FTD Review — Flowers Comparison (2012)

FTD is a one stop shopping site for high quality floral, edible and keepsake delivery gifts on the web. Best known for the quality of their products and timelyness of delivery, FTD is an online florist and gift retailer with a well known name and great reputation. Next day delivery is available for many customers who may have left off birthday shopping for the last minute. An easily interpreted delivery chart can show in a moment whether your selection is eligible for next day arrival. 

The FTD Birthday Shop makes it even easier to pick out, order and ship the perfect birthday surprise for those special people in your life. All in one easy to read and search catalog shoppers can check out not just floral arrangements but jewelry, wine, cookies and so much more all designed to say "Happy Birthday!" in their own way. Quality national brands like Mrs. Field's cookies and Godiva chocolate provide edible gifts that pair well with premium floral arrangements which allows you to put together a fun birthday package in place of choosing amongst the predesigned sets. Also, a selection of jewelry means you can add some sparkle to the gift you choose without adding a stop to your drive home. Everything you need to make a special birthday girl or boy feel appreciated is in one place reading to be delivered.

FTD sets itself apart from other online floral and gift retailers by providing a seven day guarentee on their floral arrangements, offering next day delivery options and allowing shoppers to find a full package birthday gift through one retailer.

The Guarentee

The FTD "Good as Gold" guarentee is a promise FTD makes to their customers that the floral arrangements and plants they deliver will arrive fresh and stay beautiful for a week. If your plant or flowers do not appear fresh within that seven day window all you need to do is call FTD and report the problem. An FTD representative will gladly replace the arrangement or refund the cost. 

Next Day

Shoppers with a full schedule will find the ability to send gifts in a hurry with FTD's trusty next day delivery options. Several gifts, floral arrangements and plants are available for next day delivery on Tuesdays, Wednesday, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays if you manage to place your order prior to 2 P.M. EST. While the next day delivery is contingent on meeting some rather specific requirements there are plenty of items that can be shipped that quickly in case you waited too long to go through other vendors.

Gift Options

Why just send flowers when FTD gives you access to so much more? A selection of jewelry, edibles, beauty and keepsake items can be combined with living gifts to add a special sparkle to an arrangement. There are several packages that can be found in FTD's Birthday Shop, like the Floral Jewels Birthday Collection, that offer both a stunning floral arrangement and piece of jewelry or other gift in one product selection. You can also combine items like chocolates, a balloon or stuffed animal with most arrangements. 

1(800)Flowers.com, 1(800)Baskets.com and ProFlowers are the leading FTD competitors in the online florist and gift retailer markets. While the four sites are all extremely similar in several respects there are small details that sets each apart from the rest and can affect your decision of which online retailer to order from.

FTD vs. 1(800)Flowers and 1(800)Baskets

In order to compare FTD to 1(800)Flowers you must also include the gift retail sister site 1(800)Baskets. 1(800)Flowers focuses primarily on premium floral arrangements while Baskets provides a variety of gift baskets including edible, spa and keepsake packages. This seperation of floral and nonfloral offerings leads to the first major difference between the 1(800) sites and FTD's services. With FTD, you can find cookies, roses and earrings all in one catalog which can make shopping much easier. However, both 1(800) Flowers and 1(800) Baskets offers same day delivery options on several items where FTD can only offer next day delivery. FTD's pricing is somewhat higher than 1(800) Flowers and Baskets but the arrangements tend to be larger and include more premium flowers. 

Overall, if you waited until the actual day of the event you're shopping for, you should definetly go with what 1(800)Flowers and 1(800)Baskets has to offer. If you have a day to spare, FTD has more to choose from all on one website.

FTD vs. ProFlowers

ProFlowers is a highly competitive online florist that is quickly becoming a bigger name for quick gift delivery than FTD. Like the 1(800)Flowers family of sites, ProFlowers offers same day delivery that out does the next day options found on FTD. You can find a lot of the same name brand edibles and gifts that FTD brings to the table at similar to lower price points. The floral arrangements on ProFlowers are somewhat smaller overall but have more a of a design element like quirky colorful vases and accents. The biggest advantage of choosing FTD over ProFlowers is the high end product guarentee and jewelry options you can find from FTD.

Overall, if you're on a budget or need super-fast delivery, ProFlowers is the online florist for you. For a more expensive, impressive gift FTD may have something a bit more spectacular if you can wait for the delivery.

Price points across the online florist market are all extremely similar. Delivery rates and upgrade charges are the biggest points of varriance across the leading competitors. Before choosing which online floral and gift retailer you order from you should take time to consider all of the costs involved with the purchase.

Product Prices

The least expensive bouquet of flowers you can order from the FTD Birthday shop is the Purple Perfection Bouquet, comprised of purple roses and Peruvian lillies. There are four levels of this particular bouquet that range from the base cost of $27 which gets you fourteen flowers. The most expensive Purple Perfect Bouquet includes 26 stems in a vase and will cost the discounted price of $54. 

The most expensive bouquet in the Birthday Shop is the FTD Stunning Beauty Bouquet. The arrangement is made up of red roses, pink lillies and purple aster and iris blooms. The base cost of the FTD Stunning Bouquet is $67.50, which includes sixteen stems and a vase. The most expensive upgraded version of the same arrangement costs $85.50 and comes with 26 flowers and a vase. 

From ProFlowers the least expensive birthday arranagement is a small bouquet of assorted tulips. For $24.99 shoppers can get fifteen garden tulips in an assortment of colors. There are upgrades that can be done to the vase the tulips come in, ranging from a $6.99 charge for a rounded glass vase to $12.99 for a pink shaded glass vase. The upgrades do not affect the arrangement itself and you do not get more flowers for upgrading the presentation. The slightly higher price from FTD for the base birthday arrangement gets you a larger arrangement of more interesting flowers with bouquet upgrades available.

The least expensive bouquet for birthdays you can find from 1(800) Flowers is the Enchanting Meadow Bouquet. For $29.99 you can order an arrangement of yellow Peruvian lillies accented by baby pink roses. Upgrades for this bouquet do not affect the arrangement. For $39.99 shoppers can have the flowers shipped in a clear glass vase and for $54.99 the flowers can be shipped in a green hobnail vase.

Compared to their competitors, FTD charges a slightly higher base price on average but you have more exotic, colorful and full arrangements to choose from and the upgrade costs actually make the arrangements larger instead of simply adding flare to the presentation.

Shipping

While checking out on FTD your shipping and handling charged with be labeled a "service fee." The flat fee of $14.99 is added to your product cost to cover the delivery of your gift. If you want your gift delivered on a Saturday the service fee is higher and you will be charged $29.99 no matter how far in advance you place the order. 

The ProFlowers delivery fees are a bit more complicated than what FTD offers. Standard ProFlowers delivery ranges in cost from $9.99 to $19.99. There is also a $2.99 handling charge that is added to every order. To have your flowers arrive in the morning hours your shipping cost will be the second highest possible, $14.99. If your recipient lives in either Hawaii or Alaska your shipping will be the most expensive, costing a whopping $19.99. If all of the different shipping costs seem confusing ProFlowers provides a well labeled shipping cost calendar and detail page to help sort it out.

Shipping and handling service charges on 1(800)Flowers orders is dependent on both the day of the week you need your gift delivered and how much the item cost. The delivery charges range from $4.99 to $45.99 depending on how much you spent. There is a detailed chart available on the 1(800)Flowers website that provides the entire breakdown of the cost to shipping ratio. Some items may require special handling which comes with an additional charge that ranges from $6.99 to $19.99 depending on the day you choose for reciept. Again, this shipping scale is much more complicated than that found on FTD. 

Like most businesses, customer feedback for the products and services provided by FTD span both good and bad experiences. Most of the negative feedback given by customers has to do with refund requests and delivery dates. The general message of negative reviews is that if there is a problem with your order you should always call the toll free number and not use the email customer service options. Once you have a representative on the phone it becomes much easier to have your issues addressed.

There are little to no criticisms of the actual product provided and most consumers find the floral arrangements and gifts to be as advertised and of good quality. Also, the positive reviews found across a number of different third party review and report websites outweigh negative feedback by a wide margin.