Should you buy flowers online or from a local florist?

Ordering Valentine's Day flowers online This year more than ever, Valentine's Day may hold more significance. If you're thinking about sending flowers, here's some advice.

VANCOUVER — This Valentine’s Day, you may be thinking of sending flowers to loved ones that you haven’t been able to see in person for a while. But if you’re ordering online, watch out: what you see may not be what you get.

That’s what happened to Kellie Sutton when she ordered from online flower seller Bloomex in December.

“For the first time in my life, my mum wasn’t going to be with us at Christmastime,” she told McLaughlin On Your Side. And ordering two gift baskets from Bloomex seemed easy.

“She really likes chocolate and she loves red wine, that’s the one thing I knew that she would like,” Sutton says, adding she also ordered a plant box. “That wasn’t what she got.”

And the delivery didn’t come when expected.

“I had to contact them on their chat line and on the phone and got promises that it would be delivered by 9 o’clock that night and it didn’t arrive,” Sutton says. “So the next day I contacted them again. Through many very frustrating conversations back and forth, it finally arrived at 2 o’clock on Dec. 24.”

On the Bloomex website, the wine gift basket Sutton chose was full of Lindt chocolate, but what finally came had tea instead of wine and no Lindt chocolate at all. And the plant she’d ordered seemed to be covered in white specks of paint.

When she complained to Bloomex they sent her a replacement that did have wine and some Lindt chocolate, but it came after the holiday.

Karla Laird with the Better Business Bureau says the BBB is aware of many similar complaints about the company, across Canada.

"In the last three years we’ve seen about 784 complaints, and in the last twelve months that number is still over 500," Laird says. “It’s important that consumers read the details for these transactions before they go through with them."

On the Bloomex website, under the “Policies” tab, it says: “Due to our order volume fluctuation, we reserve the right to substitute with similar product of equal or greater value.” And for gift baskets: “These items may be substituted with another specialty item of equal or greater value and of similar theme and category. Images of gift baskets represent number of product included, type, colour and shape of basket and actual product variety will vary.”

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen these kinds of issues. In 2017, McLaughlin On Your Side tested online flower sellers, ordering from a few different retailers. Event planner Aly Armstrong helped out.

"Sometimes the value was not that fantastic compared to the local florists," Armstrong says.

And some of the bouquets McLaughlin On Your Side ordered – including the one from Bloomex – were much smaller than they appeared to be on the website.

After Sutton contacted us, we reached out to Bloomex seven times to get more information on how the business operates and its practices when customers complain. But we didn’t hear back from the company.

However, Laird says that Bloomex has a “B” rating from the BBB because it does responds to customer complaints, as it did with Sutton’s.

Armstrong suggests that if you’re looking to avoid disappointment in the final product, you should try ordering from an independent florist.

Places like The Flower Factory on Main Street have felt the effects of the pandemic, like so many other businesses. This month, florist Kalen Meaden and his colleagues have been preparing for the busy Valentine’s Day season, putting COVID-19 pick-up protocols in place and encouraging customers to order in advance.

"When you can’t be with somebody, you want to let them know you still care about them,” Meaden says. “And flowers are a great way to do that."

He says even if you don’t know what your loved one would like, the team at The Flower Factory can help figure it out.

“You can just leave it up to the designer because we are known for our taste,” Meaden says. “Or I can try to pull it out of (you), asking the person’s age, what they like, how they dress.”

And when you buy from a local florist, not only are you supporting a local business during a tough economic time, but also the local farmers that grow the flowers.

“We’re all a little glum right now and we need to feel a little bit better,” Meaden says. “Flowers help with that.”

This story came to McLaughlin On Your Side from a CTV News viewer. If you have a story you’d like to share, send the team an email at [e-mail].