FTD.com Sucks
I’ve never used one of the online flower delivery services before and after Valentine’s Day I know why. FTD, which is one of the larger flower sites, dropped the ball for me in a big way and basically left me with no options on getting the women in my family flowers.
So on Valentine’s morning, being the nice guy that I am and all, I decided to get online and order some flowers for my mom and both of my sisters. I checked around on all the different sites to see who could guarantee delivery on the same day I placed the order. I ended up placing four very large orders (flowers on Valentine’s Day aren’t cheap) with FTD since they were the ones that promised delivery on that same day. Yes, they promised even on Valentine’s Day. I had placed my order around 8:30 AM and had been waiting anxiously all day for that call from my mom telling me what a wonderful son I am. It never came. Instead, around 3:30 that afternoon and the emails from FTD start rolling in, one after another…
Unfortunately, at this time we do not have a florist available in your recipient’s delivery area who can deliver your product on 2/14.
Ok, so getting an email like that at 3:30 does nothing to help my cause of getting flowers to my family members on that day. By that time all the florists where way to buys to accept new orders and being hundreds of miles away from family I couldn’t just run down and get them. If FTD didn’t have the florist available in my area they should have never taken my order in the first place. Why offer something you know isn’t available in the first place. Second, they shouldn’t have waited until 3:30 in the afternoon to let me know. By that time I was basically out of options like I mentioned.
All-in-all I had placed four separate orders on Valentine’s day with FTD and not a single one of the made it to their destination. The fourth order showed up on Tuesday the 19th and the three others suffered the fate of no florists in the area. By the way, they never did alert me that the fourth order wouldn’t make it that day.
In conclusion I just want to reiterate the fact that FTD sucks and never in my life will I do business with them. If getting flowers to your loved ones on time is important to you I’d recommend you don’t use them either. I’m not one to complain about companies that screw me over, but I just can’t let this one go.
Cameron Olthuis is the Founder of
That sucks bigtime. Did you contact them about not living up to their promises? What did they say and did they compensate you in any way?
Yeah, they did refund my money but that’s besides the point.
You obviously have no experience ordering flowers for Valentines. Florists are swamped with orders and most stop taking orders for delivery 2-3 days before the 14th. I’m sure FTD really tried to find a florist to fill your order but since it was so late in the game they just couldn’t locate one. If you want the flowers delivered you should order several days in advance. You just waited too late.
Will the public ever figure this out? F T D is not a florist or a flower shop. They are only an automatic web site and call center. They have no flowers, no designers and have never delivered a bouquet themselves. But what they are is an order gatherer, a flower order broker, a third party who automatically sends the order to a local florist who is accepting orders. Do they add value to the process………doubtful….. and they charge $14.95 for that “service” as well as retaining a near 30% commission. On a $100 Valentines order….that is $44.95 to F T D out of the $100. What a fantasic gross profit margin!!
But why would they stop taking / sending orders at any time. Do they really care? They probably got half of the orders taken on Feb 14 delivered on Feb 14 as they eventualy would find a florist with their FTD electronic order terminal still turned or one who was still answering phones. The FTD system is automatic……..look…. no overheads…….no inventory…… just automatic software and big profits.
Why is it so hard to figure out that the order has to be delivered by the local florist ?? How could an office in Chicago with a web site in Toronto deliver flowers? All of their orders are sent to third parties to be filled……….either by real local florists or from a warehouse by fedex who leave the flowers at the door no matter what.
The public usually catches on to most dubious business scemes but they are not even close to figuring this out. FTD handled over 4 milion orders last year. And the other big order gatherers handled millions more teleflora.com 1-800-flowers.com just flowers.com just to name 3 more out of hundredes or maybe thousands. All operated out of
offices, homes, basements, garages who knows where.
Order Local. Pretty simple. If it looks too good to be true……..it very much probably is not true. It is very doubtful if you or anyone else could have found a real local florist in that town to take an order on Feb 14. So whose fault is it? Yours or FTD?
Let the buyer beware!! That caveat will always be true! Why blame FTD? At least they tried……some thing you did not do.
Ken
@Joe - understandable, but if that is the case FTD should have never guaranteed they would be delivered. Remember, I’m just the dumb consumer here.
@Ken - fair enough and I’ve learned my lesson. I guess the reason I used FTD and others do to is the convenience.
I’m going to have to go with Cameron on this one - being the dumb consumer, I shouldn’t have to know that FTD isn’t the actual flower company, etc. I should assume that if they don’t have flowers “in stock” and deliverable that day, they wouldn’t have that option available for me to choose.
I worked for ProFlowers.com for a short while over last Valentine’s holiday and it was NUTS. However, they don’t try to falsely advertise that they can deliver flowers the day of. I think FTD just lied and ripped you off.
My point? Use proflowers and order at least a day earlier
Watch out for Mother’s Day coming up - it’s actually the biggest holiday for flower sales.
Cameron — you’re spot on — and I learned that their competition sucks just as hard. Check this email out that I had to send out to them…
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Please provide an immediate refund to order #W00552501589662.
The order was clearly stated to be delivered on 02/14 — but was not. When I called the evening of 02/14 to check the order, your phone support let me hear one recording (stating to go online) and then disconnected on me.
That is unacceptable customer support.
Furthermore, your web site clearly stated throughout the order process that my order of 6 roses and 6 balloons would be delivered ON 02/14.
Today (02/15) at 12:30, the flowers were delivered. The delivery person stated to my wife that while she was sorry, “there was no way they could deliver the flowers on time because we were too busy”.
Again, the order was for six roses and six balloons. Delivered were one dozen roses, which of course no longer represented the Valentine’s Day theme.
Again, that is unacceptable.
To confirm, your business advertised an ability to deliver on 02/14. In fact, I clearly paid a premium for that service. The order was not delivered on time.
The order was for a Valentine’s themed product of six roses and six balloons. The delivered arrangement was not representative of the product ordered, and lacked all theming of Valentine’s Day.
Finally — your automated service informed me at 1:08PM ET on 02/15 that the arrangement was delivered on 02/14/08 — which is an absolute lie.
Again, I am requesting a full and immediate refund on this order. Your customer service to date has been unacceptable, and I can assure you that my business will be taken elsewhere unless this matter is immediately rectified.
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..Thankfully, I fought to the point that I could get a full refund on my order, but it says something about the industry.
Really quite humorous that we both got hosed by these slackers.
See you next week?
@Eric - doubtful that I’ll see you next week, don’t think I’ll make it. Sorry that you got hosed too
Hello I work for FTD.com personally I understand where you come from. We are just the online company that represent what we can supply you with you with. We have alot of customers that are happy and dissappointed. I am a Network Engineer for the company, being in technology that you maybe know that some situations that may come up at the last minute may not always come out perfect. That’s pretty much anything. I can tell you that we try our best to satisfy the customer and you also got your money back. I order flowers two weeks before hand for my girlfriend and showed up on Valentines day. She was happy but I had to test this out myself to see how reliable the company I worked at as well.
So before you say that FTD sucks make sure that you presenting you situation correctly.
I ordered two arrangements from Teleflora a week ago for my mother and grandmother for Mothers Day. I received them today and they do not look nothing like the arrangements that I ordered online. When I called Teleflora’s customer service I was told they would give me a 20% discount and send the flowers out on Monday. What’s the point that is the day AFTER Mothers Day. I will have to settle for the 20% discount but never, never again will I ever order flowers from an online service I will go and personally pick them out myself.