bunches.co.uk

What do you buy for your mum for a birthday present?

That's the question that had been bugging me for a few days, okay maybe I should have thought about it more than a few days before my mum's birthday what to get her.. After all these birthdays its hard to choose something she doesn't already have and I know I can't be the only person that's experienced this surely lol!!

But with everything else you know how things turn out..

Plus payday is a little too close to the end of the month to plan much in advance to be honest!!

Anyway I picked the only thing I could think of that would actually make any difference and that I could get within a day or twos notice..

Flowers..

So I went on Google and typed in 'flowers delivered,' and there was so many different options and after trailing through a few of them I decided on Bunches.co.uk.. I think it was the offer of free chocolates that made me look twice at this company.. However in the cold light of morning it perhaps shouldn't have been the reason to sway my decision..!

Bunches.co.uk

Well I will say one thing about this website is that it is nicely spread out and placed on the webpage so you can find everything you are looking for from the classic, lower prices bouquets to the more luxurious and expensive ones and also helium balloons if you want that kind of thing attached to a bouquet..

The website is obviously a little feminine, because stereotypically flowers are for us women..

So needless to say the website is flowery, the top graphics are the company logo, bunches.co.uk with the 'U' of bunches holding a tiny bouquet of flowers. The overall characteristics of the website are a little cartoony and a bit flowery..

Surprise surprise they are an online florists!!

There is also a feature bunch of flowers on the opening page that fills the centre of the screen quite nicely and admittedly do look very attractive but I have to say if you saw them in the 'flesh' you might just be disappointed..

The homepage is essentially split into two sections.. The flowers and the business side to things, with delivery dates and free offers..

The website has 8 separate sections to help you choose what type of flowers you wish to send or have delivered to yourself or to someone as a gift.. The sections are….

Classic Value Flowers
Luxury Bouquets
Platinum Collection
Autumn Flowers (Seasonal Change)
Luxury Roses
Classic Carnations
House Plants

And non-flowery..

Helium balloons

Each section of flowers has a different range with different prices.. The flowers vary by style and colour.. The seasonal section holds the different colours for the season, such as the autumn collection holds more burnt orange and red coloured flowers, the spring would hold perhaps pink.. So for a seasonal look you would opt for the autumn flowers..

Each section in a little more detail..

Classic Value Flowers

To be honest this section is the cheapest and holds the lowest price of bouquets that can be delivered at £9.99, but for ten long stem carnations, which aren't maybe to everyone's taste.. Fellas take note.. Spend a little more cash!! Okay so it isn't just carnations in this section.. There are more exotic flowers like lilies and freesias and some others that I had never heard of before.. Like.. Gypsophila - no idea but they are fragrant and pretty..!

This section is mainly full of carnations which to say the least are not the most romantic flowers, and the lack of exotic flowers that you can't find on your local market for less, does somewhat indicate the quality of the bouquet..

The prices within this sections range from £9.99 to £19.99..

Overall.. Don't knock this section if your looking for a small bunch that fills a cute little vase because you are not going to be disappointed, but if you want a bigger bouquet and more flowers I'm afraid you are going to have to pay a little more..

Luxury Bouquets

These bouquets are obviously more expensive..
But they do have more flowers and a wider variety of the flowers within the bouquets.. From the photos and the descriptions on the page these bouquets have more to offer when purchased for example some of the flowers, come with champagne truffles..
There is also two different bunches for the birth of a baby, either boy or a girl, which have blue, purple and white flowers for a boy and beautiful pink, and purple flower for a girl.. Each with a jungle animal teddy..
Bunches.co.uk also provide a table decoration for £26.99 suitable for parties or just for a table for everyday in the home..

In the luxury bouquets section there are a wider array of flowers like..

Alstroemeria.. Chrysanthemums.. Roses.. Gerbera.. And Gemini to name but a few..

These bouquets range in price from £20.99 to £199.99

Overall.. For the range the flowers are more worth the money, and the £199.99 idea of having a bouquets delivered once a month is a nice idea if you can afford it!! The baby bunches are a great idea to celebrate the birth of a little one at a price that is not to expensive at £28.99..

Platinum Collection

Again the cost of these flowers increases as the collections become more exclusive and more fancy..
So there is a few less bouquets in this section so I can give a more detailed description of the three bouquets available..

Opulent Opal - 'A stunning bouquet with cerise Roses and white Asiatic lilies hand tied in a lilac woven sleeve and delivered with a cream zinc vase.'
Precious Amethyst - 'A gorgeous pink & purple bouquet including Aqua Roses, Lilies and Chrysanthemums hand tied in a lilac sleeve with a cream vase.'
Sparkling Champagne - 'A decadent display of luxury peach Avalanche Roses, cream Chrysanthemums and striking Alstroemeria with a cream vase.'

Each bouquet as you can see comes with a vase, which for the price they defiantly should do..

These bouquets range in price from £38.99 to £40.99

Overall.. This range of flowers is more expensive but you do get more for your money, not necessarily in quality or quantity of flowers but you don't have to fiddle round finding a vase for your flowers especially if they have been bought for you as a gift and you don't know they're coming..!

Autumn Flowers

This range of flowers is obviously dependant upon the season, so for the moment we have autumnal flowers which I guess will be due to change in about November to winter flowers which I think, when they change will be a very beautiful bunch of flowers for sale..
Though the thing with this website and flowers means the cheapest bouquet in this section is purely carnations..!
I expected the flowers in this section for be fairly orangey-red with the occasional smattering of yellow, but they are more pink and purple which I thought would be a more summery colour flowers..

The flowers in these bouquets are..

Carnations.. Germini.. Chrysanthemums.. Lilies.. Alstromeria.. And Roses..

These bouquets range from £13.99 to £25.99

Overall.. These flowers are meant to be a reflection on the seasons changing colours like the leaves but they aren't quite what you would expect, especially as they do have the usual bunch of Carnations..!
The more expensive bunches do look more summery but they are very pretty.. One bunch even comes in a wicker basket..!

Luxury Roses

The flowers or more to the point the roses in this section do look totally gorgeous..
I do admit I am one of those girls who loves roses, not that I get any..!
Obviously roses are a little more expensive than some flowers, because they are rarer in some places than others..
Despite this I do think that the price of these flowers is fairly justified..

The only flowers in these bouquets is roses!!

There is only three choices so I will give you the list of them..

Single Red Rose - 'A luxury Grand Prix red Rose encased in green twisted Lucky Bamboo with long bear grass.'
12 Red Roses - 'A dozen long stemmed red roses enhanced with Ruscus greenery. The perfect gift to send with love.'
24 Red Roses - 'Two dozen elegant long stemmed luxury red roses complimented by enhancing Ruscus greenery.'

These flowers range from £15.99 to £44.99..

Overall.. These flowers are quite good value for the money, they are roses after all..!

Classic Carnations

This section is filled with Carnations..!
The majority of these bouquets are actually in the other sections of the website anyways o they are pretty similar to everything else..
There is a mixture of flowers however including Lilies as well as the Carnations..!

The flowers range from £9.99 to £19.99 so they are of a similar price to the classic value flower bouquets..

Overall.. These flowers to me personally are a bit boring Carnations aren't my favourite flowers.. But if you are looking for something simple that won't cost the Earth this section is about right for you..

House Plants

This has house plants in obviously the name kind of gives it away..!

There is only four different plants so I cant give you a quick run-down..

Peace Lily - 'A lovely cream flowered, green leaved houseplant delivered in its own cream ceramic plant pot.'
Flutterby Basket - 'A deep wicker basket full of flowering plants with a pretty butterfly with jewelled wings.'
Phalaenopsis Orchid - 'An elegant and exotic twin stemmed Phalaenopsis Orchid. Delivered in a cream ceramic pot.'

The flowers in this section range from £18.99 to £25.99

Overall.. These plants are much better value for the time they are going to last..! They are more decorative too..!

Helium Balloons

There are a lot of balloons here, they include get well soon balloons and I love you balloons..
Though to be fairly honest at £9.99 per balloons they are expensive as I work in a card/party shop I sell these balloons with decoration for a fraction of the price..
And if I'm being a little sure of myself I think mine look better..!

== My Flowers ==

So, which flowers did I choose?

I chose the 'Sweet Celebration' flowers from the classic value section..

These flowers were £15.99..
Including free postage and a free box of chocolates..

This bouquet contains:

And I quote..

'Sweet Celebration

A beautiful mix of spray Chrysanthemum flowers in soft shades of pink, along with cerise pink Germini and spray Carnations all interspersed with delicate purple Statice.

This beautiful long-lasting bouquet makes the perfect gift.'

Okay, so the flowers are beautiful looking on the website, and they also look like there is a lot lot more flowers than when they are actually delivered..

There are Carnations in abundance, but there is only one Germini which does make the bouquet look a little empty..

To be honest if you look at the pictures on the website, there are double or three times the amount of flowers that are actually delivered.. Which is not worth the £15.99 the customer pays for some flowers but not enough to pay that amount..

Order, Delivery and Extras

I ordered my flowers on the Thursday to be delivered on my Mum's birthday on the Saturday.. There was no guarantee that the flowers would be delivered on the Saturday with free postage..
So I decided instead of being disappointed Saturday morning when they didn't arrive, I chose to pay extra for Royal Mail Special delivery.. At an extra £4.95..

Which then pushed my total to £24.95..
Then there were extras that they try to get you too buy.. Like chocolates and teddy bears they also add extra to your price..
I chose to add Belgian Chocolates to my order as a surprise for my Mum along with the free chocolates I received for merely placing the order..
These were another £4.95 on top of my order..

Posy Points

Posy points are given to you when you place an order to the company..
Giving you money off for the next time you buy flowers..
You are given 10 points for every pound you spend on flowers, that includes when you spend the extra money on postage..

So if you were to buy the classic Carnations at £9.99, you would receive 100 points.. Which then gives you 50 pence of your next order..

Confused? I was..!

The points you get are halved to give you an amount off your next flowers..

(If you choose to buy anymore when you initially receive the ones that gave you your posy points, in the first place.)

My opinion

Well I am not going to complain about the company and their delivery times because with the extra £4.95 you are guaranteed to get your flowers delivered on the day you request, which is fairly good..
They estimate that the flowers will be delivered between 8am and 3pm..
The ones I bought were delivered at just gone 8am, even I wasn't awake when they arrived and I was at work for half 9 that day..
So the delivery overall is really good..

However the flowers are a bit shocking..
For £15.99 I got a shockingly tiny amount of flowers, they barely fill a vase, a small vase for that matter, which for a company that makes its money selling quality bouquets is a little shameful..
Admittedly it is nice to have flowers delivered because you then don't need to worry about getting up to fetch them before the person receiving them realises what your up too..
I went to Asda last night and found a bouquet of flowers that was double the size of what I ordered for £10, which just shows to me that if you want value for your flowers, go to a local supermarket, your local market on a weekday or at the weekend and possibly go to a local florists because at least then you can specify how many flowers you want and to be honest you are more likely to get better quality flowers..
Even the chocolates I bought were disappointing..
As I said I bought the chocolates for £4.95..
When they arrived the box was of a similar size to the free chocolates supplied with the bouquet.. However I think there is more chocolates in the free box than in the box I paid extra for!!
The box was about 5cm by 10cm and held about 8 chocolates..
I got better value from Thornton's and at least they would be of better quality than these..

Overall

The idea of having flowers delivered to your address is a nice one, but it isn't necessarily the cheapest or best value for money..
The benefits of this company is that they take orders over the phone too, but if you don't quite no what your looking for using the website is better for you..

I personally wish I had chosen a bouquet from my local market or a supermarket because they last longer and there is more flowers..
Plus there would be more extra money left over to get more chocolates..!!!

After Complaining

Well I was so disgusted with the quality and quantity of the flowers I received two days ago after writing the review I decided to complain to the company itself..
The woman who responded I feel couldn't have been more apologetic for the problems that had occurred with my bunches of flowers..
Surprisingly she was very calm and collected considering the e-mail I had sent was somewhat angry sounding..
After a few e-mails passing between myself and the company I was offered a new bunch of fresh flowers to be delivered as soon as possible..
But I asked for my money back and they were more than happy to do so and paid the refund straight into my bank account as requested today..

So the flowers may have been rubbish and not many of them but they cope very well with customer complaints..!