to send. Roses, lilies, carnations, daisies and mixed bouquets are all very popular. There are many places where you can find information about the different meanings for various types of flowers, so take a few minutes to read up on this topic before you send your bouquet.
Step 2: Decide on a Budget
It’s easy to get caught up in the beauty of a bouquet, but you have to know how much you are willing to spend before you embark upon your quest. Expect to spend at least $40.00 on a decent bouquet; more if you want a specific type of vase or a rare flower. A flower vase is important because not everyone has china cabinets full of them, and you don’t want your recipient to be forced to put your lovely flowers in a mason jar. If you don’t know if your recipient has vases, include one. Also, decide if you just want flowers in your bouquet, which will be more expensive, or if you’re willing to have fillers like beargrass and ferns which will help cut costs. Really exquisite bouquets can sometimes reach into the hundreds of dollars, so pick a price point, stick to it, and be willing to spend money for quality blooms.
Step 3: Select a Vendor
If you already have a favorite flower vendor, and they are online, then you can go straight to their website. For the rest of us, you can find a large selection of vendors at a flower comparison website. There you can browse flowers from several reputable vendors at once and see who has the flowers and prices that you like the most. You could also hop on a search engine like Google or Yahoo and type in “buy flowers”. This will bring up a whole list of online companies who sell flowers.
Step 4: Browse the Site’s Selection
Most sites will give you the choice to look through all of the bouquets they offer in a certain flower type, price range, or occasion. These will appear as thumbnails and be listed with a price. Browse through the different selections, and choose one that suits your taste. Step 5: Select a Delivery Date
Now that you have your flowers picked out you need to decide when you want them to arrive. Most sites have delivery dates a few days out, so you should really shop for a bouquet a week ahead of time to be safe.
Step 6: Complete the Checkout Process
Once you’ve chosen a delivery date it’s time to check out. Usually there will be a large and obvious button saying something like “checkout”. Click on this button. It will take you to a form where you must put in your name, address, credit card information, and address where the flowers are to be delivered. This is also usually where you can include any special messages to the recipient. Once you have the form filled out submit it, and you should receive a confirmation of your order along with an order number. Print this page out or write down the order number. In case of any issues with your order this is the number the company will use to track it down.
It looks like you’re done, and it wasn’t even that difficult! Soon you’ll be getting a thrilled phone call from whoever received the flowers, and you’ll have the confidence to order online again.