Overall thoughts on the Mothers Day flower reviews

Overall the standard was very high, but there were significant differences between the best performer and the worst. If you are sending flowers for Mothers Day my view is any of the top 6 on this list will guarantee to please Mum

Overall thoughts on the Mothers Day flower reviews

Overall the standard was very high, but there were significant differences between the best performer and the worst. If you are sending flowers for Mothers Day my view is any of the top 6 on this list will guarantee to please Mum

Overall thoughts on the Mothers Day flower reviews

Overall the standard was very high, but there were significant differences between the best performer and the worst. If you are sending flowers for Mothers Day my view is any of the top 6 on this list will guarantee to please Mum

Overall thoughts on the Mothers Day flower reviews

Overall the standard was very high, but there were significant differences between the best performer and the worst. If you are sending flowers for Mothers Day my view is any of the top 6 on this list will guarantee to please Mum

What we ordered

This is the website that claims to have no middlemen and that their motto is ‘an experience delivered’. I really like the website design, giving it marks 4.5/5.

It has easy-to-use categories to browse from (eg. occasion, types of flowers, price, colour) and the photography is of very good quality, giving pictures that are big and bright. It also makes good use of words to describe each collection, making it sound quite lovely and inviting! Arena offers many excellent designs; from elegant, contemporary options to traditional posies & simple giftwraps. Currently, there is an advantage of 5% off on orders placed (perfect timing for Mother's Day!). All you have to do is type in 'flowers' at checkout time.

What we ordered

My first impression of the website is that it has many consistent, good quality pictures, giving it marks 4 out of 5.

It is easy to navigate and you could search to buy using price range, types of flowers or different occasions. Their ‘classic’ range of bouquets gives amazing good value with prices starting from only £9.99 whilst its 'Platinum Collection' is their superior range of hand-tied, luxury bouquets with prices up to £38.99 (inclusive of courier delivery).

Each is ranked a score out of 5 for their website, delivery, impact of the flowers (1st impression and WOW factor) and then given an overall score.

Many review sites avoid giving top or bottom scores. Most hover around a narrow band of scores which is not helpful to the reader. I have tried to be representative and give a meaningful score. When I give a 5 out of 5, it does not mean that it is perfect, just that it is the best of the bunch. The lowest score in this test was 2 out of 5 (40%). Again, that means it is low in comparison to the others, but does not mean it is truly dreadful, just that there are much better options out there.

The most we wanted to spend on each bunch was £35 including delivery, and in most cases we got close to that. We also selected the earliest possible delivery date without paying a premium (or taking us over the £35 limit).

This is not meant to be a scientific test, just our honest experiences. Some of our comments are indeed subjective and your opinions may vary but we have tried to set out the options in a logical way and hopefully take some of the risk out when ordering flowers online.

Overall thoughts on the Mother's Day flower reviews

Overall the standard was very high, but there were significant differences between the best performer and the worst. If you are sending flowers for Mothers Day my view is any of the top 6 on this list will guarantee to please Mum.

What we ordered online

My first impression of the website is quite poor, giving it marks 2.5/5. It appears to have similar pictures of ‘sub-standard’ quality as other online florists (perhaps the website operated under more than one name?). I would therefore disagree with its claim that their website provides the customers with 'amazing photography of floral displays'.

Anyway, there appears to be a couple of confusion with their website. Firstly, when I tried to shop by clicking onto ‘roses’ (because they do not appear to advertise Mother's Day flowers separately), the search result came up as ‘there are no products to list in this category’. Yet, in their ‘luxury flowers’ section, they are advertising scarlet red roses at £49.99 and there are even more roses within the ‘anniversary flowers’ section. Secondly, when I clicked the 'customer service' tab on the top of the page, it brings me to what looked like an entirely different website altogether, called 'Blooming Biritain online shop'. Quite odd!

As the name suggests, this is mainly a website more dedicated to roses although you can buy other varieties of flowers as well. You can shop using the browser for different occasions, types of flowers or selected price range. The pictures on its home page are all rather small. You will need to click into it to see a slightly larger version of the selection.