In the past, florists went to market very early in the morning to buy fresh flowers and if a florist shop is near New Covent Garden or a similar wholesale flower market the florist may still buy their stock in this way. During my 30 years as a florist I have seen many changes in buying practice and my personal favourite way of purchasing stock for my shop is to use a local wholesale supplier where I can see and touch the flowers before buying. There are also smaller wholesalers who visit our shops with trucks and over a period of time you come to trust the quality of flowers delivered in this way by building up a relationship with the salesman. there are also huge refrigerated lorries that come over from Holland which are full to the brim of every kind of flower. However, florists are currently being advised by local wholesalers to order online by choosing from a picture of the flowers. This has the advantage of a checkout system so that you can see what you are spending as you go along but......you can't see or touch the flowers....and this system has the added disadvantage of the flowers having to be ordered at least the day before you need them. When you need a particular coloured flower for a customer who comes along later in the day, it won't be possible to get it for the following day like it was when we actively visited a local wholesaler. In today's 24 hour society our customers expect to be able to put an order on our website at midnight to collect the following morning at opening time but when customers do this, unless it is a florist choice bouquet, you may find yourself disappointed because unless we specifically need an exotic bloom or a rainbow rose for a pre ordered bouquet there is a possibility we won't be able to obtain these more unusual flowers at short notice, although I stress...we will try for you. Thanks for reading jacqui