Tips for Ordering Flowers Online on 8 March

International Women’s Day, 8 March, is approaching — by some distance the biggest flower-giving day of the year in Romania — and inevitably a great many of us want to give a bouquet or a floral arrangement to someone dear, either in person or through an online flower shop.

In a perfect world, or on any other day of the year (1 March aside, when Romanians exchange mărțișor tokens), it is enough to open your favourite florist’s website, pick a bouquet and order from the comfort of your armchair.

8 March is the exception to the rule. There simply are not enough flower shops in Romania to cope with the extraordinary volume of orders.

Below is a list of recommendations that will make sure the flowers your mother, your wife, your grandmother or your oldest childhood friend loves best arrive on time.

Order your flowers well in advance.

It goes without saying that you need to place the order early, a week or even two ahead.

Any self-respecting online flower shop will process and make up orders in the order they arrive.

Even so, and even where the capacity to make up orders is fairly large, delivering a very high number of orders within a short window is simply impossible.

Some flower shops stop accepting orders for 1 or 8 March several days beforehand, precisely because their capacity for home delivery has already been reached.

Read the online flower shop’s reviews.

Reviews across the various online platforms are an excellent barometer of how satisfied customers really are. Take a look to gauge how professional the online flower shop you have your eye on actually is. Look in particular for reviews where customers complain about orders that were not delivered on time.

Choose delivery by the flower shop’s own couriers over courier companies.

Flowers and courier companies do not get along. Floral pieces should not be handled and stored in boxes. Flowers are extremely delicate and need to travel in special buckets of water. Bouquets and arrangements must not be pressed against surfaces and, worse still, must never be tipped over.

Always choose a local flower shop over a national one that will hand the delivery to a courier company. That advice holds however tempting the offer and the photograph on the website may be.