Ordering Flowers by Email Instead of the Website Form
Several times a week someone writes to us at Five Flowers asking whether they can just send an email rather than fill in the website form. The short answer is yes, and for certain orders — large arrangements, specific variety requests, or deliveries to an unfamiliar Russian address — email is actually the more reliable route. This article explains what information to include, what happens after you send it, and where people most often go wrong when ordering remotely.
Why Some Customers Prefer Email Over the Online Form
The website form is fast for a standard bouquet going to a straightforward city address. But not every order is straightforward. Customers ordering from abroad often struggle with the Cyrillic address fields, and autocomplete suggestions on the form assume familiarity with Russian street naming conventions. A customer in Berlin trying to send peonies to a recipient in Novosibirsk may find the dropdown zones confusing and worry they have selected the wrong delivery window. Email removes that friction entirely because a florist reads the message, confirms the zone manually, and writes back with a clear price and time slot before any payment is taken. There is also the matter of variety specificity. If you want garden roses rather than standard spray roses, or you have a preference for David Austin varieties over hybrid teas, a text box on a form rarely gives you enough space to explain that clearly. Email lets you describe what you are after in plain language — the stem count, the colour palette, whether the recipient keeps the bouquet in a warm apartment or a cool office — and we respond with what is actually in stock that day rather than what the website photographed last season. Customers planning a large delivery, say fifteen or twenty bouquets for a corporate event, also tend to use email because it creates a written record of exactly what was agreed, which matters when coordinating multiple drop-off points across a city.
Bouquets we can deliver
What to Include in Your Email Order
The single biggest cause of delay in email orders is incomplete information. A florist cannot begin assembling anything, let alone dispatch a courier, until four pieces of information are confirmed: the full delivery address including apartment or office number and entry code if there is one, the recipient's mobile phone number, your preferred delivery window, and a clear description of what you want. Russian addresses follow a specific format — city, street, building number, apartment number — and missing the apartment number is the most common omission from customers unfamiliar with that structure. If you do not know the apartment number, say so in the email and we will contact the recipient discreetly to confirm it without revealing the surprise. For the bouquet itself, be as specific as you can. Saying white flowers is less useful than saying white ranunculus or white lisianthus, because those two flowers behave differently, cost differently, and look different in a hand-tied bouquet versus a wrapped presentation. If you have no preference at all, say that too, and include a rough budget so the florist can build something appropriate to the occasion without guessing. Mention whether you want the bouquet delivered in water, which we do for long-distance same-day orders where the stems need to stay hydrated during transit, or in dry wrapping, which photographs better and is the default for most hand-delivered city orders. A photograph of a previous bouquet you liked, sent as an attachment, is genuinely useful and we encourage it.
Response Times and What Happens After You Send the Email
We monitor the order inbox during shop hours, which run from early morning through the evening seven days a week. Most email orders receive a reply within thirty to forty-five minutes during daytime hours. The reply confirms availability of the varieties you requested, gives the exact price including delivery, and proposes a delivery window based on current courier capacity in that zone. You then confirm or adjust, and payment is processed by a link we send — no payment is taken before you have agreed to the specifics in writing. This sequence matters because flower availability changes by the day. Tulips that were plentiful on Monday may be sold through by Wednesday afternoon, and a florist checking the cold room in real time can suggest an accurate substitute rather than fulfilling an order with whatever is left and hoping you do not notice. If your order comes in outside shop hours, it is queued for the next morning and you will receive a reply as soon as the shop opens. For same-day delivery, email orders placed before midday are reliably fulfilled within the standard one-to-two hour window. Orders placed in the afternoon can usually still be fulfilled the same day, but the delivery window shifts to later in the afternoon or early evening depending on courier load. If you need delivery at a very specific time — say, at six in the evening for a birthday dinner — state that in the first email and we will build the schedule around it rather than fitting you into a general slot.
Choosing Varieties When You Cannot See the Stock in Person
One genuine advantage of the email channel is that you can have a real conversation about what is actually in the cooler rather than choosing from website photographs that may be weeks old. Flower stock at any serious shop turns over constantly, and what we have on a given Tuesday depends on what arrived from the auction that morning. When you email an order, the florist checks the cold room before replying and tells you what is looking best that day. In practical terms, this means you might ask for a bouquet of garden roses and be told that the David Austin Juliet variety came in that morning and is in exceptional condition, whereas the O'Hara roses that photograph well on the website are at day three of their vase life and would not be our recommendation. That kind of information does not exist anywhere on the website because it changes too fast to publish. Seasonal awareness matters here too. In winter, ranunculus and anemones are at their best in Russia because they travel well in cold temperatures and arrive without the heat stress that damages them in summer. In late spring, peonies are at peak availability and value. If you email in February asking for peonies, a florist will tell you honestly that the available peonies are imported, pricier, and not at their seasonal best, and may suggest a seasonal alternative that will last longer and look better in the recipient's home. This kind of direct advice is the practical reason experienced flower buyers often prefer the email channel over a self-service form.
Delivery Zones, Timing and What to Confirm Before Paying
Five Flowers delivers across Russia with the one-to-two hour window applying to central Saint Petersburg and other cities we serve directly. When you email an order for a city outside Saint Petersburg, confirm in your message whether the recipient is in the city centre or on the outskirts, because delivery time to a residential district on the edge of a large city differs from delivery to a central office address. A florist will map the address against current courier availability and give you an honest estimate rather than a generic promise. Temperature is a practical concern that email orders handle better than the form. In Russian winters, outdoor temperatures in many cities drop low enough to damage unprotected flowers in transit. When you email an order for a cold-weather delivery, we discuss packaging — insulated wrapping for roses and tulips, which are vulnerable to frost, and whether a heat-protected box is appropriate for the bouquet size you have chosen. Customers ordering from warmer climates are sometimes surprised to learn that a bouquet of garden roses delivered in January in Siberia needs to be wrapped differently from the same bouquet delivered in Saint Petersburg in May. Before you confirm payment, check three things in the reply email: that the delivery address is written back exactly as you provided it including the apartment number, that the delivery window matches what you need, and that the variety list reflects what you actually agreed rather than a generic description. These are the three points where errors most commonly occur and they are all correctable before the order is dispatched.
Personalised Touches, Cards and Special Requests
Email orders are well suited to orders that need something beyond a standard bouquet. If you want a handwritten card included, email is where you write the message text and specify the language — Russian or English, or both — and we print or handwrite it accordingly. Keep in mind that if the recipient does not read English and you want the card to mean something to them, ask us to write it in Russian and include your English text so we can translate it accurately rather than using an automated tool. Special presentation requests are also easier to handle by email. If you want the bouquet in a hat box rather than standard wrapping, or you want stems trimmed to a specific length for a vase you know the recipient owns, say so and we will accommodate it where stock allows. Some customers ask for bouquets without foliage because the recipient prefers a clean stem look, or for extra foliage to bulk out a smaller arrangement for a large table. These are the kinds of instructions that a dropdown form cannot capture and that a florist reads and acts on immediately. Ribbon colour, wrapping paper shade, whether to include a care card with water change instructions in Russian — all of this can go in the email and all of it will be noted. For regular customers who order monthly or more often, email builds a record of preferences that means the second order is faster and more accurate than the first, because the florist already knows that you prefer garden roses over spray roses and that your recipient keeps flowers in a north-facing room and needs hardy varieties.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Emailing a Flower Order
The most common mistake is sending an incomplete first email and expecting the florist to guess the gaps. Writing please send something nice for a birthday tells us almost nothing useful — not the city, not the address, not the budget, not the recipient's gender or taste, not the delivery time. Every missing piece adds a round of back-and-forth that delays the order, and if you are working against a deadline, that delay matters. Write everything in the first email even if it feels like too much detail. The second common mistake is confusing the order email with a general enquiry. If you email asking whether we deliver to a particular city, that is a question we will answer, but it does not start an order. To start an order, include the address and the delivery details even in the same email as the question, so that if the answer is yes, we can move straight to confirming the bouquet rather than waiting for a second exchange. A third mistake involves payment timing. Some customers send an email order and then do not respond to the payment link for several hours, assuming the bouquet is being prepared in the meantime. It is not — preparation begins after payment is confirmed, and a bouquet assembled and waiting in the shop for an unconfirmed payment ties up both stock and courier capacity. Respond to the payment link promptly if you want the delivery window you requested. Finally, do not omit the recipient's phone number. Couriers in Russia call ahead before arriving, and without a working mobile number the delivery cannot be completed even if the address is correct.
Ordering by email at Five Flowers is a genuine option and not a workaround for edge cases. For customers ordering from outside Russia, for large or complex arrangements, for orders where variety specificity matters, and for anyone who finds the online form difficult to navigate, email produces a more accurate order with less chance of error. The process is straightforward: send the full address, the recipient's phone number, your delivery window, and a description of what you want, and a florist replies with current availability, exact pricing, and a confirmed time slot before any payment is requested. The one-to-two hour delivery standard applies to email orders exactly as it does to website orders, and the cold room is checked in real time when the florist composes the reply. We deliver bouquets across Russia in 1–2 hours.
Frequently asked questions
Is email ordering slower than using the website form?
Not significantly. Most email orders receive a reply within thirty to forty-five minutes during shop hours. The extra step is a short confirmation exchange before payment, which actually reduces errors. Once payment is confirmed, preparation and dispatch follow the same one-to-two hour schedule as any other order.
Can I email an order in English if I do not speak Russian?
Yes. Write in English and the florist will handle the Russian-language courier instructions, address formatting, and any card text you want translated. Specify in your email if you want the card message in Russian, English, or both, and include your original text so we translate it accurately.
What if I do not know the recipient's apartment number?
Say so in the email. We can contact the recipient discreetly by phone to confirm the apartment number without revealing that a delivery is coming, or we can coordinate with you on an alternative approach. Do not leave the apartment number blank and hope the courier works it out — they cannot.
Can I request a specific variety by email that is not shown on the website?
Yes, and this is one of the strongest reasons to use email. Tell us what variety you want and we will check current stock and tell you honestly whether it is available, what condition it is in, and if not, what the closest available alternative looks like that day. Website photographs do not reflect daily stock.
Does the email option work for deliveries outside Saint Petersburg?
Yes. Five Flowers delivers across Russia and email orders for other cities follow the same process. Include the full city name and district in your message, since delivery timing to city outskirts differs from central addresses, and a florist will confirm the exact window for that location before you pay.
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