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.

Bart with 35 Red, Orange & Yellow Roses

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:

Judith Luxury White Bouquet

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.

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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.

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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!

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• 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 has become a deluge in the New Year, with headlines in the most popular newspapers in the UK showing incontrovertibly that Twitter has moved into the UK mainstream this year and established itself as the papers’ latest web darling.  Their interest is doubtless due, at least in part, to celebrity “tweeters” – celebs sell newspapers, so the papers are going where the celebs are and trying to grab some “Twitter scoops”.

Recently Jemima Kiss, a prominent blogger and journalist, revealed Jonathan Ross’s intention to discuss the service with keen Twitterer and web aficionado Stephen Fry on his first show back from suspension.   Yesterday, the Times Online made a story out of another of Ross’s “tweets”, publishing an article about his “announcement” that he would be hosting this year’s Bafta Awards.  There’s no end of celeb twittering going on, so if you’ve always wanted to know what John Cleese had for breakfast or are desperate to learn how Lance Armstrong’s comeback is going then here’s your chance.

There have been a few “bah humbug” articles too (hey, this is the British media after all) – work place concerns focus on how Twitter may hinder productivity, whilst some media sources simply complain about the lack of juicy gossip from celebrity tweeters.

We twitter too.  So we figured we’d share some of our thoughts on Twitter and Web 2.0.  In 2007 we launched our blog with a post explaining why we would be blogging.  Basically, as a new business in the impersonal online world we felt the blog would help give us a more human a voice, would enable us to communicate more personally with our customers, and would allow us to share interesting or fun insights or snippets on flowers and the online world more generally.

Since we started blogging, the “Web 2.0” movement and the social web have expanded significantly, offering additional channels and tempos of communication to complement the “older” channels.  The most obvious change is that the flow of communication is no longer as one directional or contrived as it once was. New media, to differing extents, encourage a balanced and more frequent communication between businesses and customers / visitors.

The most important difference though, in our opinion, is that new media channels enable real time, easy going contact between parties in a way that has never been possible before.  Historically, interactions between a business and a customer have been about hard nosed selling by the business and the making of informed purchasing decisions by the customer.  Social media communications are, in most cases, far more laid back.  If old media channels are like a full on business meeting in the office, then Web 2.0 channels are more like the “getting to know you” drink in the pub afterwards.  Consequently, the conversations are sometimes utterly inane and pointless but it doesn’t really matter as there’s not so much pressure on the communication to deliver immediately or at all (at least not as far as we’re concerned).

Many prominent brands have embraced Web 2.0 channels, with varying degrees of success.  Some examples of doing it right:

• Last year the web world was abuzz with the news that Top Shop, one of the UK’s leading high street fashion retailers, was getting 5% of its online visitors from MySpace. (“But is it good traffic?”, mutters my inner marketeer);
• One famously early adopter of Twitter was the popular US-based shoe retailer Zappos. Of their 1600 odd employees, 453 of them are actively on Twitter listening, engaging and responding to customer concerns;
• US-based low cost carrier JetBlue is on Twitter and has earned kudos from customers as their Twitter responses are often faster than those their customer service team;
• More recently, Dell reported $1 million worth of sales from Twitter alone. Although this number is miniscule in comparison to Dell’s overall revenue, it does offer plenty of brand exposure (eg us writing about them here).

The intangible value social media can add to a business is thought to be high. Guy Kawasaki, an early exponent of evangelism marketing who, in his capacity as chief evangelist for Apple, was responsible for creating a number of passionate user-advocates for the Apple brand, describes Twitter as one of the best new marketing tools of the century.  Of course, PR departments of big companies always produce a lot of hot air about such trendy initiatives, trying to push how cutting edge and down with the kids their brand is, so any such figures or self-congratulatory back-slapping press releases should always be taken with a pinch of salt.

Speaking for Arena, we have seen real benefits from our blog, our Facebook application (Flowers & Fun) and from our Twitter feed, and all at low cost.  However, anyone who tells you these channels will change your business overnight is talking rubbish (and may be trying to sell you something you don’t need – caveat emptor!).  There may also be a danger that with more and more people engaging with such channels, that the value will drowned out by the additional noise.

Nonetheless, we think it’s clear that Web 2.0 and new media channels can undoubtedly add value in many ways to any sized business.  As well as being informative, engaging with social media can also be just plain fun, and even eye opening on occasion.  A lot of the things we’ve found out or leads that we’ve picked were totally unexpected or from left field, and that’s one of the most rewarding aspects of Twitter; such serendipity can’t, by definition, be planned or manufactured.  On which note, here’s a final example of the unpredictable path that twittering can take: Let’s all ‘sue Telegraph’, say Twitterers.

UPDATE: For those that live on the other side of the world, the point about Twitter having arrived was made a million times better than this post by the first pic of the Hudson River plane landing appearing first on Twitterpic.

Some Useful Twitter Resources:

• 10 ways to use Twitter to Promote you Business
• 17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business Owners
• Guardian list of Celebrities on Twitter (constantly updated)
• How companies use Twitter to bolster their brands
• How to use Twitter to grow your business
• List of Businesses on Twitter
• List of UK Businesses on Twitter
• Why Twitter should matter to you: Twustomer service edition

If you liked this post, you may enjoy reading our other posts on Social Media: Flowers in the Social Networking Arena & Send Free Flowers on Facebook.

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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 more lightly.  It was absolutely freezing; so cold in fact (-20C in places) that we suspended deliveries to East Germany last week as flowers were (sometimes) arriving frozen – not ideal.

Driving through the glacial Dutch countryside we saw some beautiful sights;  the sky laden with thick claustrophobic clouds; the land and trees covered in a crisp icey sheen; and the famous canals frozen over, as hard as tarmac.  Ever resourceful, the Dutch have turned the cold weather to their advantage, with what seems like every bit of frozen water having been repurposed as an impromptu ice rink.  I figured I’d share some pictures here.  Click images to enlarge.

Ducks on ice + archetypal windmill

Steve: “I caught a fish this big…”

Might be worth avoiding the unfrozen section of the “frozen” lake, kids…

Surprised the car’s engine worked under that much ice…

Ice hockey, anyone?

Start em young…

Hope you enjoyed the pics.  I’m rubbish with my phone’s camera so sorry if these aren’t very” pro” shots!

Enjoyed this post? Read Een Voorspoedig, Gezond en Gelukkig Nieuwjaar gewenst! team’s take on weather.  Our German customer service team had a torrid time dealing with complaints for delivering frozen flowers.  Read Alle Jahre wieder – Neujahrsvorsätze for more on frozen flowers.

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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 one while I can.  Apparently I share the date with Britney Spears.  Hmmm.  Hardly Albert Einstein or William Shakespeare, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.

The thing I like about my birthday is that it signals (to me only, obviously) that Christmas is officially on its way.  Before the 2nd December, I see the decorations go up, I hear the people moaning about the adverts on telly but it all just slides over me and doesn’t go in.  It might as well be another language.  That is until the 2nd of Dec when my birthday comes round and I start to get into the swing of it.  Maybe it’s the card that I get from my grand mother every year that kick starts the good will – 85 years old and every year a card with a £20 note appears on my doorstep like clockwork.  Doesn’t matter how old you are, you’ll always enjoy receiving a card with a £20 note in it. :)

Anyway, my unerring march towards old age gives me the opportunity to point out that our Christmas flowers range is live and kicking and bigger and better than ever.  Among last year’s most popular were the alternative Christmas Tulips, the traditional Christmas Basket and the Winter Reds Christmas cube.  Of course if you want to impress and / or upstage your siblings by sending the biggest and best, then you can’t do much better than go for the Christmas Celebration. It’s the Daddy. Or Father Christmas. Sorry. That was terrible.

So what’s with the bicycle picture?  Well, that’s back to my birthday.  Having woken up way too early I decided that rather than go back to sleep and pretend I’m still 21 I’d brave the sub zero London weather and frosty roads in a vain attempt to prove to myself that I’m not over the hill.  So I decided on a 13 mile round trip to Tower Bridge on my bike, along the Embankment.  During peak flower delivery periods it’s all hands to the pumps at Arena, and we all get out on the road delivering, typically on frosty London days like today’s.  So my early morning ride was a nice reminder of fun days past.  Hopefully when I next get the chance to take more pics like this during the Christmas rush, I’ll be in a nice warm van and not on my bicycle.

Merry Christmas shopping!

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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 refuting anything and they’ll just let their insurance pay up.”  Or there’s the very real fact that insurance companies tend to want to “settle” in favour of the member of the public, all other things being equal.  At Arena, we totally disagree with the “just pay out” attitude and will do what we can to make sure that spurious personal injury claims don’t get paid out as, at the end of the day, it’s a form of theft and it drives up costs for everyone, which eventually means customers.  And no one wants that!

The reason I chose to write this post up is because a good example came up where a bit of driver training saved us £10k on a claim that was about to be paid out by the insurance company.  A while back one of our drivers, “Little Mariusz”, had a small knock on the left wing of his van from a car that pulled into his lane.  There was no damage to our van and only very minor damage to the other car (see below).  The police came and said there was nothing to report and, as our van wasn’t damaged, we had no issue.  The lady driving the other car was fine and walking about for the 20 mins it took to resolve.  So far so good.

We then received a letter from our insurance agent a few weeks later saying that there was a new claim for £10k and could we please respond to it.  When we realised that it was this same incident we were scratching our heads.  What was the personal injury?  Apparently whiplash.  Impressive, given it was a sideways knock at about about 5mph.  We said that this was clearly absurd, it was not our fault and pointed out that this had been agreed, orally, at the time.  Ah, but the other driver has a witness statement, was the response.  Furthermore, on the basis of this witness statement, your insurance company wants to settle in the other driver’s favour (despite the facts at the time saying something totally different). Erm, can we at least see the witness statement first please, was our reply.

When the witness statement came through, it was from an individual who was not present at the scene (he certainly didn’t speak or make himself known to the police or Mariusz during the 20 mins Mariusz was there).  And then when we read the statement, a brilliant moment – the diagram and description above form the main part of the witness statement.  The statement suggests that the witness was standing right next to our van, which he said was in the left hand lane, and that our van pulled out and hit the car, which he said was in the right hand lane.  However, the photos taken at the scene clearly show that our van was actually on the right hand side of the car, not the left hand side, because the damage is on the right hand side of the car, not the left hand side.  So effectively, the “witness”, who claimed to be standing right next to the incident, actually managed to get his story completely the wrong way round.  One would think that if you’re going to invent a witness statement to try and get a personal injury payout, you could at least get the facts in the hokey statement correct!  Mixing up left and right is pretty basic stuff.

Clearly, in most circumstances, you won’t be so lucky to have a fake claim against you be so clearly falsified.  What to do in these circumstances?  Well, given, as mentioned above, that insurance companies will typically just “settle” unless you can prove that a claim is fake, it pays to follow a few basic steps to in the event of an accident.  Here are the simple things that we ask our drivers to do in the event of any collision (on the basis of advice from our insurers and our own additions) – every driver has a sheet with these instructions in their van at all times:

• Obtain contact, vehicle and insurance details of other driver(s).
• Obtain contact details of any witnesses.  It is important to get witnesses as otherwise fake witnesses can appear at a later date.
• Take lots of photos, of vehicles, witnesses, registrations etc. Lots! Photos don’t cost money and the one you thought might suffice might be blurry.  Take lots!
• Take the name and badge number of any police officer that attends the scene.  Even the suggestion of police involvement can cause chancers to melt away, as we’ve seen before.
• Do not admit responsibility (even if it’s your fault), especially not in writing, as you could then be liable for any subsequent damage to the vehicle in totally unrelated incidents.  Admitting responsibility can be a bit like writing a blank cheque. Just stick to the facts without expressing an opinion. Insurers will determine liability and this can vary depending on circumstances.
• Do not proceed with non-urgent repairs until permission has been granted by insurers.  An inspection of damage may be needed.

Another key is not to be British and say “no harm done, off we go” and neglect to take the above simple steps as your politeness could cost you a lot afterwards.  The above is hardly rocket science but it can save a huge amount of money, for both businesses and individuals.  A small ding on someone else’s car (their fault) could have cost us £10k and very nearly did.  This is not small beer and would undoubtedly have pushed up the insurance premium for every one of our 9 vans when our policy was up for renewal. It would have cost us thousands.  Hopefully, in the unfortunate event that you’re involved in an incident, following the same steps could save you money (and hassle) too.

PS as ever, the disclaimer is that we’re not a legal firm so don’t take the above as watertight legal advice.  They’re just our internal guidelines which we thought might be of interest. :)

Similar Posts: If you liked this post you may find our other post How to Beat Illegal Car Clamping Scammers – And Save £300 and our other posts on fraud and ne’er do wells interesting.

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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 way, are some of our favourite customer interactions over the last two years…

To speed up your order, always have your recipient’s full address to hand:

♥ Arena CS: “I’m afraid the order to Mrs X will be delayed, as you indicated that the delivery address, in Columbia, South America, is within Greater London, UK.”

♥ Customer: “I don’t have the full address of where he lives, can I send you an aerial image of the house, taken from space?”

♥ Customer: “I know he lives in Bromley but I’m not too sure where; your driver can ask a local shopkeeper, he’s very popular in the area.”

International enquiries are sometimes a challenge:

♥ Customer: “I’m trying to find out the price of the flowers, but I can’t see it. They all have a funny looking L by the side of them.”
Arena CS: “That is a pound sign, madam.”

♥ Arena CS: “And what is the delivery instruction, madam?”
Belgian Customer: “No!!!!!!!!!!”

When it comes to the goodies to send, we can be quite flexible with the delivery of our service, one of our favourite orders has included:

24 pink lilies
24 balloons
Prestat Banoffee truffles
Bailey’s Irish cream
A Mohican chicken
Plus a request from the sender that Arena’s driver sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the lucky recipient on delivering the flowers!
Pure genius.

Although we’ll cross hot coals to get your order delivered within the time frame published, sometimes – especially on our ‘Mega Days’ – you can’t always expect the moon on a stick:

♥ Customer for Valentine’s Day: “My girlfriend is going to be in lectures from 11am-12pm. Can your driver deliver them at 11.59 and give them to her in her class?”
Arena CS: “On the busiest day of the year!! I’m afraid not, sir!”

When our beautiful fresh flowers are delivered to the safety of the recipient, the fun doesn’t always end there…

♥ Customer: “I have received no message card with my order”.
Arena CS: “I’m so sorry about that, there should be a card in with the flowers.”
Customer: “No. All there is is an orange card with your logo on it.”
Arena CS: “If you open it, you’ll find that the card message is inside the card…”

♥ Alarmed Elderly Lady: “I’ve received a large box with a clear lid, sent by a florist. I didn’t order anything! Can I ask what’s inside the box, my dear?”
Arena CS: “They are flowers, madam.”
Elderly lady: “Really? What a lovely surprise!”

And it’s a hard life being a Customer Service Team professional – what with all the amorous advances, Vanessa spills the beans:

I received a call from a customer who wished to send flowers to a girl he had just met in a restaurant. Whilst he was giving me the address and message, which stated how much he wanted to get to know her, he was flirting shamelessly with me. At the end of the phone call, he said that he enjoyed speaking to me so much that he was going to send me some flowers too. I thought nothing of it as I’ve heard this before and it had never happened. But lo and behold, a couple hours later, a bewildered looking lady walked in carrying some pink roses and asked for me. I was so happy having received some flowers that I didn’t initially care that they were delivered by another company (Interflora no less).

He called the next day to ask if I liked them and why hadn’t I called to arrange ‘something’. I answered, that I liked them very much but could not be possibly entertain the idea ‘getting to know him’ whilst he was sending other women flowers. He then said that if it didn’t work out with her he’d give me a call. So I’ll just be waiting by the phone then shall I..?!

Similarly, a customer called up wishing to have an arrangement of flowers made up in the shape of boat and then said that he found talking to Josephine such a pleasure that he proposed! (Prank call??…We think so!)

For more on our adventures at Flowers HQ, check out the following blog posts: The Mother of All Orders, Everlasting Orchids, and Our Lips Are Sealed.

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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 tailored designs every week; it’s just that there has been nowhere for us to show them off on our website. Until now.  Recently Stan has made it her mission to correct this misconception and has been very busy building our new bespoke flowers gallery to showcase the full breadth and depth of our florists’ brilliance.  Enough from me (I’ll write a post about the other reasons Arena’s better for customers than Interflora another time!). Over to Stan and the joys of bespoke flowers!

Whether it is a birthday celebration, wedding to be planned or Christmas party to organise, you want it to be perfect, with perfect beautiful flowers to match. Perfection comes from the heart, a passion for getting things right and just how you want it to be. No compromise.

Our flower arrangements are far from set in stone, and we know that one size (or colour or flower stem!) doesn’t always fit all. We’ve been fulfilling the individual wishes (and whims) of our varied customers since the inception of Arena Flowers back in July 2006, and this has included the sourcing of unusual and exotic flowers, flowers out of season and flowers in massive numbers, with arrangements designed in all colours and all sizes.

‘Bespoke’ is not just a description of what we can do for customers and their flowers. It also describes how we approach our service, by treating each customer as an individual. From the moment we receive a bespoke enquiry, our team takes the time to listen and understand your unique requirements and take great care and attention to detail, to interpret your dream into reality.

There is no greater satisfaction for our exceptional team of award-winning florists than in the challenge of creating a flower arrangement just for you – to your specifications.

So Why Choose a Bespoke Flower Arrangement?

Bespoke Wedding Flowers
• Your dream wedding bouquet unique to you: No other bride anywhere will have the same flower arrangement as you!
• A choice of embellishments – intricate beadings, grass looping and leaf embroidery to add extra originality
Visit our Wedding Flowers section for inspiration >>

Bespoke Bouquets
• Congratulating a special occasion? Say it with flowers with specific meanings and symbolism.
• Whether it’s a specific number of flowers or a combination of colours, it’s your choice!
Visit our Bespoke Bouquets page for inspiration >>

Bespoke Floral Displays
• Looking for that extra special centrepiece for an event or venue? Amaze your guests with a fragrant work of art – designed by you or our florists.
• Have fun with a variety of floor standing, table top or pedestal arrangements, created for specific decorative functions.
Visit our Bespoke Floral Displays page for inspiration >>

Bespoke Table Arrangements
• Where there’s good food there should be great flowers! Complete your dining tableware with a contemporary table arrangement.
• A versatile range of vases and containers to suit your business or home decor.
Visit our Table Arrangements page for inspiration >>

Bespoke Corporate Flowers
• Match your branding with coloured coordinated flowers, arranged to suit your company’s style.
• For work or pleasure, Arena Flowers offers a personal professional service for professional people.
Visit our Bespoke Corporate Flowers page for inspiration >>

Bespoke Funeral Arrangements
• Specify floral tributes that have significant meanings and evoke emotion unique to the sender’s sentiments.
• Our customer care team who will guide you through the process of ordering your funeral flowers with respect and integrity to your wishes.
Visit our Funeral Arrangements page for inspiration >>

If you have a bespoke enquiry, please do not hesitate to contact our friendly and helpful customer service team with your requirements. Email customer@arenaflowers.com or call us free on 0800 0350 581 (+44 20 8993 5400 for international customers).

Similar posts: If you enjoyed this post, you may find this one about the supermarkets pumping out uninspiring flowers and arrangements interesting.

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Marry when June roses grow and over land and sea you’ll go…

Although late summer is fast becoming a popular time of the year for matrimonial activity, June is the traditonal month for weddings and anniversaries. This is because June is traditionally considered to be the luckiest month to marry in as it is named after Juno, the Roman goddess of love and marriage.

Additionally, the summer as a whole was considered a good time to marry, partly to do with the sun’s association with fertility.

The flowers at your wedding will reflect your personality and character, so choose the flowers for the table, button holes and bridal bouquets that symbolise your feelings about your relationship. Take a look at our Flower Meanings page for inspiration for your wedding.

Our own Mariusz (aka ‘Super Mario’), Head of Distribution here at Flowers HQ, celebrated ten years of marriage to his georgeous missus Madzia (pictured far right with Mariusz) at the weekend, and marked the special occasion with a stunning bouquet of 100 grand prix roses with an intricate ’10′ detail entwined with white roses.

Prepared by one of our team of ultra talented florists, the lovely Judith (pictured right with her work), this amazing bouquet had to be kept underwraps as Madzia herself popped into the office visit her other half on Friday – causing much panic and raised heart pressure!

The flower arrangement was finally handed over to its more than grateful – and pleasantly surprised! – recipient at the weekend, and is still looking as fresh as it heads into its second week.

As expectations of Arena Flowers increase and the talents of our team are stretched, confidence is growing in specialist and bespoke designs for special occasions. Whether you are planning a wedding or anniversary celebration, contact our team at customer@arenaflowers.com who will be more than happy to assist and offer friendly advice.

If you are looking for a quick yet effective fix for an upcoming anniversary, we supply a comprehensive range of appropriate gift ideas direct from ArenaFlowers.com for sameday delivery within the M25 and next day for the rest of mainland UK…

1st Anniversary | Carnation
Dianthus, the carnation’s botanical name, means “divine flower”. Available all year round, carnations can last up to three weeks but should be kept away from ripening fruit and vegetables because of ethylene gas.
The UK’s best-selling cut flower, red carnations denote “alas for my poor heart”, striped for refusal, yellow for disdain, pink for woman’s love.

2nd Anniversary | Lily of the Valley
Currently out of season at time of writing, lily of the valley differs from generic lilies by the little white bells arranged up a short delicate stem.
Signifying “return to happiness”, lily of the valley is much used in bridal arrangements for their sweet perfume. Traditionally associated with May 1st, especially in France where the “muguet” is handed out at special events.
As an alternative summer gift, we suggest our Precious in Pink arrangement of pink lilies, a bottle of Contarini brut prosecco and delicious Prestat organic Earl Grey milk chocolate wafers.

3rd Anniversary | Sunflower
A traditionally summer flower, the botanical name for sunflower is Helianthus, the Greek word “helios” meaning sun and “anthos” meaning flower.
Sunflowers are commonly associated with pride and adoration, and thought to signify boldness and exuberance, with an additional association with the summer star sign of Leo.

4th Anniversary | Hydrangea
Originating from Japan in the 18th century, Hydrangea means “water barrel” and refers to the shape of the fruit after it has sprung open. Their small, star-shaped flowers are packed closely together to form a rounded or pyramidal head. A popular addition to wedding bouquets, hydrangeas are available right through from spring until autumn and make beautiful dried flowers. Please email us direct at customer@arenaflowers.com for availability.

5th Anniversary | Daisy
Daisies come in all shapes and forms, including gerberas and asters. Available all year round, gerberas were little known just a few decades ago but now there are over 200 varieties, with many variants. Our favourite gerbera flower arrangement is our ethically sourced Pink & White Gerbera Bouquet – packed with smily happy fairly-grown flower stems!

6th Anniversary | Calla
Also known as the arum lily, calla lilies are another popular favourite with wedding planners. Often depicted in many paintings, the calla lily is visible in many of Diego Rivera’s works of art (see The Flower Vendor, amongst others) and signifies “magnificent beauty”. Our magnificent Luxury Romance hand-tied bouquet contains pink calla lilies as well as asiatic lilies to make a memorable sixth wedding anniversary gift.

7th Anniversary | Freesia
Symbolising innocence and thoughtfulness, freesias have established themselves as one of the UK’s favourite cut flower – despite being relatively unknown until the 1950s. Their appeal doesn’t merely lie in their delicate blossoms and wide spectrum of hues alone – the flowers have a strangely attractive asymmetry, growing off just one side of a thin, elegant stem.

8th Anniversary | Lilac
First cultivated in the middle of the last century in Europe, the cut flower of the lilac is considered to be far more glamorous than its shrub counterpart, with long branches laden with flowers. The flowers are very labour intensive to grow but the final result is well worth it. Available in white, mauve, violet or pink, with the purple-flowered varieties containing the stronger scent. Lilacs have come to signify youthfulness, humility and confidence.

9th Anniversary | Bird of Paradise
Named after King Charles III’s wife Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Streliz, the strelitzia, also known as “the bird of paradise” due to its resemblance to the exotic bird species, is a versatile plant that makes the ideal gift for both male and female recipients. Available all year round, the bird of paradise signifies ‘magnificence’ and it’s easy to see why with our exotic Strelitzia Tropical Arrangement.

10th Anniversary | Daffodil
Otherwise known by their genus name, narcissus, the flower is named after Narcissus in Greek legend, “Narcissus” deriving from the Greek for “numbness” referring to the narcotic properties of the plant.
Daffodils and narcissi have sap which is toxic to other flowers, so are generally displayed separately. The emblem of Wales, the daffodil is traditionally worn on St David’s Day and is also used by Marie Curie Cancer Care to raise money on National Daffodil Day. Symbolising regard, rebirth, new beginnings, unrequited love, chivalry, the daffodil is the birthflower for March.

11th Anniversary | Tulip
Tulips are Arena Flowers’ favourite flowers. The colour pink is symbolic of perfect happiness and confidence. Since tulips are large, showy, and usually solitary flowers, a ‘tulip’ has come to mean ‘a showy person’. ‘Tulipomania’ is the craze for tulip growing, originating in the Netherlands in the 17th century. The tulip stands for ‘perfect love’ and each shade expresses some emotion of life. The pink tulip signifies admiration.

12th Anniversary | Peony
Cultivated for over 2,000 years, the Chinese name for peony is “sho yu” which means “most beautiful”. Peonies are only available between late May and early July, so get them now while you can! Peonies are generally regarded to symbolise luxury and indulgence, however they also represent a happy life, happy marriage, good health and prosperity – not bad for twelve years together with your loved one!

13th Anniversary | Chrysanthemum
The name chrysanthemum derives from the Greek term “krus anthemon” meaning gold flower. However, nowadays they come in all colours except blue (which have been known to be dyed for special events). The Chinese who considered chrysanthemums to be the highest of flowers, named their royal throne after the flower.
Available all year round, the chrysanthemum is depicted on Japan’s imperial weapon and flag, with the country also having a national festival devoted to the flower (Sept 9th).
The birthflower of November and signifying cheerfulness, optimism, rest and truth, Feng Shui adherents believe the chrysanthemum brings laughter and happiness to your home.

14th Anniversary | Orchid
Currently the most popular houseplant in the UK according to the Flowers & Plants Association, the orchid’s name derives from the Greek word “orchis” meaning testicle, because of the shape of the bulbous roots.
Orchids are the largest family of the plant kingdom with over 25,000 naturally occurring species in the world, as well as all the specially-developed hybrids.
Lasting well over a month on the plant, orchids simply need regular misting to stay healthy and can withstand central heating better than some cut flowers.
Orchids have come to signify love, refinement, mature charm, beauty and long life. As well as the 14th anniversary, orchids are also associated with the 28th wedding anniversary.

15th Anniversary | Rose
Originating from China, the rose is now cultivated from America to Africa and from Eastern Europe to the Far East and available in every colour except blue and true black.
Available all year round and probably the best known and best-loved flower in the world.
The red rose is the symbol of England and is (sometimes) worn on St George’s Day. It is also the symbol of love and is hugely popular on St Valentine’s Day, when roses make up the largest proportion of the £22 million spent on flowers in the UK on this day.
As well as love, a red rose has come to signify passion, respect, courage, beauty, purity, prosperity and perfection – from which our ultimate ethically sourced rose bouquet gains its name. The rose is also the birthflower of June – so another good reason to spoil someone rotten this month!

20th Anniversary | Aster
Asters are named after the Greek word for “star” due to the star-shaped flower head similar to that of a daisy. Asters are found abundantly throughout the globe as they grow in a wide range of climates from the tropics to cooler regions in the North. Asters signify variety, elegance and daintiness and are the birthflower for September.
Gerberas belong to the Aster family (Asteraceae) and can be easily spotted throughout the for their lovely clusters of purple, blue, pink, white, or red petals.

25th Anniversary | Iris
Meaning “rainbow” in Greek, irises come in a broad spectrum of colours, but cut flower irises are mostly blue, white and yellow like the summer sky.
The popularity of irises over the centuries has been demonstrated in the still life paintings of the Dutch masters, and in some languages, irises are called flags or sword flags, relating them to symbols of heraldry and royalty, hence the original “Fleur de lys” of heraldry. In Japan the shape is seen to express heroism and the blue colour refers to blue blood, so irises play a key role in their spring festival for boys.

30th Anniversary | Lily
Lilies have been cultivated for over 3000 years. Feng Shui believers hold the lily as an emblem of summer and abundance; to the Chinese, lily means “Forever in love”. The lily was the holy flower of the ancient Assyrians. Until the 16th century the Madonna lily was the only garden variety known, because of this the “lilies of the field” as mentioned in the bible are thought to be this specific lily.
A lily has adorned the coat of arms of the kings of France since 1179. King Chlodwig I allegedly received this ‘fleur de lys’, as it is called in heraldic language, from an angel. But in actual fact his flower wasn’t a lily, as the name implies, but an iris (see 25th anniversary, above). In Greek poetry, the lily stood for tenderness, and has later come to signify majesty and wealth.

40th Anniversary | Gladiolus
Famously associated with Dame Edna Everage, and the birthflower for August, gladioli are used extensively throughout Mediterranean countries in festivals and saints’ days and symbolise strength of character, remembrance, infatuation, splendid beauty, sincerity and admiration. Gladiolus (from Latin, the diminutive of gladius, a sword) is a genus of flowering plants in the iris family (Iridaceae), so we recommend our new summer bouquet Just Good Friends (pictured left) – friendship, of course, being one of the key necessities in a long-lasting relationship!

50th Anniversary | Yellow Roses
Not discovered until the 18th century, yellow roses have a shorter history than other roses. However, once the first yellow roses were introduced, their popularity quickly spread.
A bouquet of yellow roses now brings to mind all of the sunny, cheerful feelings of warmth and happiness. In contrast to the romantic meanings attributed to other roses, the yellow rose is purely a symbol for friendship. This gives it a unique place in the pantheon of roses, sending the perfect message of appreciation and platonic love without the romantic subtext of other colors. They can represent feelings of joy and delight, and are an ideal way to brighten someone’s day who may be feeling down. There is perhaps no other flower that is able to bring out a smile in quite the way that a yellow rose can.

Below is a quick and useful ‘ready reckoner’ of wedding anniversaries – don’t forget that for wedding anniveraaries of 60 years and higher, you can apply to Buckingham Palace for a special celebratory message from the Queen herself, gawd bless ‘er.

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Here at Arena Flowers we get a lot of special orders both large and small – sometimes for a particular birthday where the number of flowers is important or sometimes for the re-creation of a wedding bouquet for an anniversary.

We also receive requests for flower stems to be distributed at special events, such as yellow daffodils for Marie Curie Cancer Care, or pink roses for an end-of-year school ball.

In April we provided five hundred of our FFP red roses to Amnesty International for their national conference in Nottingham, which meant a lot of de-thorning work for Jozsef, our wonderful ‘jack-of-all-trades’.
At the time, this seemed quite a large order…

Then, last month, Karen also from Amnesty, contacted us, requesting a delivery of two thousand red roses to their London office on 4 June.

What could be simpler? Nothing as complicated as sending flowers to Nottingham – or so we thought!

And then Karen called again – this time asking for a further three thousand roses!

Well, having organised 2,000 roses, another 3,000 didn’t seem to present a problem so we were naturally particularly happy to be able to help.

It was only when our distribution manager pointed out quite how many buckets of flowers 5,000 red roses represented, that we were brought down to earth!

So, it was not one but two very full vans that eventually set off for the Amnesty International offices. The effect was amazing, though. Click the image to enlarge.

But we’ve learned our lesson: in future, we’ll warn the distribution manager well in advance when we take such large orders!

We had a snoop online to see just what Amnesty had used our flowers for, and came across their blog post about remembering Tiananmen Square nineteen years on.

It was strangely moving to see images of our beautiful roses commemorating such a tragic event…

PS. To give you a better idea of the scale of this whole operation last week, here is a shot of Judith with one of our rather splendid 100 Red Roses bouquet, freshly arranged today!

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Sam mentioned a new arrival for his family last week, and this week it’s the turn of the Arena family to welcome its own new member: our Dutch language site, ArenaBloemen.nl!

Our team spends a huge amount of time and effort securing deals direct with the best growers so that we can ensure great prices, superb quality, ethical sourcing and freshness second to none. Excellence in flowers is the core of what we offer our customers. As part of that mission, we have a facility in Noordwijkerhout (NWH), west of Amsterdam, to receive flowers and to make some of them up into bouquets before they come over to the UK. Our Dutch team is led by Ronald, with Marion, Merel, Ellie and Mariska performing floristry magic crafting the bouquets and with Lyn assisting Ronald with everything else. Clearly, Ronald and Lyn weren’t pretty enough to make the group photo!

Given we already have the NWH facility, it was a natural next step for us to launch a Dutch language site, fulfilling from NWH and sending to the whole of the Netherlands and the Flemish speaking part of Belgium. We’re fairly certain that the quality of the product and the ease of use of the site that we built in the UK will also appeal to customers beyond our little island. Through the Send Flowers To Holland page on our UK site, we’re already sending a number of orders to the Netherlands every day. Now that we have our Dutch business out there, we can obviously guarantee the full “Arena experience” for our Dutch orders placed from the UK. For translation fans, our UK strap line “An experience delivered” becomes “Wij bezorgen emotie” in Dutch!

The project hasn’t been without challenges! Zach, our amazing developer (who built the whole Arena site and all the back end systems that our customers never see), and Sam, our head of design (who makes everything look pretty and shiny (amongst other things)), had to rebuild the whole way the website works so that it could be translated easily and do clever things like handle different VAT rates and different depots and different currencies. PayPal already allows us to accept Euros, but the Dutch also use a payment system called “Ideal” for a lot of their online payments, so we’ve had to integrate that too (it’s not live on the site just yet – we’re still testing it). Squirting orders placed on the Netherlands flowers page on the UK site into the fulfilment order table for the NWH depot is not easy either (that’s still in the testing phase on our development site) .

We’ve also had to spend a lot of time researching the language, with Ronald and his team, and with Elsa, another native Dutch speaker, to ensure that we are set up well for the search engines and online marketing. Adarsh and Stan, who run Arena’s marketing, have, for example, been spending a lot of time working out which keyword combinations we want to be top for in Google NL’s search. Bloemen bestellen in Amsterdam, Nederlandse Bloemist and Bloemen bezorgen anyone?! And of course, we’ve been giving a lot of thought to the right type of products for this market as, naturally, there are some differences in national tastes.

Zach actually lives in New York, 6 hours behind Holland, but this presents far fewer problems than one might imagine. The pictures below shows the moment last week when, with Steve and I sitting outside our hotel connected to the web via wireless broadband and with Zach in his apartment in Brooklyn talking to us via Skype, we put the site, hosted in Wembley, London, live. It’s amazing how small the world is, when you’ve got a latpop and broadband at your fingertips!

And finally, the point of it all. Our first orders. Here’s Ronald with our first five orders for delivery in the Netherlands. Not a huge number to begin with but then this was a soft launch. We’re shooting for 50 a day within three months. Time will tell!

PS It wasn’t all work and no play. While over in the orange country, we also got to sample a quite extraordinary Dutch musical phenomenon called “The Toppers” (in Amsterdam’s Arena Stadium no less!) plus we went on a 200km moped ride around the canals and roads of the famous green country outside Amsterdam. Beautiful and lush…and very very flat!

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Answer? It was taken at 0410 in Harwich ferry port, on the East coast of the UK when Ronald and myself should have been sound asleep in our beds in Noordwijkerhout, NL and London, UK respectively.

Why? A consignment of box lids that was due to come over during Mother’s Day week didn’t materialise and we were going to run out. Given half our orders go out in boxes, to run out of lids during a peak period like Mother’s Day would have been nothing short of a disaster. So Ronald picked up a consignment, jumped in his van and hot footed it to The Hook of Holland, making it just in time to catch the last ferry.

Hooray! I was the lucky one that got the task of driving the 90 miles to the coast to meet him. So, having gone to bed at 11pm I was then back up again at 0215 (with the aid of no less than 6 alarms to wake me!), in the slightly surreal position of driving through late night London revellers, rubbing sleep from my eyes. I made it to Harwich at 0400 to find a virtually deserted port.

Trouble at the border: As I waited for Ronald, I was informed that, even though the port was nearly empty, my van would be destroyed if I didn’t park it in the car park. Rather than pay £2.50 to park for five minutes, I just drove round and round the roundabout instead. This seemed to infuriate the security guard for some reason – perhaps he has shares in the car park company. I decided it wouldn’t be wise to wave at him each time I went round the roundabout. Ronald was with me five minutes later, customs and excise having taken a keen interest in the contents of his van and carried out a thorough search – flowers aren’t the only plants that the Dutch have a reputation for cultivating so I guess the search was no surprise.

Success! With a clean bill of health for Ronald and with my van having survived the officious security guard’s attentions, we loaded up the box lids and headed our separate ways – Ronald back onto the ferry, me in the fast lane to Flowers HQ. I got to our offices at 0555 and 5 minutes later a truck, which had left our warehouse in Holland with a four hour head start on Ronald, pulled in, laden with a bumper load of Mother’s Day flowers. I was very relieved!

Note to self: make sure we have box lids organised well in advance in future!

PS we’re very proud of our boxes…they’re double laminated so they’re super strong – so much so that, as you can see, a grown man (Joseph in this case) can stand on them (so can I and I weigh 85kg).

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Valentine’s Day is the busiest day of the year at Flowers HQ. We plan and organise the day well in advance to try to minimise hiccups and to ensure we successfully bring lovers together on the big day. It’s not easy, as we do about 20 times more orders than normal on the 14th February but we do our best to make sure everything is just right.

So, Ladies & Gentlemen, we now proudly present a behind the scenes photoblog of our Valentine’s, featuring Arena’s team of flower fanatics!

Georgi, normally in charge of purchasing and margins, gets busy with balloons. My normal job is internet marketing but I spent Valentine’s checking postcodes and loading vans!

Anna creating a “Valentine’s Two Dozen Red Roses” (you can also watch Anna making a “Valentine’s Dozen Red Roses” on video).

Click to see more pictures…

A fraudulent flower order causes concern. In the foreground are Zach and Henry, the technical whizzkids who built our entire site and order management system from scratch. Very brainy indeed.

“Valentine’s The One” – white tulips with a single red rose, is our most popular Valentine’s product.

Depending on the destination, our orders either go out in our super sturdy, recycled boxes or are hand delivered by one of our own drivers. Whichever way they’re delivered, they all come with our 100% satisfaction guarantee.

The “Valentine’s Red Roses Cube” (on the left) was the first product to sell out this year.

Manisha and Ruth, two of the first CS team members when Arena first started, came back to work Valentine’s week. Always great to see old friends again. :)

Our “Valentine’s Tulips Sensation” also sold out – maybe it’s because for everyone sold, we donated £1 to the British Heart Foundation’s Valentine’s Appeal.

Ella in the early stages of crafting a “Valentine’s Mass of Red Roses“.

Now that’s a smile, Rahel!

We hope all our readers had a great Valentine’s – we’re all going for a rest before Mother’s Day kicks in (it’s in only two weeks time, in the UK)!

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Recently we were on the receiving end of an attempted hustle by some fake wheel clampers. They’d immobilised one of our vans and were refusing to take the clamp off unless we paid £300 cash there and then. No credit cards allowed because of “possible fraud”. That set our own fraud alarm bells ringing and, after some investigation, we called the police who agreed to come down. When our hustlers heard the police were coming, they rapidly removed the clamp from our wheel, jumped in their car and sped off.

And what kind of car did our scammers jump into to make good their escape? Only a Jaguar X-type like this one! Clearly the scam pays well, or perhaps they often need to leave the scene of the crime in a hurry! Unfortunately for them, their getaway wasn’t quick enough to prevent us taking down their vehicle registration number and passing it on to the police.

So, if any of you ever have a similar situation, here are our top tips to avoiding being scammed by fake clampers:

• The code of practice relating to clamping says:
  • Maximum standard charge: £75 (maximum charge if unpaid £150). Parking company’s name, address and phone number must be displayed in car park and on ticket. So our £300 is way over this £75 figure.
  • Unfortunately, if your car is parked on private property, like ours was, clampers can still charge you whatever they like to remove the clamp. If you believe you have been overcharged, you have to make claim in a civil court as breaking this part of the code of practice is not a criminal offence. Obviously, if the clampers are not legitimate and working for a real company, then you’ll have no one to take a claim out against!
  • Parking rules must be clearly displayed. Here is the very poor effort on the wall of the car park where we parked – it looks as though it had been stuck up that same day. Note it’s missing the company’s address, which the code requires to be shown.

  

  • The phone number must connect with a person, not an automated payments system. The number given on the rules went through to a voicemail, with no indication of company.
  • Staff to wear uniform and carry ID. They must not escort drivers to cash machines.
  • TOP TIP: All clampers must be licensed by the Security Industry Authority (SIA). Any unlicensed clamper is committing a criminal offence and the police would arrest any such individual.

Having gone through the above list getting increasingly suspicious but with our con artists sticking resolutely to their guns and demanding £300, we finally rumbled them on the ID point. Only one of our clampers had any ID (pictured above) but when we checked it (by calling the SIA on 0844 892 1025 and on the SIA’s website) we found this was not a genuine SIA number and therefore that this was definitely a scam.

At this stage we called the police for the second time and they were happy to come down now that we’d established that the clampers were acting illegally. By this time our rogues had started to lose their nerve and said they would accept £150 instead of £300 (which then dropped 5 minutes later to £100), as “the tow truck has broken down so we can’t tow you”. We declined their kind offer saying we’d prefer to discuss it with the police officers who were on their way down from the local station.

Funnily enough, 2 minutes later our “clampers” decided they didn’t want a nice chat with a police officer and made good their escape!

With thanks to www.penaltycharges.co.uk, which was where we found the code and which helped save us £300!

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