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 [...]
Filed under: Distribution, General on October 29th, 2009 | No Comments »
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 [...]
Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, Operations, Setting up on July 28th, 2009 | No Comments »
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% [...]
Filed under: Customers, Floristry, Flowers, General, Matters Webby, Operations, Weddings on May 26th, 2009 | No Comments »
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 [...]
Filed under: Distribution, Floristry, Flowers, Mega Days, Operations, Valentine's Day on February 19th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
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.
What does she actually want? A survey by a US florist found [...]
Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, Mega Days, Valentine's Day on February 4th, 2009 | 5 Comments »
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 [...]
Filed under: Customers, Distribution, Floristry, Flowers, General, Good Causes & Charities, Marketing, Operations, Weddings on January 29th, 2009 | No Comments »
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 [...]
Filed under: Customers, Floristry, Flowers, General, Good Causes & Charities, Marketing, Weddings on January 24th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Fancy a Twitter with Britney?
- The Sun, 10th January 2009
How boring: Celebrities sign up to Twitter to reveal the most mundane aspect of their lives
- Daily Mail, 3rd January 2009
Twitter set for its mainstream telly moment on Jonathan Ross’s comeback show
- Guardian, 7th January 2009
What started as a trickle at the end of last year [...]
Filed under: Customers, Distribution, Floristry, Marketing, Matters Webby, Setting up on January 15th, 2009 | No Comments »
Steve and I were in The Netherlands end of last week, visiting Ronald and catching up on the progress of Arena Bloemen and Arena Blumen, as well making more preparations for Valentine’s Day. It was a mite chilly here in good old Blighty, but we soon learned that our European cousins hadn’t got off any [...]
Filed under: Distribution, General, International Flowers, Operations on January 13th, 2009 | No Comments »
Getting hitched in the chilly months of winter doesn’t mean that you need to compromise on your winter wedding flowers. Although relatively rare compared to summer weddings, winter ceremonies can indeed benefit from all the sparkle and glamour of the party season, with family and friends close to hand for the festive period. Wedding planners [...]
Filed under: Christmas Flowers, Customers, Ethics & Environment, Floristry, Flowers, Setting up, Weddings on January 9th, 2009 | 11 Comments »
Happy New Year to everyone!
We’ve been a bit quiet on the blog of late, what with having to get all our Christmas flower deliveries sorted and having to do some very very last minute Christmas shopping of our own too. We’re back in the saddle now, looking forward to 2009 and will be posting [...]
Filed under: Customers, Ethics & Environment, Finance & Investment, General, Good Causes & Charities, International Flowers, Mega Days, Operations, Valentine's Day on January 5th, 2009 | No Comments »
It’s my birthday today. Hooray! Birthday flowers, birthday balloons, birthday greetings cards all round! Oh, and I’ll have some “healthy” chocolate too – I am getting old after all. Right – that’s the search engine optimisation bit out of the way. I’m 33 today. Ouch! 11 years til my next symmetrical birthday. Best enjoy this [...]
Filed under: Christmas Flowers, Distribution, General on December 2nd, 2008 | 9 Comments »
We always have such fun organising wedding flowers – what could give anyone more pleasure than organising beautiful flowers to make a bride’s day even more perfect? Well that is what I thought until it came to organising flowers for my own daughter’s wedding in July!
To be fair to her, she wasn’t really being difficult [...]
Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, Weddings on November 6th, 2008 | 4 Comments »
You might have noticed that I have been quite conspicuous by my absence from the Arena Flowers Blog for the last month or so. No, I’m not planning a wedding myself (!!) but have been beavering away with our all-new Arena Weddings microsite which, in itself, has become quite a labour of love!
If you’re lucky [...]
Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, Operations, Weddings on October 28th, 2008 | No Comments »
Something we learnt quite quickly after setting up Arena is that, if you run a business then it seems you’re fair game and people will make up outrageous claims to try and get money out of you. It may be down to the idea that “Well, they’re a company so they won’t bother wasting time [...]
Filed under: Distribution, Ethics & Environment, Fraud, General, Operations on October 24th, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Some businesses like to wind-down or even close-down over the summer, but not us workaholics at Arena Flowers! Recently, Will, Steve and Elsa headed to what has now become our second home at Noordwijkerhout, on the west coast of the Netherlands for an extended stay to oversee some of the operational stuff going on [...]
Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, International Flowers, Operations, Weddings on August 28th, 2008 | No Comments »
We love our customers – we really do – and absolutely nothing gives us more pleasure than to make someone’s day by delivering our flowers. But sometimes customers can make life very interesting for us here at Flowers HQ, and they sometimes think we have almost magical powers of divination!
Here, in a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek [...]
Filed under: Christmas Flowers, Customers, Distribution, General, Mega Days, Mother's Day, Operations, Valentine's Day on August 13th, 2008 | 6 Comments »
Quick intro from Will: We often get asked “So why is Arena Flowers so much better than John Lewis, Marks & Spencers or Interflora then? After all, you only sell a set of standard bouquets, just like them.” Well, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Unlike the bigger players, we do numerous bespoke and [...]
Filed under: Christmas Flowers, Customers, Distribution, Floristry, Flowers, General, Mega Days, Mother's Day, Operations, Valentine's Day, Weddings on August 6th, 2008 | No Comments »
We were surprised and delighted a couple of weeks ago to learn via email that we’d been nominated for the IMRG’s Online Green Awards (affectionately known as the OLGAs), in the small retailers category. So surprised in fact that my first response to the email was to ask Sam if he thought this might be [...]
Filed under: Customers, Ethics & Environment, Floristry, Flowers, General, Mega Days on July 28th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Regular ‘Flowers …uncut’ readers will be aware of the good causes that ArenaFlowers.com occasionally works with by providing assistance and beautiful blooms and flower arrangements.
So when Help for Heroes, a new charity which aims to help wounded Servicemen and Women, contacted us, we were more than happy to oblige (and we’ve had a fun idea [...]
Filed under: Customers, Ethics & Environment, Floristry, Flowers, General, Good Causes & Charities, Operations on July 25th, 2008 | No Comments »
Sarah Holland is part of the crack team at the Flowers & Plants Association plus she also pops by every now and again to fill us in on the latest flower fashion trends, arrangement tips and to answer any questions you may have about flowers or plants. Our ‘Bouquets of Emotion‘ helped the FPA to [...]
Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, Guest Posts, Marketing, Operations on July 21st, 2008 | No Comments »
It’s two years since our little flower company was born. To celebrate our birthday, Judith made an amazing birthday cake made out of flowers. If you’re signed up to receive our free newsletters, you’ll have seen it already, but if not, see below. If you get our newsletters, you’ll also have the secret [...]
Filed under: Floristry, Flowers, General, Mega Days on July 17th, 2008 | No Comments »
You always know when summer’s truly here:
Monsoon rains across the UK (not again!)
Tornadoes in the north (eh?)
The RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show opens (yay!)
It may be soggy on the grounds of Hampton Court Palace but inside the International Language of Flowers marquee, something bright and warm is emerging from the Flowers & Plants Association [...]
Filed under: Customers, Floristry, Flowers, General, Marketing on July 7th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Despite being a rampant Chelsea supporter, black is my colour, rather than blue. Look in my wardrobe and you’ll soon get lost. Not because it’s as big as the Flowers HQ fridge but because, apart from the odd red or white Adam Ant t-shirt (!), I just don’t do patterns or colours. [...]
Filed under: Customers, Floristry, Flowers, General, Operations, Valentine's Day, Weddings on July 4th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The last 12 months have been pretty, erm, interesting for young businesses such as our own (although not as bad as the ancient Chinese curse might suggest). We now get asked almost daily “how are sales holding up?”, “are you doing better because you’re online (or worse?)?”, “are visitors converting to customers?” and so on. The [...]
Filed under: Finance & Investment, Floristry, General, Matters Webby, Mega Days, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day on July 1st, 2008 | 2 Comments »
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