A Bouquet of Disappointment: How Florist.ru Ruined My Mom's 60th Birthday

What a total letdown!

I'm not one to write scathing reviews, but this experience left a bad taste in my mouth.

We wanted to surprise my mother-in-law on her 60th birthday with a beautiful bouquet. We were willing to splurge, so we chose Florist.ru, a company with a good reputation and a wide reach in Russia.

My mother-in-law had received flowers from them before, and she loved them, so we thought it was a no-brainer.

The website's design is minimalist, with a green background and simple menu sections.

The website offers free delivery for bouquets of any price, a free greeting card with your message, and a photo of the recipient with the bouquet, which is sent to you via email.

We were excited about the benefits of using Florist.ru, but the prices for bouquets are steep, starting at 2000 rubles for the most basic arrangements.

At the top of the page, you can select any major Russian city from the list or enter it manually. Our Borisoglebsk was found without any trouble.

The website has a huge selection of bouquets and flowers, especially in big cities, and a bit more limited in smaller ones. But even in Borisoglebsk, the selection was impressive, and you can find a bouquet to suit your taste.

Just like in any other online store. You browse through the list of bouquets available in your city, pick the one you like, and add it to your cart.

We chose a very delicate bouquet called 'Celebration of My Heart,' which had a lovely name, unfortunately, it wasn't a celebration at all, but a huge disappointment, but more on that later...

I placed the order from my phone for the next day, so the screenshots from my phone will follow. Florist has a unique feature where each bouquet has three size variations: mini, standard, and maxi. The mini usually costs between 1,500 and 2,500 rubles, the standard between 2,500 and 4,000 rubles, and the maxi between 4,500 and 6,000 rubles.

We chose the standard size, which was perfect for us in terms of price and size, and it cost 4,100 rubles.

We also added three helium balloons for 330 rubles.

The bouquet composition included:

Rose bush, pink 5 pieces,Chrysanthemum bush, white 5 pieces,Rose, pink 5 pieces,Limonium, blueEucalyptusFeltRibbonPersonally, I think the price for 10 roses and 5 chrysanthemums is overpriced, but we loved it so much that we didn't hesitate to order it, and even consulted with my mom about it, as we were gifting the flowers.

We chose a delivery time frame of 3 hours, from 16:00 to 19:00.

I paid using my plastic card on the website, and the payment went through quickly and without any issues, and the money was deducted from my card immediately.

I received an email about the order being processed, and it was also duplicated on the website.

What annoyed me first was that no one contacted me for several hours to confirm the order. In my previous experience, they called me within 20 minutes after the order to clarify the details, so I had to call them myself this time.

I was told that they had introduced new rules and no longer make calls to customers to confirm orders. Instead, all orders automatically go into the system and are processed. Okay, I thought, new rules are new rules, as long as the bouquet is beautiful.

Payment options are plenty, from cash to electronic payments.

Delivery is done either by a courier or you can pick up the bouquet from the florist's salon yourself.

The delivery of flowers and an unpleasant surprise

We were super excited to give my mother-in-law a beautiful bouquet for her anniversary, and I had high hopes that she'd love it. She's from a small town and rarely sees arrangements like this, so we really wanted to impress her.

Fast forward to the next day, and at 3 pm, the florist called to say that the rose bushes they ordered were subpar and offered to replace them with regular roses. I was already disappointed, but I agreed to the change.

As the delivery time approached (4 pm), the courier still hadn't shown up. By 5 pm, 6 pm, and then suddenly, there's a knock on the door. We were busy, and I was annoyed that they couldn't even give us a 30-minute heads up.

I opened the door to find the courier holding the bouquet, but it was dark outside, and I couldn't get a good look at the flowers. I saw a big arrangement, but something didn't seem right. He started rushing me to take a photo, and then he left. I had specifically mentioned in the order notes that we didn't need photos since the order was in my name and we'd be giving it to someone else.

As I stood there on the stairs with the bouquet, I realized we'd been totally duped. Instead of a custom-designed arrangement, I had a bunch of flowers that looked like they could've been picked up from a nearby flower stand for 2,000 rubles.

What a letdown!

What a letdown is what I'd call this designer bouquet. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the sight of it. Now, let's compare it to the photo on the website Florist.ru

This looks eerily similar to the Expectation vs Reality meme, where our scammers are just as good as the Chinese ones.

First of all, instead of the bushy yellow-centered chrysanthemums, they just stuck in some regular ones without even bothering.

Secondly, they simply grabbed 10 pink roses and slapped them in there, which were a different color from the ones on the picture.

Thirdly, there were no eucalyptus branches at all.

Fourthly, the fabric wrapping was a deep purple color, not the rose one as shown on the picture.

So, in this bouquet, NOT A SINGLE THING FROM THE PICTURE was included (except for the lemon tree)

I really wanted to swear, but I couldn't because my review wouldn't pass moderation. These scumbags took advantage of the pre-paid bouquet and put together a cheap, pathetic arrangement for 4,100 rubles. We couldn't return it to the courier because my mom was waiting for us at home, and she knew we were expecting flowers for her. What heartless scoundrels! I just wanted to cry, and I barely held back so she wouldn't notice anything was wrong.

How we got our compensation

But the real fun begins now. After being duped like that, we wanted to get at least half the bouquet's price back. And I think that's a completely fair and reasonable request.

After the holiday, I called the hotline number, explained the situation to the manager, and asked them to compensate us for half the bouquet's price.

They told me to email them some photos of the bouquet and they'd get back to me soon to resolve the issue. Two hours went by. Of course, nobody called. Who needs to solve problems, right? Nobody. I kept calling for half an hour and nobody picked up. I made the conclusion that my phone number had been marked as ignored. That's the kind of service you get from these guys.

I called my mom in tears, sent her the bouquet photo, and she asked for the store's phone number, promising to sort everything out. She's a feisty one, having worked in retail for 30 years, so I'm not surprised she managed to get through.

She, of course, got through because her number wasn't in their system. She expressed her thoughts on the store, and they promised to look into it with their regional partners and get back to me. But, of course, nobody got back to me. I ended up sending them a message on Viber and, lo and behold, they responded with the same scripted response: 'Your order is being handled, and we'll get back to you soon.'

I'm still fuming about the whole experience. By the end of the day, no one had contacted me, and the next day was the same story. I had to reach out to them again via Viber around 15 days later to ask about the compensation. To my surprise, they finally called me back and offered me a 10% discount on my next order or a 10% refund of the order value, which came out to around 400 rubles. Can you believe it? They were essentially offering me a meager 400 rubles for the trouble, when I'd spent 330 rubles on the flowers in the first place. And the bouquet itself still cost a whopping 4100 rubles, despite the 'discounted' price being between 1500 and 2000 rubles at most.

I reluctantly agreed to the 400 rubles and told them I'd never do business with them again.

My Verdict

While I understand that this company has a lot of positive reviews and photos of their bouquets, I have to say that my experience was a huge letdown. Maybe in bigger cities, their service and quality are top-notch, but in the provinces, it's a whole different story. They had no qualms about substituting a cheap bouquet for the one I ordered, and then had the nerve to charge me a premium price for it. It was heartbreaking to think that I'd spent so much money on a bouquet that could have been made for a fraction of the cost at a local market.

I would never recommend ФЛОРИСТ,РУ to anyone in a small provincial town, because they can easily ruin your celebration by substituting a cheap bouquet for a more expensive one.

Other review websites with flower delivery services:

flowers.novayagollandiya.ru - New Hollandia flower delivery serviceideal.florist - Ideal Florist online flower shop