Take a look: Here's how NetFlorist ruined Valentine’s Day for some South Africans

(Twitter)

• NetFlorist, South Africa’s oldest online retailer, is coming under fire for its late delivery of Valentine’s Day orders.
• Many were also unhappy about the flowers and gifts they did receive. 
• Social media was flooded with pics of sad-looking bouquets.

Hundreds of NetFlorist consumers have rushed to social media to complain about its service on Valentine’s Day.

Consumers are demanding refunds for orders that weren't delivered, or for sad-looking bouquets and melted chocolates.

Photos of browning and dried flowers and gifts with spelling mistakes were widely shared on social media.

The company, which sold out of Valentine’s gifts early on Thursday morning, said heavy rain and load shedding were to blame for breaking its ‘same day delivery’ promise.

Kavindra Juggath commented on Facebook: “How greedy is NetFlorist to overcharge and then give me last year's roses?”

Nkateko Mabunda joked that maybe NetFlorist went to the #MensConference, a fictional conference where men could go to avoid Valentine’s Day. 

Angelique McKenzie commented on Facebook: “Dear Netflorist. I ordered a valentines gift for my mother, for whom this is the first Valentine's day without my father who passed away in December. You have not delivered it.”

NetFlorist managing director Ryan Bacher said the combination of rain in Gauteng and loadshedding created the perfect ‘storm’.

He said despite difficulties, 90% of its orders were delivered successfully.

“Our drivers couldn’t get to our pick up points in time and then, when they did, couldn’t move on the roads fast enough to get all our orders out in time,” Bacher told Business Insider South Africa.

Also read: Netflorist was started by accident - now SA’s oldest online store gets 730,000 orders a year

“We should have prepared better for this, we didn’t and we let our customers down.”

He said the company will be redelivering today "to anyone we didn’t deliver to".

“It’s going to be a tough few days for us, our teams, but most importantly our customers – we will do whatever we need to make this right.”

For more go to Business Insider South Africa.

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