Why You Can’t Buy Just One Yellow Rose - How We Order Flowers Explained:

Why You Can’t Buy Just One Yellow Rose - How We Order Flowers Explained:

We get it, you just want one particular flower and we won’t sell it to you. It’s annoying, we know. But have you ever stopped to wonder why we’re not able to do that? Let us explain:


Here at Oleander, we pride ourselves on customer service and we try our very best to give our customers exactly what they want. Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible. And, when it comes to the flower selection we generally order and carry, we are forced to follow the preferences of the majority of our customers.


As a florist, we order flowers in bulk from wholesalers. This helps to keep costs down for you, the customer, and is the way the majority of wholesalers operate. As we also have to order in advance, we need to try and predict ahead of time what our customers are going to want. This is really easy for pre-ordered arrangements or events, such as weddings, (and why we like pre-orders so much!) but is a lot trickier for providing our walk-in or on-demand customers with a great flower selection. We like to think that we’ve gotten pretty good at it over the years but it’s definitely a fine balance between keeping our customers happy, with the freshest and best quality flowers possible, and minimizing costs and flower waste.


It’s for this reason that we’re unable to sell you one stem of a specific flower if we don’t happen to carry those flowers in store regularly. For example, we don’t usually stock yellow roses, as there is no demand for them. So if a customer requests them, we would have to order and charge for a complete case, even though that customer might not actually want a whole case! It’s the same for some other flowers too. Some types of lilies just aren’t currently popular enough for us to carry them in the shop, for example. 


Whilst we hate to disappoint any customer, we aren’t able to stock products on the off-chance that a customer might ask for them. This is also the reason why we cannot sell you just one or two stems of a specially ordered item, as it’s really difficult for us to sell the remaining stems, which then ultimately end up as waste.


Having said all this, we are able to accommodate some flower-specific requests and do our best to do this wherever possible. So, if you’re looking for something specific, please call us on 416 236 8273 and we’ll be happy to discuss your requirements. 

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