ProFlowers to Settle Class Action Lawsuit About Deceptive Marketing

News began to surface last week about a class action suit settlement by ProFlowers. According to an article from the Denver Post, the suit, filed in Los Angeles by Theodore G. Phelps, alleged 'deceptive marketing for claiming its flowers are "fresher than traditional floral providers" because they are shipped direct from fields and bypass middlemen.'

A page from the ProFlowers site describes the proposed settlement and tells consumers how they can received a $10 credit for a future 'online only' purchase. Interestingly, the credit can't be used during Valentine's Day, Easter of Mother's Day - the times when customers would most likely want to use it.

This settlement follows a similar agreement with FTD.

Some of our readers may recall the flower replacement offer put together by local florists from across the US to combat the claims of drop shippers like ProFlowers. I blogged about our experience and heard similar stories from other flower shops.

The notorious time line is still featured on ProFlowers' site. For a California-based flower shop like ours, that chart is simply untrue for most of the fresh flowers we offer. It also implies that distribution time is the single most important element in maintaining flower freshness - when temperature control and proper care and handling play equal, if not more important roles, in assuring flower quality and performance. A Fed Ex box sitting on a porch hardly meets those standards.   

ProFlowers' recent additions to claims of being a superior source for flowers once again attack local florists. Some of the claims are hilarious - if only consumers didn't believe them:

"So your flowers arrive when you want them to arrive. Not when a florist decides to deliver them"  I'd like to see these guys guarantee delivery to a 10 a.m. funeral service like 99% of the local shops in the US.

"Other flowers take a longer route through brokers, middlemen and, finally, a florist’s shop. So by the time they reach their recipient their best days are long gone."  So remind us why ProFlowers offers same-day, Sunday and Monday delivery through those local florists? The claim is dis-ingenious at best and patently false at worst.

What might be next on the litigation front?  Based on stories from local florists across the US, there appears to be a level of confusion about how the ProFlowers products arrive. Some consumers see their website photos of professionally made arrangements and fail to grasp that the flowers arrive in a do-it-yourself kit.

Most florists (including us) have received calls from churches and mortuaries that received boxed flowers for services, requesting we arrange them as a favor so as not to embarrass the sender or the family in mourning. Sometimes the boxes include a vase, sometimes they don't.  

One local florist shared her experience by saying the local funeral director "told me that they will no longer accept or sign for a package from Pro Flowers... (She) told me the last time they tried to "arrange" a bouquet the sender showed up and was angry at them that it didn't look like the web image, so they are no longer even going to try. She said if Fed-Ex just leaves the box they hand it over to the family to deal with."

There are many differences between ProFlowers and local florists. We're the ones that professionally arrange all the details.

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