Posted by: Pascale - Petal Peddler on March 8th, 2010

**UPDATE: We are pleased to announce that Brenda is the winner of the Arena Flowers Mum of the Year competition**

Thank you for all the entries and for all who voted.

Happy Mother’s Day.

We have had many wonderful entries for the 2010 Arena Flowers Mum of the Year competition.  We’d like to thank everyone who nominated their Mum or Mums they know – there were some very inspiring stories.  Mother’s Day is a lovely time of the year and it’s wonderful to celebrate Mums and guardians everywhere.

We have narrowed down the nominations to 15 finalists (no easy task considering the fantastic entries):

Adele
Adele has been nominated by Jane, who wants to thank Adele for being a source of strength through trying times, and for treating Jane and her partner so well.

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Ann
Matthew nominated Ann as a show of appreciation to her for being a great mum to him and his brother through their naughtier times when they were young.

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Brenda
Brenda has been nominated by Lisa for her strength through family troubles.  Lisa describes Brenda as a “natural angel” and “one in a million”.

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Christine
Sue has nominated Christine because she is “Supermum!”.  She recently gave birth to a little girl and also looks after Sue’s nephew.  Sue thinks Christine deserves some pampering.

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Jane
Jane is nominated by Sarah.  Jane is not only a wonderful mother to her 3 children but also as a teaching assistant, looks after an additional 30 children.

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Margaret
Pat has nominated Margaret as she is a grandmother to 12 grandchildren.  Pat is amazed how much love and support Margaret has to offer equally to everyone.

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Margaret M
Margaret M was nominated by Kelly.  Kelly is proud of her mum who has recently found inner confidence, strength and beauty despite some difficult times.

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Marion
Jacqueline has nominated Marion for being a great ‘replacement’ mum (Jacqueline’s own mum lives in Cyprus). Marion cares full time for her own mum but always has time for others.

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Rachel
Emily has nominated Rachel to win. Since Emily has moved to France, she misses her mum and realises how much her mum does for her.

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Sara
Sara was nominated by Miri. Miri thinks Sara is an inspiration having gone through troubling times with no loss of positive attitude.

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Sarah
Molly nominated Sarah for always laughing and smiling and being supportive. Sarah is always upbeat (and a little “bonkers”). Molly says that Sarah is the kindest person in the world and Molly’s best friend.

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Sue
Wendy nominates Sue because Sue is always ready for a laugh and is a bit of a tech genius! Wendy describes Sue as her Mum of the Year every year.

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Susan
Amy has nominated Susan.  Susan has been there for Amy through some of the hardest times of her life – and the best.

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Sylvie
Florence has nominated her sister Sylvie.  She’s a great mum and valued member of her local community. Sylvie is not only there for her kids, but for all who need her.

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Tina
Jon nominated Tina for being very strong during some stressful times. Tina is always smiling and happy – as long as her children are.

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These are fifteen of many very inspiring entries – they were a pleasure for us to read through however, there can only be one winner of the Arena Flowers Mum of the Year award (although all the nominees are deserving), so please get voting below. The polls close on Friday 12th at 17:00.

If you didn’t manage to nominate your mum but still want to send her some flowers, please see our Mother’s Day flowers range.

(P.S. People are reporting difficulties voting from Safari for Mac browsers – if this applies to you,  I’m afraid you’ll have to use a different browser to place your vote.)

 

Filed under: Customers, Matters Webby, Mega Days, Mother's Day on March 8th, 2010 | 8 Comments »

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Posted by: Stan - The Dandy FlowerWoman... on March 2nd, 2010

Do you know a mum who would love to receive a free luxury Arena hand-tied bouquet plus a selection box of scrummy luxury handmade chocolate, all worth £100?

We’re searching the length and breadth of Great Britain to find Arena Mum of the Year 2010.

Nominate your mum (or someone else’s!) by simply submitting a (nice!) picture and supporting statement in the form below and you could make a mum’s day this Mothering Sunday with our gorgeous Mother’s Day flowers! But hurry: nominations end mid-day Monday 8th March! Public voting begins soon after with the winner announced Friday 12th March.

Having problems with this form? Email your nominations to customer@arenaflowers.com
See our full range of Mother’s Day Flowers & Gifts.

1. This competition is open to all nationals (over the age of 16), however delivery restricted to the UK, Belgium, France, Germany and Holland only.
2. Period of promotion: Nominations must be entered between Tuesday 2 March 2010 and Monday 8th 2010 12:00:00, inclusive, UK time.  Arena Online Ltd reserves the right to revise this date and extend the period.  Voting closes on Friday 12 March 2010 17:00:00.  The winner will be announced on Friday 12 March 2010.
3. The winner will be awarded a £100 to spend on ArenaFlowers.com.  The prize can be redeemed across the flower and chocolate range, in one order only and can only be for UK delivery.
4. The lucky nominees will have the pictures submitted used and published on this site for purposes related to the competition, so please be happy with this before entering the competition.
5. If you have any questions or queries relating to this promotion, please contact our team via customer@arenaflowers.com.
6. If we believe anyone is abusing the promotion or seeking to defraud Arena Online Ltd we reserve the right, at our absolute discretion, to rescind this or any other offer without notice. We believe in fairness.
7. The competition is as stated and there will be no alternative offer or cash substitute.
8. By entering the competition, customers will be deemed to be bound by and have accepted these terms and conditions. Entrants must read and accept the website terms and conditions and privacy statement to be eligible.
9. English law applies and the English courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any proceedings in connection with this competition.
10. Arena Flowers reserves the right to vary these terms and conditions in the event of circumstances arising beyond its reasonable control.

 

Filed under: Customers, General, Mega Days, Mother's Day on March 2nd, 2010 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Pascale - Petal Peddler on February 22nd, 2010

It’s a week since Valentine’s Day – a busy time for florists around the globe – and things have remained as exciting as ever at Arena Flowers.

Particularly exciting as we launched our new tool: Flowers & Fun (http://www.flowersfun.co.uk).  This is a completely free (and fun!) messaging service allowing you to send messages with a virtual bouquet.  Flowers & Fun is perfect for sending a quick note and provides something a bit different to a quick, one line email or tweet.

It’s simple to use; 1) Choose your message, write the recipient’s name 2) Edit the message and choose the bouquet. Then send!

Your messages can be easily sent by email, or posted to Facebook.  We’ve integrated it with Twitter too to enable you to quickly post notes celebrating Birthdays, achievements…and well, just about anything.

Flowers & Fun is particularly innovative because there’s some pretty clever technology running in the background that identifies people wishing one another a happy Birthday or sending congratulations through Twitter; our Flowers & Fun account (http://twitter.com/flowersfun) sends a short message with a virtual card attached.

We wanted to create something innovative, surprising and something to make people smile. So far the community response to the Twitter messaging has been very positive.

Flowers & Fun for Twitter is the latest in technological gadgetry we are so passionate about developing at Arena Flowers. Our Flowers & Fun for Facebook application launched in 2007 and so far there’ve been 65,000 virtual bouquets sent via Facebook (try Flowers & Fun Facebook for free here).

Arena Flowers is developing a tradition of exploring the web’s capabilities and using new technology – not just to make fun tools – but also to enhance the customer experience.  We have a photo uploading service on Arena Flowers, allowing customers to add photos when they order our flowers for delivery.  Using our calendar service, you can create electronic reminders for key events to make sure you never miss someone’s Birthday and order your Mother’s Day flowers in good time.  Those who’ve used our flower delivery service will know of our SMS delivery messages to let you know when your orders have been delivered.

Coincidentally (and very timely), we were proud to have been announced as one of Smarta100, an award which celebrates dedication to innovation in small business. See our Smarta100 award here.  We are pleased to have been awarded and see this as an acknowledgement of our passion for using technology to create a great user experience and to engage new customers.

We love feedback, if you have any for us about Flowers & Fun (or anything at all), email feedback @ arenaflowers.com or follow us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/arenaflowers).

Many thanks to Marc G. Smith for helping us build Flowers & Fun and for being a good friend of Arena Flowers.

 

Filed under: General, Marketing, Matters Webby on February 22nd, 2010 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Pascale - Petal Peddler on January 26th, 2010

It was my pleasure to be at Small Business 2.0 this year; an even greater pleasure to take part in the SEO panel and SEO forum session.

There were some interesting speakers there from BT Tradespace. Ivan Croxford had sage advice and hilarious anecdotes about managing reputation via the BT Tradespace platform and social sites more generally. Arena Flowers has long been an advocate of BT Tradespace, so please feel free to join our network there, or to watch our very own technical whizz, Sam Barton here talking about BT Tradespace and social networking for businesses, a very hot topic at Small Business 2.0.

Other presenters included Microsoft, with a focus on their search marketing offering with search engine/ decision engine, Bing. One of my favourites was friend of Arena Flowers, Dan Wilson, giving a very candid forum session on social media and some of its uses and pitfalls.

I’ve put up the SEO presentation I gave here, in case anyone is interested. I really enjoyed all the questions on the day and feedback about the panel and forum session. Thank you to everyone who attended.

For other resources, you can see Will’s post Arena Flowers at Small Business 2.0 from 2008 or have a look at our other posts about marketing and setting up an online business.

Thanks for asking us along, Dan. We already look forward to the next one!

P.S. Valentine’s Day is just over two weeks from now! Have a look at our Valentine’s Day Flowers for inspiration.

 

Filed under: General, Marketing, Matters Webby on January 26th, 2010 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Stan - The Dandy FlowerWoman... on December 29th, 2009

As you’ll know from our announcement earlier this year, we’ve been working very closely with the British Heart Foundation (BHF) to get their branded charity flowers website off the ground. But our association with the nation’s heart health charity goes back to the early days of Arena Flowers, as we’ve always been happy to help promote their annual National Heart Month events each February.

2010 is no different as the BHF recently launched their fund-raising pack for Red for Heart campaign, which includes  National Wear It Red Day on 26 February,  and – if you’ve received a delivery from us over the past week or so – you may well have noticed their flyer distributed with our flowers & gifts.

In the New Year we’ll be revealing our special BHF Valentine’s Day bouquets, exclusively available from the BHF Flowers website. But Arena Flowers aren’t the only ones going Red for Heart for National Heart Month this February, so don’t be surprised if you see people sky diving in top-to-toe red.  Or wearing their red pyjamas to school. It’s all in aid of the British Heart Foundation. And we’d love you to join in as National Heart Month is the time to think about your heart and help us fight the UK’s biggest killer.

Be part of Red for Heart by doing anything you like to raise money. Challenge your office to wear to a wear red day – the boldest outfit wins! Bake red cakes. Paint your face red. The only rule is, you’ve got to have fun. So apply for your free fund-raising kit, full of great ideas, by clicking the banner below or call 0845 241 0976 and be part of Red for Heart.

 

Filed under: Ethics & Environment, Flowers, General, Good Causes & Charities, Mega Days, Valentine's Day on December 29th, 2009 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Pascale - Petal Peddler on December 17th, 2009

This is my third post on Flowers…uncut, but my first as an Arena Flowers employee.  I’ve been a friend of the company since the early days and have written some guest posts on brand reputation and making the most of off-line advertising.

The temperature in London has dropped; it’s started snowing, however things are definitely hotting-up at Flowers HQ.

It’s just over a week until Christmas; we’re busy and bustling, getting out flower deliveries.  We know you are all in full swing too with Christmas shopping and Christmas parties.

This can be a stressful 10 days coming up and we at Arena Flowers want you to feel good this Christmas, so we’ve put together a Top 10 Guide to survival over the next week or so:

1) Going to a Christmas party and hoping to meet Mr. or Miss. Right? Well, you are clearly going to need some mistletoe.  The tradition of kissing under mistletoe is believed to have originated in Scandinavia where mistletoe is associated with peace and love.  Mistletoe is also thought to promote fertility…so use wisely!

2 ) Hosting a Christmas party? Why not coordinate your floral arrangements with your decorations? The Christmas White Bowl is a fantastic table piece. Made with white roses and white candles all kept in place with wonderfully fragrant pine fronds and cinnamon bundles (it almost smells as good as it looks). Our florists also add pine cones and waxed apples for a traditional Christmas touch. This all sits in a wonderful glass bowl wrapped inside with aspidistra leaves.

3) Recovering from a party? Try a lavender and vervain tea with some honey for sweetness. Vervain is known for its soothing effects and lavender for relaxation.  The honey should give you a natural energy boost.

4) Spending Christmas day with family? Why not send them flowers in advance? A lot of effort goes into making Christmas day magical, how best to show your support if you can’t help in person than by sending Christmas flowers in advance?  Try the Festive Fun bouquet. The bright gerbera and traditional warm tone roses contrast with sparkly silver thistles. With just the right amount of greenery, this is a beautifully balanced bouquet.

5) Are you hosting the family Christmas? Dr Edward Bach was one of the pioneers of homeopathic medicine and he championed the use of flowers as natural remedies in his very famous Bach Flower Remedies, still popular today.  Why not try Bach’s Hornbeam remedy? It is used to combat feelings of tiredness before a large task ahead.  A perfect boost on Christmas day morning.

6) Entertaining kids over Christmas? Children love Christmas and there seems to be no limit to their energy. Why not take advice from the Victorians and get the kids’ creativity flowing by having them make some paper flowers? There’s a great video guide and some step by step instructions from the BBC and don’t forget to send us photos of your paper roses so we can compare them with the real thing!

7) Room for more? Complement a hearty Christmas meal with some refreshing mint chocolates and you don’t get any more fantastic than the Prestat mint chocolate box.  Plenty to choose from with peppermint creams and coffee mints.  These are truly luxurious, but don’t take our word for it, Prestat has been awarded the Royal Warrant by Her Majesty The Queen.

8) Saying thank you? What a better way to thank your hosts than to send them some cheery flowers.  The Yuletide gift wrap is a wonderful, vibrant bouquet of gerberas, lilies and our grand prix roses.  Or try any of our Thank You Flowers as a perfect way to show your appreciation.

9) Cheering up left overs? How about making some flowery garnishes to cheer up those inevitable turkey sandwiches and brussel sprout salads?  It takes no time to carve carnations from carrots or turn cucumbers into chrysanthemums.  We liked this handy guide to flower garnishes.

10) Treating yourself? Christmas is about receiving as much as giving and it’s important to put your feet up and relax in preparation for the new year ahead.  Why not treat yourself to this Christmas Faerie bouquet?  It’s an unusual and very elegant bouquet.  The dusty pink roses fit perfectly with the alstroemeria (also called the Peruvian Lily).
With a touch of festive decorations such as cinnamon bundles and sparkling thistles it’s really stunning.

Happy Christmas from all of us at Arena Flowers!

 

Filed under: Christmas Flowers, Flowers, General on December 17th, 2009 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Adarsh – Search engine battler on November 5th, 2009

A few months back, Will wrote a first post about previous newsletter winners and had promised to frequently update the winners on our blog. Since Will’s last post in March, we have sent out Seven more newsletters and we have seven new winners (Some are already updated on Will’s Post) who need a grand mention on our blog for believing in Arena Flowers and for winning £50 worth of free flowers. Of course you could catch all the previous winners from our archived newsletters here, but here’s a quick look at the most recent winners.

June 2009 – Simon D – No Picture Received :0(
Simon likes to send tulips and in the past he has sent our 30 Red Tulips Gift Wrap, Tulip Sensation (a lot!), Spring Sunshine, Summer Surprise and Autumn Orange. Simon asked our florists to makes something nice using.. you guessed it ‘tulips’ with his £50 winnings.
Congratulations, Simon!

July 2009 – Kirsten – No Picture Received :0(
A loyal Arena Flowers fan since autumn 2007, Kirsten has previous sent our 35 Magnificent Orange, Red & Yellow Roses Bouquet, Sunset cube, Luxury Romance, Red Sky at Night, Mass of Pink Roses, and Lovely in Lilac. Congratulations, Kirsten!

August 2009 – Helen
A big fan of Arena Flowers since February 2008, Helen has previously sent our Pink Orchid, Bright & Cheery, Summer Surprise, Lovely in Lilac, A Dozen Yellow Roses, Pink Gift Wrap, and Big Balloon Birthday Gift Set. On being told of her win, Helen took the opportunity to tell us that Arena is always her first choice and that she never hesitates to recommend Arena Flowers to her friends and family. She has chosen the deluxe Strelitzia Tropical Arrangement with her winnings to send to her mum and dad, a flower connoisseur’s choice. Ps thanks for the kind words, Helen!

September 2009 – Brian
A frequent customer of Arena Flowers since 2007, Brian has previously sent our Two Dozen Red Roses, Pretty & Elegant,  Autumn Golds Bouquet, Autumn Orange, Tulip Sensation, Black Magic, Sunflowers Bouquet, Red Sky at Night, Mass of Red Roses, Mass of Fifty Red Roses, 35 Magnificent Orange, Red & Yellow Roses, Winter Tulips, Winter Roses, Freesias Cube, The One, Spring Sunshine, and 100 Tulips Special – phew! Brian will be sending a special deluxe version of our gorgeous new African Queen bouquet to a special lady in his life, and as he recently celebrated his birthday, it’s double congratulations to you, Brian!

October 2009 – Heidi Marie
A fan of Arena Flowers since April 2007, Heidi has previously sent our Pink Gift Wrap, Summer Surprise, and 35 Magnificent Orange, Red & Yellow Roses. Heidi has decided to send a special deluxe version of our traditional favourite Country Garden for Grandparents’ Day on behalf of her son Mitchell (pictured left with Heidi). Congratulations Heidi Marie!

Sending out newsletters to our customer base forms an essential part of our efforts to build storng relationships with our customers. We believe that it gives us an opportunity to thank our customers for the support and appreciation they have given us through the years. Our newsletters contain useful information for our customers including reminders of key dates (in case you miss any), exclusive discount codes and special offers on a whole range of flowers, chocolates, wines and other gifts. If you are not subscribed to our newsletter yet, you know what you are missing. Not to mention the opportunity of winning £50 worth of free flowers! Subscribe to our newsletter today!

 

Filed under: Customers, Marketing on November 5th, 2009 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Will – Priority Juggler on October 29th, 2009

Hello, dear reader.

Just a quick note to say that deliveries of gorgeous flowers from Flowers HQ to all our UK destinations (and indeed to all the European destinations that we cover) will NOT be disrupted by the Royal Mail strikes now or in the future.

Our deliveries, whether they’re made by our own full time drivers (such as Bart, pictured below with our 35 red, orange and yellow roses bouquet – on “Special Offer” at time of writing, bargain fans) or by one of  our two partners, are totally independent of the Royal Mail network so will be entirely unaffected by the strikes, however long they last.

Here’s hoping that the dispute is soon resolved to the satisfaction of both sides, and that ecommerce and online confidence get back to normal quickly; there’s no doubt that the words “postal strike” do strike (excuse the pun) a bit of fear into heart of consumer confidence and that’s good for no one.

Anyway, whilst the nation awaits a (hopefully) speedy resolution, we’ll keep doing what we do best.  Making beautiful bouquets of stunningly fresh flowers, as demonstrated by Judith, who’s also our head weddings florist, here:

Some more normal flowery posting next week (we know we’ve been a bit quiet – we’ve been busy beavering away on exciting projects!). More to follow.

 

Filed under: Distribution, General on October 29th, 2009 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Adarsh – Search engine battler on September 23rd, 2009

A few months ago, Stan had posted a blog on how Arena Flowers is encouraging people to raise money for Cancer Research by sending out flyers for the Race For Life charity event along with all Cancer Research flower orders. Little did we know then, that we had an in-house participant in Carole, our Accountant and keeper of the books.

Carole is taking part in the 10k Race for Life run at Hampton Court on 27th September 2009 in memory of her friend, Janie Cassie who was her colleague at Raven Roofing & Building Supplies in Twickenham. Janie battled breast cancer for five and half years and passed away in December 2008. Carole is keen to raise as much money as possible to help fund research at Cancer Research and she is joined by her ex-colleagues and their families from her former company. Every pound raised through Race for Life counts and with Carole and entourage from her previous company participating in the event, we are certain that they will contribute enough to the charity to help them buy vital equipment used for research into cancer.

Now in its 16th year, Race for life is the UK’s largest women only fund-raising event, where women come together to raise money in support of Cancer Research UK. Hundreds of thousands of women of all ages walk, jog, run and have fun at the charity events across the UK, to help raise money to beat cancer. The event, held annually across the UK since 1994 has raised nearly £240 million and for 2009, an estimated 735, 000 women are expected to raise £60 million.

At Arena Flowers, we work with two of the biggest charities in the UK, British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK and have also extended our support to other charitable organisations such as Global Giving. We are extremely proud to support Cancer Research UK through our flowers site and with Carole being a part of the event this year, we have a greater sense of accomplishment in being truly committed to supporting social causes. If you are interested in sponsoring Carole’s great cause, please feel free to donate by visiting here.

To learn more about our work with charities, please see our posts on good causes and fund raising.

 

Filed under: Ethics & Environment, Good Causes & Charities on September 23rd, 2009 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Stan - The Dandy FlowerWoman... on August 27th, 2009

It’s been a while since our last blog post while we’ve been working frantically on a whole bunch of exciting new partnership projects behind the scenes – all to be revealed in the coming few weeks. But one such partnership deserves a blog post of it’s own, as we’re proud to announce a new charity tie-in with our good friends (and all-round nice chaps) at GlobalGiving.co.uk.

They have been working hard to develop their new website to support charities and good causes by putting them in one handy place where individuals or organisations can donate to vetted grassroots charity projects in over 70 countries directly, while staying in touch with their progress through a range of handy web2.0 tools – truly bringing fund-raising into the 21st century.

By visiting their portal on ArenaFlowers.com, we will donate 15% of your order of flowers, gifts, drinks and chocolate towards the work of GlobalGiving.co.uk – with donations divided equally between three featured charity projects which will be rotated each month to give a range of projects – large and small – a fair chance. Most of the projects on GlobalGiving.co.uk are in the developing world where a small amount of money usually goes a long way.

We will be supporting a variety of charity projects, so browse our current supported projects and track your direct impact on communities by sending your flowers and gifts with Global Giving in partnership with ArenaFlowers.com.

If you would like to learn more about our work with charities, you might like to see our posts about good causes and fund raising and you might also enjoy our posts about ethics and the environment.

 

Filed under: Ethics & Environment, General, Good Causes & Charities on August 27th, 2009 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Stan - The Dandy FlowerWoman... on July 28th, 2009

Happy Birthday to us, Happy Birthday to us, Happy Birthday Arena Flowers, Happy Birthday to us! Yes, believe it or not but Arena Flowers turns 3 years young today – and to celebrate, our Head Florist Andrew has created us this super-dooper birthday cake made from flowers!

Consisting of our ethically sourced Grand Prix roses, our signature Cherry Brandy roses, yellow and orange spray chrysanthemums, eucalyptus and creamy white hydrangea (all topped off with oranges, limes and kiwi fruit, making this a truly edible cake!), a celebratory flower cake has now become a tradition at Flowers HQ since our 1st birthday back in 2007.

Of course, there’ve been a lot of changes since those early days of Arena Flowers, and these ‘Then and Now’ pictures tell only half the story and make an interesting trip down memory lane:

Since our last birthday we have vastly expanded our product range and bespoke portfolio, partnered with an increasing number of charities and expanded across Europe with our international sites. And that’s all in just the past year!

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank you, our loyal customer base and friends for your continued support, custom and feedback to enable us to expand and establish ourselves as the UK’s leading, fastest-growing online florist in the UK and beyond…

If you’d like to learn more about how it all began, you may like to read this, this and this blog post.

 

Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, Operations, Setting up on July 28th, 2009 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Stan - The Dandy FlowerWoman... on June 30th, 2009

With our Wedding Flowers hotline ringing off the hook, Judith up to her chin in raffia, and our drivers up at the crack of dawn for early morning Saturday deliveries, the wedding season is now truly upon us at Flowers HQ. With the bustles of brides visiting our wedding team in Park Royal for advice on an almost daily basis, you’d be tempted to wonder whether the recession is really just a figment of the media’s imagination after all…

Although couples are insisting on committing to their 2009 wedding plans, the economic downturn has nonetheless brought with it a whole gamut of challenges for those intending to marry this year. Partner up the recession with the fact that the average cost of a British wedding topped £20,000 for the first time in 2008, shows that deciding when to scrimp and when to splurge on a such a monumental day isn’t going to be easy.

As the wedding season has approached, we’ve seen a significant increase in wedding flower enquiries in recent months, and with those we’re seeing more emphasis laid on price: “We’re looking for something cheap…” , “Could you advise us on the cheapest flowers…” etc. This nature of enquiry can automatically put any florist into defence mode, as any floral designer worth their salt knows that “cheap” is a relative description and doesn’t normally equate for very good (or even appropriate) flower arrangements.

Wedding Flowers on a Budget

If there is a budget involved (see below for more advice on setting wedding budgets), a wedding florist can then easily come up with flower choices and designs that will fall within that budget. According to last year’s figures, the average cost of wedding flowers in 2008 reached £381, accounting for just 2% of the overall average UK wedding budget of £20,000 (Source: Sky News, November 2008). But in most cases, wedding flowers normally take up 10-15% of the final wedding bill – thus proving every wedding is different with an array requirements and preferences.

The task of choosing wedding flowers is a personal, expressive and emotional experience, which is why we always recommend brides drop into Flowers HQ for an informal chat to discuss their requirements in person with our wedding florists, who will source the right wedding flowers for you – not only suiting your pocket but also of exceptional quality too.

Credit Crunch Wedding Flowers

While 10-15% is a good estimate for your wedding flowers bill, you can modify many floral elements to determine the actual amount you will spend on your wedding arrangements. Factors such as whether or not your preferred flowers are in season, the number, size and complexity of the arrangements all influence your final cost estimate.

In economically hard times, creativity comes to the fore, as brides are find ways to spend their wedding budget more wisely, and discovering “cheap” wedding ideas that help them save money. Here are just a few budget-friendly ideas to help you on the way to beautiful, economical wedding flowers that won’t cost you a king’s ransom.

Easy Peasey. Flowers in season are often less expensive and easier to source. For a list of common flowers for each season, visit our wedding flowers tips page for our guide to seasonal flowers. Don’t forget that flowers over peak / holiday periods such as Valentine’s, Christmas and Mother’s Day will cost more.

Simple things. Because the time taken to create your flowers will be factored into your wedding flowers bill, go for less elaborate bridal flowers which are less labour intensive.  For instance, a hand-tied or free form bouquet takes less time to create than a wired or teardrop one. For extra savings, bridesmaids can carry a single flower in a flower wand instead of a bouquet.

Filler thriller. Use more, cheaper foliage and greenery, baby’s breath, wax flower, soft ruscus etc which will pad out flower arrangements. Use flowery blooms as an accent to the arrangement rather than the main ingredient.

Bargain hunt. Shop around for end of line / discounted glassware in charity shops and budget household stores for vases. This way, for the price of renting / paying deposit on breakages, you can keep, sell on or recycle. The Christmas sale period is the perfect time to purchase candles, fairy lights and other decorations at huge discount.

Let’s go outside. Find a venue such as a park or garden that is already lush and beautiful – a springtime wedding in a garden will require little in the way of floral arrangements, while a traditional church may be breathtaking on its own. Also consider that many venues come ready decorated in the lead up to Christmas, so holding an earl-mid December wedding may provide you seasonal flowers for free.

A problem shared. Find out from your venues whether any other weddings are scheduled for the same day. If the two events can share decorating expenses, you’ll save a lot of money.

Recycle arrangements. If you can’t share your arrangements, transfer the flowers from your ceremony to your reception. Save more money on head table decoration by displaying the bridal bouquets on the head table.

Don’t Do it Yourself!

Floristry looks easier than it really is, so if you really can’t afford a florist, make sure you find someone with at least some skill and experience with flowers. We can provide flowers wholesale at discount prices for brides wishing to create their wedding flowers ‘in house’, but don’t forget you’ll need somewhere cool to store them safely and keep them fresh.

Making of the arrangements should be left to the very last minute, so best not leave them to a stressed-out, sleep deprived bride-to-be! If you don’t know what you are doing and don’t enjoy working under pressure, don’t try this – even if the temptation of saving some money is far too much to resist!

A good budget compromise would be to ask your florist to create the key arrangements such as the bridal and bridesmaid bouquets which are important to get absolutely right, then purchase additional matching stems for your own vase displays and other ad hoc uses such as buttonholes, hair flowers etc.

Jilted at the Alter?

With sterling still relatively weak against the euro (therefore inflating wholesale prices) as well as diminishing footfall, local independent florists are increasingly falling victim to the economic downturn, leaving distressed brides empty handed for their big day with little time to make alternative arrangements.

If your wedding florist goes bust, first off – don’t panic. Most florists will be able to stock your wedding flower requirements within 4-5 days, depending on how often they visit their wholesalers. If you are based in the London area (and your wedding doesn’t fall on a holiday / event day such as Mother’s or Valentine’s Day) we’ll be more than happy to pick up your order (we get fresh flowers in direct from the Dutch auctions nearly every day).

In many cases we’ve been known to slash existing quotes, and can sometimes provide wedding bouquets with just a day or two’s notice. So, even with times as they currently are, there are good deals to be found by the frugal bride. If you’re just starting to plan your wedding, our short list of 5 steps to a debt-free wedding might just be of some use…

Easy Steps Towards Recession-Proofing Your Wedding

1. Establish Your Wedding Budget
Choose a reliable method to keep track of all expenditures – there are now lots of websites that offer free budgeting services. If possible, keep your wedding fund separate from your personal accounts, so you can easily determine what’s being spent on the wedding. Don’t forget to call in all those favours: contact old mates, colleagues, family members and even the bloke down the road who you lent that jump lead to last winter, who may be able to offer their services.

2. Wedding Wedding Gifts.
Continuing from the above, barter your way to the wedding you want by asking wedding guests to offer their skills and services as a wedding present. If there’s a hairdresser or keen photographer on your guest list, time to bend their ear and put them to work! Chances are they’ll probably bring you a pressie anyway on the day, too… ;)

3. Beware Hidden Costs
Set aside 5% of your budget for those extras that are bound to sneak in one way or another. If you absolutely cannot exceed £20,000, aim to spend £19,000. When last minute costs such as VAT, fees etc come up (and they will), your reserve funds will save you from debt. Similarly, look out for deals and discount rates often offered during low season, midweek or during the day which can trim significant costs from your wedding bill.

4. Super Skinny Me
Serve three courses instead of five (saving on catering and waistlines). Have two bridesmaids instead of four (saving on dresses). Invite 100 guests instead of 200 (saving on just about everything). If you’re struggling with whom to cut from the guest list, cut out children and anyone you don’t know personally, and you’ll see that guest list rapidly streamline itself!

5. More Wine, Madame?
Don’t crack under pressure of the up-sell! That diamond-encrusted designer dress, the fancy five star hotel suite, the vintage champagne – they might seem like good ideas at the time, and it’s easy to get carried away, but they all add up. It’s important to understand which details are truly most important to you.  Be strong, prioritise what you want beforehand and you’re less likely to face a nasty surprise later.

Similar Posts: If you liked this post you may find our credit crunching post Lessons From Flowers – Tulips & the Economic Crisis interesting as well as our oodles of wedding related posts!!

 

Filed under: Finance & Investment, Flowers, General, Weddings on June 30th, 2009 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Will – Priority Juggler on June 17th, 2009

I was recently invited by friend of Arena, Trevor Ginn, to write a guest post for his blog eBay, eCommerce life.  As well as being a blogger, Trevor runs an online baby and nursery shop, Hello Baby and an Internet consultancy, Vendlab.  Naturally, being a sucker for flattery from other webby types, I was happy to oblige.

I tried to avoid the totally obvious and compiled a list of the ten issues (good and bad) that we hadn’t really expected when we set up our little online flower shop nearly three years ago.  If interested, head on over to the post to have a look at the Arena Flowers post. (PS Trevor promises he’ll fix the typos I made shortly!)

If you enjoyed the post, you may also enjoy some of our other posts relating to the early days of Flowers HQ.

 

Filed under: General, Matters Webby on June 17th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

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Posted by: Stan - The Dandy FlowerWoman... on May 29th, 2009

Regular readers of Flowers …uncut will already be well aware of our occasional support of charities and good causes as well as the launch of the Arena-powered Cancer Research UK flower shop earlier this year.  Cancer Research UK and flowers make a great fit, especially around Mother’s Day and  the “Race For Life” (we’re currently sending out flyers for the Race with all Arena and Cancer Research UK orders and you should all join in!).

No sooner had we announced the Cancer Research UK site than we received a call from the UK’s favourite heart charity, the British Heart Foundation, which had been on the look-out for something similar to support its own fund raising efforts.

We were more than happy to oblige, especially given our previous happy experiences working with the BHF around Valentine’s Day and the good fit of hearts and romantic flowers.  So we put our creative hats on and got to work with the lovely ladies in the BHF marketing team to create a BHF Flowers website that reflects the established brand and messaging of this popular charity.

As with our Cancer Research UK partnership, 20% of the gross order value (excluding any delivery costs, which we seldom charge anyway) is donated to the British Heart Foundation, plus 100% of any donation amount (you can add a donation in checkout).  We’re working on ways to allow gift aid too.   To find out more about how we work with the UK’s leading charities, and how we can afford to donate a such a significant amount from each order, check out our blog post announcing our work with Cancer Research UK.

And in the future? Whilst we could do loads and loads of these partner charity sites, we’d prefer to keep the offer narrow and relevant to our flower and gifting business so there are unlikely to be many more (if any!).  But what is certain is that we’re very proud to be working with two of the UK’s most worthwhile charities.  Please show them your support too!

If you found this post interesting, you might also enjoy our other posts about good causes and fund raising and you might also enjoy our posts about ethics and the environment.

 

Filed under: Ethics & Environment, General, Good Causes & Charities on May 29th, 2009 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Stan - The Dandy FlowerWoman... on May 26th, 2009

A quick ‘Pop Quiz’ for you: What do Jon Bon Jovi, Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Steffi Graf, Jodie Foster and Tiger Woods (pictured, right) all have in common? Apart from probably having a few bob to their names, they are all reported to be famous hay fever sufferers and/or allergic to flowers.

With an estimated 20% of the UK population suffering from hay fever this summer, watch any weather report from now through to September and you’ll see the emphasis increasing on the ‘Pollen Count’ as the allergy season progresses and airborne allergens attack their hypersensitive victims. We all know somebody who suffers from hay fever, and you may even have thought twice about buying flowers for them over the years.

But why should a seasonal dose of rhinitis stop you from receiving or indeed sending flowers? Truth is, if their allergies are particularly severe, many flowers are going to affect the recipient negatively but, in general, the more dangerous flowers are the ones with the most pollen. So a good guideline for sending flowers to a someone who may potentially explode into an itching, weeping, snotty mess is to avoid choosing flowers that have visible pollen.

Flower No-No’s(e)

Asiatic and Longiflorum Lilies are some of the most dangerous flowers for allergy sufferers, as parts of them are covered in powdery pollen. Songstresses Tina Arena and Britney Spears (pictured, left) are both alleged to have a lily allergy.  As the story goes, knowing of her allergy,  chart rival Pink once sent Britney a bouquet of lilies when they were feuding.

However, Lilies can be a good choice for allergy sufferers, as it is easy to simply remove the stems of pollen from each flower. Just try to find a non-allergic chum to do this particular job, as it will probably have the most robust nose and eyes and running at the earliest opportunity!

Another type of flower that is particularly bad for allergy sufferers is tree flowers / blossom. When choosing a spring flower arrangement, be careful not to include almond, cherry, apple, or any other kind of tree blossom.

Top Flowers for Allergy Sufferers

Andrew, our Head Florist here at Flowers HQ recommends chrysanthemums and gerberas, with new hybrids coming onto the market bred so that the parts of the flower that used to produce pollen now produce extra petals. But watch out for regular chrysanthemums and daisies as they can be highly allergic.

Another great choice for the allergy sufferer is roses. Not only are roses the most popular cut flower to send, modern roses used in floristry don’t have much of a negative effect on allergies. The reason for this is that their pollen is too large in size to be able to become airborne and truly infiltrate the respiratory system. To allergy-proof your bouquet arrangement, choose roses with little or no smell as these will contain the least pollen.

One of the best kinds of flowers for allergy sufferers are orchids and exotic flowers. Very few types of orchids cause any pollen-related allergies, and so are quite safe for those allergic to most flowers. It is important to note, though, that some orchids may cause a slight skin rash on sensitive individuals.

If in doubt, do contact us first before placing our order.

Hypo-Allergic Wedding Flower Tips

Traditional bridal gowns don’t normally include pockets for hankies, so the last thing a bride needs are snail trails up her lace sleeves from a runny nose. If the bride or groom is known to suffer pollen allergies, here are some simple tips to keep in mind when choosing wedding flowers which will help minimise hay fever symptoms:

1. Wedding Venues
   The best strategy is to avoid airborne allergens completely by holding your wedding ceremony indoors during the peak allergy season, especially if the main culprits are tree and grass pollen. So, no posing around in country meadows for those arty post-ceremony wedding photos, then!
2. Wedding Flowers
   Allergies to flowers are mainly due to their pollen count rather than fragrance.  Flowers begin to release pollen due to the aging process, so using Arena Flowers, the freshest flowers available, will prevent this problem. As for bridal bouquets, buttonholes, and other wedding flower arrangements, there are many flowers that don’t trigger severe allergies (see above for some suggestions).
3. Other Wedding Day Triggers
   Although many people may not realise it, hay fever symptoms do not always come from allergic reactions, but instead can be caused by everyday non-allergic triggers — and not just during the allergy seasons but at any time of the year.  So beware of perfumes and hairspray, sudden changes in temperature and even cooking odours.

Allergy-Free Artificial Flowers

If you want an absolutely 100% allergy-proof alternative for hay fever sufferers, then artificial flowers are the product of choice. No-nonsense and low maintenance, we are pleased to announce the launch of our new Artificial Flowers section added to ArenaFlowers.com — due to popular demand.

We will be adding more flowers to this section throughout the year, so let us know which artificial flowers you would like to see in the future.

Click to see our full range of allergy-free artificial flowers.

By following some of these simple guidelines, we hope you enjoy a pain-free summer this year, and don’t forget to consult a GP or pharmacist if symptoms persist!

 

Filed under: Customers, Floristry, Flowers, General, Matters Webby, Operations, Weddings on May 26th, 2009 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Will – Priority Juggler on May 19th, 2009

As regular visitors to this blog may know, when we go on holiday we try to bring back some silly chocolate from where we’ve been. So, amongst other things, we’ve had “Cowboy” chocolate from Houston, Texas, a chocolate Eiffel Tower (from, erm, Paris) and various other “amusing” confectionery.  It’s been a while since the last such post (all work and no holiday makes Jack a dull boy), but we now have an Egyptian version.

Sadly, I couldn’t find a pyramid or a sphinx made of chocolate, presumably because the Egyptians design their confectionery around good taste and what sells, rather than around the desires of idiotic British tourists looking for the most stereotypically shaped edibles possible.  However, they do make “Cuttlefish Flavoured Crisps”, which the team reported as tasting “surprisingly good”.  In this photo they’re being held by Henrique, one of our CS team who has been manning the phones and keeping us all amused at Flowers HQ for just over a year now.

Having failed to get comedy Egyptian chocolate, at least I was able to get some very tasty Baklava with an Egyptian motif to share with the different teams and here you see Stefanie with CS’s box.

Stefanie is a bit of a polymath, not only working on customer services for our English websites, but also answering calls from our German website, Arena Blumen.  In addition, Stefanie speaks fluent French and is currently helping translate our site for the forthcoming launch of Arena Fleurs (website still under construction).  Impressive stuff!

That’s it for this episode of comedy chocolate (find V, IV, III, II and I here).  Over and out!

 

Filed under: General on May 19th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

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Posted by: Samwise of the front end on April 27th, 2009

I like gadgets and as such love our Arena ‘toys’.  As the subject for this post is centered around our latest toy I have been charged with telling the story.

Something that I think I should clarify at this juncture is the definition of a ‘toy’.  We are a florist not a toy shop so by toys I mean something that is a fun addition to our flowers and which in particular makes use of the cool possibilities that the Internet has to offer.  Here at Flowers HQ we strive to be at the cutting edge in everything we do and to maintain that position we feel it is important to be as innovative as possible with the user experience.

To date this strategy has meant that we have built many fun (but useful) accessories that are used on and off our site every day.  These “toys” allow our customers to format the way their message appears on the message card and to include a glossy photo or video message to send to the recipient.  Customers are notified by text for free as soon as their order has been delivered.  Visitors who don’t want to send real flowers can send virtual flowers using another fun toy we’ve built, our free Facebook “Flowers & Fun” application.  And if you want someone to send flowers to you, you can “send a hint” from the product page (anonymously or not, the choice is yours!).

And so to our latest toy…

Read more about the Arena Calendar Reminders service

 

Filed under: General, Matters Webby, Mega Days on April 27th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

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Posted by: Stan - The Dandy FlowerWoman... on April 23rd, 2009

We’ve been a little quiet on the blog front this past few weeks – call it a little blog break while we recovered from the excitement of serving sumptuous fresh flowers to the nation’s romantics on Valentine’s Day, then just a few weeks later, creating the perfect Mother’s Day bouquet arrangements for mums, grandmas and godmothers across the UK.

But it doesn’t stop there, it is actually only Great Britain, Ireland and Nigeria that celebrate Mother’s Day on the fourth Sunday of lent and, in fact, most of our international cousins consider May to be the month of Mothering Sundays with the most popular date falling on the second Sunday of May.

It is generally believed that Mother’s Day is celebrated internationally around the world on a variety of days through the year because the event has a number of different origins. For instance, in Iran the day originally commemorated the birthday of Fatima, Muhammad’s daughter. In Canada, Mother’s Day was introduced in the mid-19th century as a call to unite women against war.

With our burgeoning portfolio of European ventures in the guise of Arena Bloemen (Netherlands), Arena Blumen (Germany), and Arena Bloemen Belgium, as well as our international flower delivery service, our development team now consider Arena mums all year round, not just for Mother’s Day.

To help them, and you, here’s a comprehensive list of the countries we serve, and their respective Mother’s Days for the next twelve months…

May 3rd: Hungary, Lithuania, Portugal, Spain.

May 8th: South Korea (Parents’ Day)

May 10th: USA, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belize, Bermuda, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Hong Kong, Iceland, Italy, India, Jamaica, Japan, Latvia, Leichtenstein, Malaysia, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Switzerland, Trinidad, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zimbabwe.

May 15th: Paraguay.

May 26th: Poland (”Dzień Matki”).

May 27th: Bolivia.

May 30th: Nicaragua.

May 31st: Dominican Republic, France, Mauritius, Morocco, Sweden, Tunisia.

June 14th: Luxembourg.

June 28th: Kenya.

August 12th: Thailand.

August 15th: Antwerp Province (Belgium), Costa Rica.

October 12th: Malawi.

October 14th: Belarus.

October 18th: Argentina.

December 8th: Panama.

December 22nd: Indonesia.

Between 30th January – 1st March: Israel.

February 2nd: Greece.

February 14th: Norway.

March 8th: Armenia. Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine.

March 14th: UK, Ireland.

March 21st: Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

March 25th: Slovenia.

April 7th: Armenia.

If you enjoyed this post and would like to know more about Mother’s Day, check out Will’s rather excellent blog post on the moon’s influence on when we celebrate Mother’s Day in the UK.

 

Filed under: General, International Flowers, Marketing, Mega Days, Mother's Day on April 23rd, 2009 | 3 Comments »

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Posted by: Will – Priority Juggler on March 9th, 2009

We quite often get asked “So, does anyone ever win that free newsletter competition or is it just a fake?”.  The answers are “Yes, every month!” and “Absolutely not!”.  We typically send one “postcard” email and one full newsletter every month (Mother’s Day flowers edition going out tomorrow).  In the newsletter we announce the winner of that month’s free order up to the value of £50.  We think this is the right mix of driving business without being pushy (previous newsletters and postcards can be seen here).

Of course, some people aren’t subscribed to our newsletters so don’t ever get to see the winners . As a result, in future we’ll be putting the winner on the blog too.  But in the meantime, we thought we’d show all of our previous lucky newsletter winners.  So here we go:

May 2009 – Paul M from Coatbridge, Scotland

No picture received. Boo!

April 2009 – Kalsoom from Birmingham

“My first order with Arena Flowers was back in December for some Grand Prix roses for my partner’s birthday,” Kalsoom told us on learning of her win.
“He absolutely loved them, and surprisingly they are still standing – albeit dark and crinkly – two months on. It’s a fantastic service I recommend to anyone in the world.”

March 2009 – Pippa who lives in Antigua, West Indies

On being told of her win, Pippa tells us “I find the Arena flower service an excellent way of keeping in touch with my mother, who sadly had a stroke over ten years ago, and has not been able to speak since, so no chance of chats on the phone unfortunately. She loves flowers, and this is a wonderful way of brightening up her life.”

February 2009 – Doreen from Guernsey

January 2009 – Linda W from Leeds

December 2008 – Sharon from Plymouth

November 2008 – William A from Surrey

On being told of his win, William sent this message: “Arena Flowers provides a first-class service. Completely reliable, you always deliver that WOW factor with your amazing bouquets, and I’m a big fan of the easy-to-use web site too. Thank you, Arena Flowers!”

Oooh, you’ll make us, blush, William. Thanks for the great feedback. We appreciate it!

October 2008 – Andrew W from Surrey

September 2008 – Carlos M from Northumberland

No picture received. Boo!

August 2008 -Trish N from Sheffield

July 2008 – Melanie S from Haywards Heath

June, May & April 2008 – Kirsten L from Surrey, William N from Essex & Mark S from Worcestershire

Photo FAIL! Actually, this was our fault as we only picked winners really close to the deadline so no time to get a picture!

March 2008 – Jacqui M from Blackpool

February 2008, January 2008 & November 2007 – Siobhan M from Edinburgh, Kathleen from London & Michael B from Canada

No photo.  Sometimes customers don’t want to be in the newsletter, out of shyness…or maybe their partner might want to know who they’ve been sending flowers to! (NB not suggesting that that was the case with these two anonymous winners, but it does happen! Don’t worry, our lips are sealed!)

December 2007 – Mo from London

October 2007 – Philip O from oops, we forgot to ask.

Philip also apologised that he only had this rather serious work photo to hand!

September 2007 – Steve U from oops, we forgot to ask again!

August 2007 – Mark H from hmmm. Again we didn’t ask. Maybe we only started asking in December 2007

Mark was kind enough to write back as soon as the flowers were delivered, saying:

“The flowers you delivered to Alicia yesterday were simply breathtaking (Alicia’s own words) and so thank you once again for a fantastic job.”

Thanks, Mark!

July 2007 – Jennifer H

Jennifer said this: “I’m really thrilled to have won – all of the flowers I’ve ordered in the past have been absolutely fantastic, I’m just so excited that I actually won!   It’s my parents’ wedding anniversary next month and I was planning on ordering them some flowers anyway so it’s perfect timing too! My Mom really loves roses and gerberas so I’ll probably get something bright and cheery along those lines! Thanks again!

Thanks, Jennifer!

June 2007 – Claire D

April 2007 – Estanis M from London

March 2007 – Danuta R

January 2007 – Matt H

And finally, from our first ever newsletter, we had the following:

Christmas Winners
Every time we send a newsletter, one of our subscribers gets a free order worth up to £50. As it’s Christmas, we got a bit carried away and decided to choose three winners this time round, just for the fun of it. Congratulations to this month’s winners:

David W is sending his mother a Bright and Cheery bouquet and half a bottle of champagne for her birthday.

Emma D is tempted by our Vincent de Valloire white wine to go with a Christmas arrangement.

Stephanie H hasn’t decided what to send yet; maybe this email will help her choose!

So that’s the lot!  They really exist and they’re always very happy to win the prize.

If you want to sign up for the newsletter, click here (it’s free and there’s no obligation to buy).  You never know, you could be the next lucky winner; and if you’re not, you’ll just get exclusive discounts and other offers and news direct from Flowers HQ.  Right.  Enough of the sales talk.

Thanks for reading and thanks to all our winner for sending in their pictures!  Next stop: Mother’s Day!

 

Filed under: Customers, Marketing on March 9th, 2009 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Adarsh – Search engine battler on February 25th, 2009

If you’ve missed Valentine’s Day and forgot to send flowers from our exclusive Valentine’s range, here’s another chance to heal hearts; by supporting British Heart Foundation’s “Red for Heart” Campaign. After all, February is not just a month of romantic messages, but also the National Heart Month.

Like last year, when we did the BHF Valentine’s Appeal, we are keen on giving our customers an opportunity to support BHF, the nation’s heart charity, dedicated to saving lives through pioneering research, patient care, campaigning for change and by providing vital information.

Every year, approximately 200, 000 lives are lost to heart and circulatory diseases. BHF is aiming to raise funds to prevent lives being devastated from heart diseases and relies entirely on charity to make a difference to people’s lives.

You have a couple of days more to go red this month and show your support for the British Heart Foundation’s Red for Heart Campaign by visiting here. They have plenty of information on how you could go red and help them fight heart diseases.

 

Filed under: Ethics & Environment, Good Causes & Charities, Mega Days, Valentine's Day on February 25th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

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Posted by: Adarsh – Search engine battler on February 19th, 2009

It’s nearly a week since Valentine’s Day and like previous years, this year too was manic with customers rushing to send flowers to their loved ones. Despite all the economic gloom and the discomforting worries about how we would compare our sales to previous years, sales were surprisingly strong adding to the notion that love conquers everything. It seems like the Cupid’s arrows were right on target and fortunately for us, we were well equipped to counter the minor irritants such as combating fraudulent orders, managing an external fleet of drivers & couriers, and responding to customer queries and concerns to ensure that flowers were delivered to recipients on time. Without delving too deep into numbers, we can assure you that there were many more happy hearts receiving flowers sent from Arena Flowers Valentine’s range.

Last year, post Valentine, we had showcased behind the scenes activities of the hardworking team of flower fanatics at the Flowers HQ, but thanks to the new micro-blogging / social networking phenomenon called Twitter, everything was posted in real time this year. It was definitely fun posting pictures from phones when loading flowers to the delivery vans and driving to deliver them. Anyway, to cut the story short, for all those who didn’t follow us on Twitter, here’s a photoblog of the team, flowers, vans, and more…republished from what was posted on Arena Flowers Twitter Account.

In the beginning there was love…and balloons

Our very own Willy Wonka…Bill Keeling, MD, Prestat Chocolates, our exclusive chocolates partner

David and Goliath getting ready for the Valentine duel…Arena Flowers Delivery Van -Vs- our delivery partner’s truck

The Arena love machine kicks in, but let us not forget those with a birthday.

Love is in the air. Roughly 8′6” in the air.

Blast from the past – From I Love You Balloons to Heart of Chocolates

The One – The flower arrangement we mean…

And love is all around us…

Fraud Ninjas…

Men (& Women) at work…The Arena Flowers Assembly Line

Fighting Fraud With Apples

Trailer Attack at the Flowers HQ

Nick and the Boxes of Love

Be My Valentine – Will & his Co-Pilot

That’ll be all unfortunately, although we have plenty more on our Twitter account. If you liked our team and our flowers, please feel free to read our previous Valentine’s day post here. In case you are already on Twitter, and have been unaware about our Twitter account, please follow Arena Flowers here.

 

Filed under: Distribution, Floristry, Flowers, Mega Days, Operations, Valentine's Day on February 19th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

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Posted by: Will – Priority Juggler on February 4th, 2009

The big day is just round the corner and, given the “interesting” economic environment we find ourselves in, we thought we’d share a few top tips to help Valentine’s Day lovers get the most out of their money and avoid some obvious pitfalls.

1. What does she actually want? A survey by a US florist found that 76% of women didn’t want red roses for Valentine’s Day.  The favoured option was a mixed bouquet, apparently.

   

2. Make her look good – send flowers to her at work: Valentine’s Day is on a Saturday this year.  That’s handy for us flower people (less traffic for our drivers) and for couples (as they can spend the whole day together).  On the other hand, part of the the fun of sending Valentine’s flowers is the girl (or boy!) receiving them at their workplace and being the envy of their colleagues.  There are definitely brownie points to be won with a lucky Friday 13th workplace delivery.
3. Save money part 1 – Avoid red flowers: Prices for all red flowers jump for Valentine’s, irrespective of the flower variety.  Pink flowers’ prices also go up, but not by nearly as much.  Other colours are far more reasonable – a white rose bouquet, for instance, symbolises young love so is entirely appropriate to send on Valentine’s and our mass of white roses is far more affordable than the mass of red roses.
4. Be fun – laughter is the best aphrodisiac: Add a photo in our checkout and we’ll print it and send it with your flowers.  You can also record a funny / romantic Valentine’s video message to send to the object of your desire.   Lots of people make their flower deliveries more personal using these low cost but high impact options. After all, they’re trying to outdo the other suitors who are probably just sending champagne, chocolates, balloons, teddies or maybe an “I Love You” card (you can send all such gifts with Arena too, of course).
5. All red roses are not created equal: Our red roses are, frankly, better than 99% of red roses out there. Not boasting, just being honest really.  They are long-stemmed, Grand Prix red roses. They come from one of the top three rose growers in Holland.  They’re not the cheapest.  But they are very very good.  We totally understand that some people don’t want to spend that much on roses, hence suggesting alternative Valentine’s flowers (see next tip) and gifts. But, if you absolutely, positively must have red roses, then ours are the best. We’ve bought a lot fewer this year (60% less than last year) and we agreed a deal way in advance in order to get a great price.  When the stems we’ve bought run out, they’ve run out.  That’s it.  We aren’t going to buy any more.  We expect our red roses to have sold out by by the 11th or 12th Feb after which time, we’ll only be selling other varieties of flowers.
6. Save money part 2 – Avoid roses altogether: Red roses prices go through the roof for Valentine’s, with the price of a red rose stem often increasing by 500%.  Whilst other varieties also rise at this time, you will get a far better deal if you buy an arrangement featuring a different variety, such as a pink lily bouquet or a 100 tulips bouquet (100 tulips for less than 24 red roses makes a lot of economic sense, plus the tulips will grow in the vase and create an amazing effect over the following days).  Alternatively, keep the number of red roses in the arrangement low, as in our Valentine’s The One.
7. You get what you pay for, so be careful: “If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”  If you buy supermarket flowers, you’ll get supermarket flowers.  If one of our competitors sends you an offer for a dozen red roses for £20 including delivery (which some are doing), then read the small print.  They probably won’t guarantee the day of delivery (not ideal for Valentine’s!) and the rose heads are likely to be the size of a half-eaten M&M.  There are lots of other marketing ploys out there plus the big relay companies charge hefty commissions too.  We avoid any of that rubbish and just focus on doing a great job and saving costs for customers wherever we can.

   

8. Wow her in the kitchen: Our friends over at Jamie Oliver’s site have put up loads of good ideas for Valentine’s meals and home cooking and thoughts on how to get round credit crunchiness.  We suspect turkey twizzlers won’t be on the menu though. Or, if you like being all web 2.0 and user-generated, you might want to head over to MyDish.co.uk, a friendly site for food ideas and recipes (you could even win some Arena Flowers there).
9. Bonus 9th tip – Send a hint: If you’re expecting flowers or gifts from someone and don’t want them to send you the usual rubbish, then send them a hint.  There’s a “Send a Hint” button on every product page which allows you to send a snazzy email with a picture of the flowers you want plus your message. You can choose to send the hint anonymously or add your name.  If do send anonymously, be prepared for a nasty surprise – your partner might send the flowers to their other girlfriend/boyfriend!

Hope some of that was helpful and or interesting.  Now it’s up to us to get down to work and get ready for the big day.  It’s going to be unbeliveably busy – here are some pics of Flowers HQ at Valentine’s 2008.  We’ll add some more pics once the big day has been and gone!  Hope Valentine’s goes well for you!

 

Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, Mega Days, Valentine's Day on February 4th, 2009 | 5 Comments »

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Posted by: Stan - The Dandy FlowerWoman... on January 29th, 2009

The Arena Weddings arm of Arena Flowers has been around for just over a year now, and what a better way to celebrate our first twelve months than to take some examples of our beautiful fresh wedding flowers on the road.

The enquiry from Marika, organiser of the Think Pink Wedding Show came late in the day last week to see whether Arena Flowers may be interested in exhibiting last minute. Apparently, a couple of other London florists had let her down at the eleventh hour, and the show was left conspicuously missing wedding flowers from the burgeoning list of exhibitors for the show in Raynes Park, south west London.

Our florists were more than happy to rise to the challenge, and Judith got her thinking cap on while I started knocking together some promotional literature. With the flowers arriving freshly picked from Holland very early Saturday morning; our wedding florists Judith, Andrzej and Paulina got to work at the crack of dawn to create not one but four beautiful wedding bouquets for the show, as well as three coordinating buttonholes, two table arrangements and a gorgeous cascading tall vase display.

Once completed, the next challenge was to very carefully pack the wedding flowers so they weren’t damaged in delivery. With two drivers and an anxious florist overseeing the operation, it was a real eye-opener to see that as much care and strategic planning go into the delivery as do with the actual creation of wedding flowers!

Leaving just after 9am, it was straight to Raynes Park in the van with our rather lovely driver Jacek who put up with me in the passenger seat as I tried to prepare best I could for the unknown! On the way through Barnes I spotted a heron stalking the Barn Elms football pitches, just a few feet from the busy thoroughfare – wasn’t expecting that…but it kind of reminded me of my mission – a lone stalker, drawing in those brides to my lair of sumptuous wedding flowers!

Met with a huge bottleneck queue of cars and vans outside the venue, we made the decision to quit the extraordinary wait and frantically carry our booty the final 100 yards, heave them up the vast stairs (no lift!!!) and set up our pitch for the day with just an hour to spare before the doors opened to the public.

As soon as the show started, the event was packed with excited brides-to-be, mums, fiancées, bridesmaids and other womenfolk eagerly sourcing wedding garb and accoutrements from start to finish. Located right next to the entertainment, we found ourselves in a prime spot and, although a little deafened by the steel band (!!), the Arena Weddings stand was kept populated by interested parties and potential clients throughout the day. There was also the odd glass of plonk to entice visitors to my side of the ‘pond’…later polished off by me and a few other dry-of-mouth wedding suppliers located nearby.

The event seemed to go quickly and I was particularly pleased with the interest our wedding flowers arrangements generated, especially as this was pretty much new territory for us and a few miles out from the comfort zone of Flowers HQ! With online enquiries already coming in off the back of our first event, I am confident that we may be returning to the London Wedding Show circuit again soon – but perhaps with a bit more advance notice next time!

Interestingly, there were two common questions asked by visitors to the show: ‘Are they real flowers?’ and ‘How can I keep my wedding flowers budget down?’. To answer the first question, yes – all our flowers are real (maybe some of our flowers look just too perfect!), fresh and – wherever possible – ethically sourced. As regards budgeting for your wedding flowers, that’s for my next blog post – coming soon!

The wedding flowers on display at the Think Pink Wedding show last Saturday were: Amnesia roses, Cool water roses, Schwarzwalder calla lilies bridal bouquet (from £65), guest table arrangement (from £50) and buttonhole (from £7.50); Cool water roses, Limbo roses, Sea holly / thistles bridal bouquet (from £65); Sweet Avalanche and Sea holly bridal bouquet (from £65) and buttonhole (£7.50); Orchid cascade bridal bouquet (from £120), vase arrangement (from £26) and buttonhole (£7.50); and large mixed vase display including while lilies, pink mini gerberas, sea holly, sweet avalanche roses, limbo roses, carnations, and completed with soft ruscus and bear grass (from £80 plus vase hire).

Click here for a quick movie of the Arena Flowers stand at the Think Pink Wedding Show

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to check out our recent blog post on Winter Wedding Flowers, or learn more about our team of dedicated Wedding Florists or perhaps see how Arena Weddings began, with Jackie’s original blog post!

 

Filed under: Customers, Distribution, Floristry, Flowers, General, Good Causes & Charities, Marketing, Operations, Weddings on January 29th, 2009 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »

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Posted by: Guest Editor - Pascale Perry on January 27th, 2009

Following up from her previous well-received guest post, we asked Pascale, friend of Arena and online marketing guru, if there was another topic she fancied sharing her thoughts on.  Sure enough, there was.  So here’s a very interesting discussion of how the web and TV and other media are getting increasingly intertwined and changing the way clever marketers get us to buy from them.  It’s certainly given us some food for thought for various partnerships we’re currently negotiating.

Search doesn’t occur in a vacuum

It’s a very familiar concept for marketers that no marketing channel (offline or online) works independently from another.  Exposure to advertising in print, television and radio commonly results in online traffic and of course, online search.  Offline push, online pull.  A survey by iProspect, 2007 showed that 67% of respondents searched online as a direct result of exposure to an offline marketing channel.

Whilst the concept is familiar, the potential benefit of the search demand created by offline advertising isn’t always harnessed effectively online by marketing departments or agencies and it is worth considering search behaviour when engaging in any offline marketing.

Using search prompts in offline campaigns

Increasingly, companies and organisations recognise this relationship and attempt to guide the consumer by encouraging them to “search online for [brand/company/campaign]” within the advertising campaign, rather than listing a long and often forgettable URL or telephone number.  Government campaigns have been doing this for some time – for example, Direct.gov’s Act on Co2 campaign in 2007, in which consumers were prompted to “search online for ‘act on co2’” in all the offline media.

The public duly responded, and there was a large increase in searches for the term “act on co2” (below is a screen shot from ‘Google Insights for Search” showing search interest for ‘act for co2’ between October 2006 to Jan 2009).

Read More About Online & Offline Marketing's Evolution

 

Filed under: General, Marketing, Matters Webby on January 27th, 2009 | 9 Comments »

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Posted by: Stan - The Dandy FlowerWoman... on January 24th, 2009

Just three good reasons to mosey on down to the David Lloyd Health & Fitness Club in Raynes Park, South West London today (Saturday 24 January) where yours truly will be exhibiting the floral fineries of our rapidly growing wedding flowers arm Arena Weddings at the Wear It Pink Wedding Show.

On display will be some of Judith (one of our award-winning florists)’s beautiful floral work especially created for this very special wedding fair in aid of Breakthrough Breast Cancer. The arrangements have also been designed with seasonal, ethically sourced flowers and take into consideration today’s tough economic climate, which has had an impact on wedding budgets up and down the country this year.

We at Arena Flowers want to make sure every bride feels like a princess without breaking the bank on their wedding flowers, making us the first choice for wedding planners throughout London and the South East. So it’s no wonder we’re fast becoming one of Cosmo Bride’s favourite stockists!

And talking of princesses and the glossies, come along to the event and you will also get the chance to view a stunning private collection of vintage wedding dresses dating from Victorian times, including a sample from Princess Diana’s iconic wedding gown.

Come join the fun from 11am-4pm. Entry fee is just £1 – which goes direct to Breakthrough Breast Cancer – and kids go free, so no excuses if you’re in town!

Wear It Pink Wedding Show
David Lloyd Health & Fitness Club
Bushey Road,
Raynes Park
London SW20 8TE
Click for directions

Full report with piccies to be posted next week – but if you need an immediate wedding flower fix, check out this post, this post or even this post about sourcing flowers for gothic wedding bouquets. Bride-tastic!

 

Filed under: Customers, Floristry, Flowers, General, Good Causes & Charities, Marketing, Weddings on January 24th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

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