Charity blossoms online with NetFlorist

Charity Flowers is a joint initiative between NetFlorist and several charity organisations including SA Child and Family Welfare, the Avril Elizabeth Home, St John`s Ambulance, the Endangered Wildlife Trust and the National Sea Rescue Institute.

In terms of the partnership, a percentage of each order on the site goes towards whichever charity each customer chooses.

The site borrows both design and product from the NetFlorist template. Products are grouped by category (flowers, fruit baskets, wine, gifts) and each section is colour-coded. The bright colours and images of the products on offer work well, enhancing the visual attractiveness of the site.

In line with the NetFlorist model, customers can select their products using various filters - by occasion, price or specific type of flower or gift. There is also a reminder option and an address book service.

Other features are an affiliates program, and a range of products and services tailored for corporate users.

This site is well laid out, making use of anchored top and side navigation bars as well as threaded navigation - very easy to use.

The site offers a well-stocked range of flowers, fruit and gourmet baskets, wine and primarily African-themed gifts. However, apart from the reminder and address book services, there doesn`t seem to be any other related content. One would expect all sorts of interesting trivia relating to the age-old symbolism of flowers, hints and tips on keeping your flower arrangement fresher for longer, and other bit and pieces.

At the outset, you have to choose a charity which will benefit from proceeds of all your purchases. Although I was miffed at first that I couldn`t spread the wealth over several charities of my choice, it makes sense for NetFlorist to channel as much cash to its business partners as possible. Spreading out the profits might work well in practise, but I doubt it would look too good on paper.

However, a glaring inadequacy in my book is that once you`ve entered the Web site under another charity organisation`s banner - even if only to browse the same offerings - it`s impossible to log in and make purchases which would benefit your charity. You`ve got to go all the way back to the start screen and proceed from there.

A major flaw of the registration process is that despite notification that you`re operating in a secure environment, there are no visible signs of it.

One can`t submit the registration form without having entered a home telephone number - which really grates against my sense of privacy. Another shortcoming is the lack of communication when selecting a password - it`s got to be alphanumeric, but you`re only told this after trying to choose a text only password.

When profiling yourself, you`re not allowed to choose more than just one group of people to which you might give flowers. On the plus side, some aspects of the form are intuitive, remembering your personal details and saving you the trouble of having to re-enter them at a later stage.

I made my purchase without a problem. I received e-mail notification of the order, and was informed that the earliest delivery date was within three working days - not very good for last minute stuff.

The order was eventually delivered a day later than the one I had specified, and was disappointingly not in the best of conditions. The fruity display had been disrupted during travel, despite instructions printed on the side of the packaging to "keep upright".

The site definitely works, though it is still inflexible in some cases. There is nothing over and above NetFlorist`s usual product offering, but it`s the way to go for the socially responsible consumer.