Competition watchdog the ACCC has taken online florist company Meg's Flowers to court for allegedly falsely advertising itself as a "local florist".
The Federal Court action against Meg’s Flowers Pty Ltd alleges that between January 2019 and February 2022 the business falsely claimed to be a local florist supplying flowers in 156 location-based websites and in 7,462 Google Ads, when in fact the company is a national online business without any local shop fronts.
Meg’s Flowers distributes flowers through its 13 corporate warehouses and in some instance subcontractors, and does not operate local florist stores.
Liza Carver, ACCC Commissioner, said the ACCC is taking Meg’s Flowers to court because many consumers prefer to support local businesses and wish to source the freshest flowers in a suburb close to their address.
“We allege Meg’s Flowers misled consumers into thinking they were ordering flowers from a local florist, when they were actually dealing with a national business and the orders were often fulfilled from a corporate warehouse outside of that suburb.”
The ACCC alleges that seven of Meg’s Flowers’ websites, referring to Ashgrove, Caboolture and Tewantin in Queensland; Lane Cove in New South Wales; Mawson Lakes in South Australia; Sunbury in Victoria, and Ellenbrook in Western Australia included several of the following:
- a reference to a suburb or town in the domain name or in a heading on the website,
- a photograph of a florist’s store showing a scooter branded ‘Meg’s Flowers’,
- the statement “the finest quality flowers in [suburb or town]” or “direct from our [suburb or town] florist”,
- the statements “It’s the local approach” or “our fantastic local service”,
- geographical details about the relevant suburb or town, and/ or
- a copyright notice on the website including the words “Meg’s Flowers [suburb or town]”.
The ACCC also alleges 149 other Meg’s Flowers’ location-based websites made similar false or misleading representations, although they included fewer elements.
It is also alleged that Meg’s Flowers generated 7,462 Google Ads which referred to suburbs and towns across Australia. These ads included a URL which referred to the location which a consumer had searched for and the headlines “Meg’s Florist [suburb or town]” or “Meg’s [suburb or town]’, and the phrase “Same Day Local Flower Delivery”.
The ACCC is seeking declarations, penalties, compliance orders, corrective notices and costs.
Early in 2022, the ACCC issued a warning to consumers and put the online florist industry on notice about its concerns about reports of false or misleading representations about the location of online florists. In early December 2022, the ACCC instituted proceedings against online florist and gift retailer Bloomex for allegedly publishing misleading online star ratings and price representations.
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