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If you’ve ever needed to send flowers quickly and ended up Googling “next day flower delivery UK” at 8pm, you’ve almost certainly landed on eFlorist.
It comes up everywhere, the prices look reasonable, and the bouquet photos are genuinely attractive. What happens after you click order is a more complicated story.
What eFlorist Actually Is
Florist isn’t a florist. It’s a network that connects customers with over 1,500 local florists across the UK who handcraft and deliver the orders.
The company itself is registered in the Netherlands and operates out of Hampshire, UK. It was originally called Teleflorist, rebranded in 2009, and has been running in some form since 1947.
The model makes sense on paper: you order online, a local florist near the recipient picks up the job, hand-arranges the flowers, and delivers them. No warehouse.
No flowers sitting in a box for 24 hours. Fresher product, local knowledge, human touch.
In practice, the experience varies significantly depending on which local florist fulfils your order and that’s the core tension with eFlorist.
What They Offer
- Hand-delivered bouquets: the flagship product. Arranged and delivered by a local florist in the recipient’s area.
- Available for same-day delivery if ordered before 3pm (Monday–Friday) or 1pm on Saturdays. Named-day delivery available for most of the UK.
- Courier-delivered bouquets: flowers packed in bud and sent via courier. Cheaper than hand-delivery and arrive in a box.
- These tend to arrive in better condition than people expect from courier delivery, but they’re not arranged, the recipient opens a box and puts them in a vase themselves.
- Letterbox flowers: flat-packed, designed to fit through a letterbox. Cheapest delivery option at £3.99. Good for a low-key gesture; not suitable if presentation matters.
- Plants: potted houseplants and flowering plants. A more reliable option in terms of longevity.
- Add-ons: chocolates, teddies, balloons, wine, personalized cards. Many bouquets include a free chocolate box at certain price tiers, though this is one of the more frequently complained-about items (more on that below).
The Honest Review Picture
eFlorist holds a 2.4/5 on Sitejabber across over 2,000 reviews and a mixed profile on Trustpilot with nearly 290,000 reviews filed, which is an enormous sample size.
The sheer volume means you’re looking at a genuine cross-section of experience, not a skewed dataset.
Advantages
When eFlorist works well, it works efficiently. Same-day and next-day delivery is genuinely available and often delivers on time.
The hand-delivered bouquets, when fulfilled by a competent local florist, look good and arrive fresh. Courier-delivered flowers in bud tend to hold up well if given water promptly.
The pricing is competitive for the UK market and the site is easy to use.
Disadvantages
The biggest recurring complaint across thousands of reviews is that the bouquet received looks significantly different to the website photo.
Fewer flowers, different variety mix, or a noticeably smaller arrangement than the size paid for. eFlorist’s standard response, that the flowers “met the colour scheme and are to value”, infuriates customers who paid for what they saw pictured.
Delivery failures are the second consistent issue, and these are particularly damaging because flowers are time-sensitive. Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and birthday deliveries that arrive a day or two late or don’t arrive at all, these are documented in volume. Missing flowers at a birthday party or after a funeral isn’t a minor inconvenience.
Missing add-ons, particularly the free chocolates and paid-for cards appear in complaints regularly. The company’s policy of offering a £3 refund for a missing card, rather than re-sending it, has been called out repeatedly as inadequate.
Customer service is the third pattern. Getting through to a human is difficult. Responses are often template-based. The 7-day complaint window for perishable items is enforced strictly if you report a problem on day 8, expect nothing. Customers who used Evri as the delivery carrier report a particular pattern of the two companies pointing at each other when things go wrong.
Who eFlorist Is Actually Good For
- Need same-day or next-day delivery and don’t have a local florist relationship
- Are sending a low-to-mid budget bouquet (£25–£50) where presentation is appreciated but not critical
- Are ordering courier flowers these tend to generate fewer complaints than hand-delivered ones, counterintuitively
- Want letterbox flowers for a simple, reliable gesture
How the Delivery Options Actually Differ
This is worth understanding before you order, because it changes your risk profile:
Hand-delivered: highest potential quality, highest variability. Depends entirely on the local florist who picks up your order.
When it’s good, it’s genuinely good. When it’s bad, it’s the “expectation vs reality” posts you see on TikTok.
Courier-delivered: more consistent, oddly. The flowers arrive in bud in a box. Less impressive on arrival but more predictable.
Recipient arranges them themselves, they open over a day or two, and if ordered fresh they’ll last reasonably well. If you care more about the flowers than the presentation moment, this is the safer bet.
Delivery costs:
- Letterbox: £3.99
- Courier: £5.99
- Hand-delivered: £7.99
- Same-day: £7.99
How to Save
- Newsletter signup: 10% off your first order, straightforward to claim
- Student discount: 10–15% off via Student Beans verification, worth doing if you’re a student
- Seasonal sales: eFlorist regularly discounts 20–50% during major events; the Rose & Lily bouquet has previously dropped from £42.99 to £21.49 during spring promotions.
Check before ordering at full price around Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Christmas - Courier over hand-delivery: bouquets sent by courier are often discounted by up to £15 compared to the hand-delivered equivalent
- Price Match Promise: if you find the same bouquet cheaper elsewhere, eFlorist offers £5 credit toward your next order. Not a price match exactly, but worth flagging
- Subscription orders: regular subscription delivery reduces per-order cost and delivery fees
Frequently Asked Questions
Are the flowers fresh when they arrive?
Variable. Hand-delivered flowers are arranged locally and should be fresh. Courier flowers arrive in bud, which can look underwhelming initially but often means they last longer once they open.
Complaints about wilted or dead flowers on arrival do exist and aren’t isolated incidents.
Does the bouquet look like the photo?
This is the most common complaint and the honest answer is: sometimes significantly less so. The photos on the site show best-case arrangements. What you receive depends on the local florist, what’s in season, and what stock they have. The colour palette usually matches; the fullness and flower variety often don’t.
Is same-day delivery reliable?
More reliable than delivery failures would suggest, the complaints tend to cluster around peak dates like Valentine’s and Mother’s Day when demand outstrips the network’s capacity. For a regular Tuesday birthday, same-day delivery generally works.
What if something goes wrong?
You have 7 days from receipt to report an issue. Take photos immediately. Keep your order number. If the flowers aren’t delivered, chase on the day. Customer service is slow and template-heavy, but complaints backed by photos and order numbers do get resolved, refunds are issued, though they take time.
Is there a phone number for customer service?
Officially, contact is primarily through email and online forms. Getting through to a human on the phone is difficult. Factor this in before placing an order for something important.
