How to Tell if an Online Florist in Nigeria is Legit: A Buyer’s Checklist

Why this question exists

Search for flower delivery in Nigeria from abroad and you will find forum threads of people asking which sites are real. That question exists because people have paid and received nothing.

We are a Nigerian florist writing a guide on how to check whether a Nigerian florist can be trusted, which is an odd position. It is worth being clear about why we are doing it.

Every order somebody loses to a fake seller is an order that makes the next person hesitate. The whole trade here operates under a suspicion that one bad actor in ten creates for everyone, and the diaspora customer sending from London with no way to walk into a shop carries the most risk of all.

So this checklist is written to be applied to anybody, including us. If we fail one of these tests, you should not buy from us either.

It covers the eleven things to check before you pay, the warning signs that should stop you, why Instagram sellers are a particular case, and what to actually do if an order never arrives.

The eleven checks

Work through these before you send money to any Nigerian florist you have not used before.

• A working phone number you can reach on WhatsApp. Call it or message it before paying. A human answering is the single strongest signal available, and it costs you thirty seconds.
• A physical address, not just an area. A real shop in a real place that you could visit, or that a relative in Lagos could visit on your behalf.
• A Google Business Profile with reviews accumulated over months or years. Twenty five star reviews all posted within the same fortnight is not evidence of anything.
• Photographs that look like their own work. Reverse image search two or three. If the same photographs appear on five other sites, you are looking at a catalogue, not a florist.
• Prices in naira, with a floor that makes sense. A Lagos bouquet advertised far below N45,000 is small, not freshly imported, or clearing stock. That can be fine, but the seller should say which.
• A business bank account in the business name. This is the big one and it has its own section below.
• A commitment to send a delivery photograph. Ask directly, before paying. A legitimate florist agrees immediately because they do it anyway.
• A clear answer about what happens if something goes wrong. Replacement, refund, redelivery. Vagueness here is a warning.
• Consistency across channels. The number on the website matches the number on Instagram matches the number on the Google listing. Mismatches are a common sign of a copied operation.
• A real conversation rather than a script. Ask something specific, like what came in on this week’s freight or whether they can do a particular colour. Somebody who knows flowers answers immediately and in detail.
• Time in business you can verify. A Google listing with photographs going back years, an Instagram account with a history rather than thirty posts uploaded last month.

The payment rule that prevents most losses

If you remember one thing from this page, make it this one.

Never pay into a personal bank account when you believe you are buying from a business.

A registered Nigerian business can operate a corporate account in the business name. When a seller asks you to transfer to an individual’s personal account, there are only a few explanations, and none of them are good for you. Either the business is not registered, or it is deliberately keeping the transaction untraceable, or the person messaging you is not the business at all.

This last case is more common than people realise. A legitimate florist’s Instagram comments get scraped, and a cloned account messages their customers offering a better price and a different account number. The customer thinks they are dealing with the shop they researched.

Two protections. Confirm the account name matches the business name before you send anything. And if a different account number arrives in a follow up message, stop and ring the number on the official website rather than replying to the message.

A payment link or card payment is safer than a transfer, because there is a record and some possibility of recourse.

And be particularly careful with an unusually good price. The entire fake florist model runs on undercutting the real market, because that is what makes somebody skip the checks.

Instagram sellers: a particular case

A large share of flower buying in Nigeria happens through Instagram, and it needs a more careful eye rather than avoidance.

Many excellent Nigerian florists sell primarily through Instagram. It is a genuine channel and dismissing it would be wrong.

The problem is that an Instagram presence costs nothing to create. An account, a grid of photographs taken from somebody else, and an account number is the entire setup, and it can be rebuilt in an hour after being reported.

What to look for. An account with history, meaning posts going back a year or more rather than a burst of uploads. Comments from real accounts with their own history. Tagged photographs from customers, which are very hard to fake. A linked website with a matching phone number. Video content and stories showing actual work, since a scraper almost never has video.

What should stop you. No physical address anywhere. Comments disabled. A follower count that does not match the engagement. Replies that are generic and do not answer what you asked. Pressure to pay quickly.

The simple test for any Instagram seller: ask for the shop address and say you will have a relative stop by. A real shop says yes immediately.

The delivery photograph, and why it matters most

Of everything on this page, this is the single most useful protection, and it is the one buyers most often forget to ask for.

A delivery photograph is a picture of the actual arrangement that was made, and ideally of it being handed over, sent to the person who paid.

It protects you in three different ways. It proves the delivery happened. It shows you what was actually made rather than what was advertised. And asking for it in advance filters out sellers who have no intention of delivering, because they will not commit to evidence.

We photograph every delivery and send it to whoever paid, which is particularly important for the roughly one in five of our orders that come from outside Nigeria.

Ask for it before you pay, not after. The answer to the question is the information you want, more than the photograph itself.

A seller who says they will try, or that it depends, or who simply moves on to another subject, has told you something. A seller who says yes of course, we do that anyway, has also told you something.

And if a photograph arrives that does not match what you ordered, raise it the same day. Same day matters, because after two or three days nobody can distinguish between a poor arrangement and a good one that has sat in a hot room.

Warning signs that should stop you

Any one of these is reason to pause. Two together is reason to walk away.

• A personal account number for a business purchase.
• A price far below the market with no explanation of why.
• No physical address anywhere on any channel.
• Pressure to pay immediately, especially framed around stock running out.
• A phone number that is never answered, only messaged.
• Photographs that appear on other websites.
• Reviews that all arrived in the same week, or that read with identical phrasing.
• A refusal or evasion on the delivery photograph question.
• An account number that changes between messages.
• No answer to a specific question about flowers, which suggests you are talking to a reseller rather than a florist.
• A website with no contact page, or a contact form only with no phone number.
• And a feeling that something is off. People who lose money to this almost always say afterwards that something felt wrong and they proceeded anyway.

What to do if it goes wrong

If you have paid and nothing arrived, or what arrived was not what you bought, here is the order of actions.

Contact the seller first, in writing, the same day. Keep it factual. Give them a chance to fix it, because legitimate businesses do make mistakes and most will remake or refund without argument.

Gather your evidence while it is fresh. Screenshots of the conversation, the payment receipt, the advertisement or photograph of what you ordered, and a photograph of what arrived, taken on the day.

If payment was by card, contact your bank about a chargeback. There are time limits, so do it early rather than after weeks of chasing.

If it was a bank transfer within Nigeria, report it to your bank. Transfers are harder to reverse than card payments but the account can be flagged.

Leave an honest, factual review. Not an angry one, a specific one with dates. This is the thing that actually protects the next buyer, and almost nobody does it.

If a Nigerian business takes your money and does not deliver, you are not without recourse. The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission is the federal regulator for consumer protection under the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2018, and it operates a complaints portal where you can file and track a complaint against a business. Most people never use it, which is part of why bad sellers keep operating.

Then escalate formally if the amount justifies it, which the section above explains. Report the account to the platform too, whether that is Instagram or a marketplace, since repeated reports are what eventually remove a seller.

How to buy safely from abroad specifically

Diaspora buyers carry the most risk because they cannot visit, cannot send a relative easily, and are often ordering in a hurry around an occasion.

Order direct from a Lagos florist rather than through an international relay site. The relay takes a margin and a currency spread and passes a reduced instruction to a local florist you never speak to, so you pay more and have less control over what is made.

Have the conversation on WhatsApp before paying. A voice note or a short call removes most doubt in under a minute.

Pay by card or payment link rather than international transfer where possible, because a card gives you a chargeback route.

Give a Nigerian phone number for the recipient. A UK or US number is useless to a rider standing at a gate.

Ask for the delivery photograph as a condition, stated before payment.

Start with a modest first order if the occasion allows. A N45,000 bouquet that arrives properly, with a photograph, tells you everything you need before you spend N300,000 at Christmas.

And ask the diaspora network. Those forum threads asking which florists are real exist because people answer them. Somebody in your family or your church has sent flowers to Lagos recently.

Apply this to us

It would be dishonest to publish a checklist and exempt ourselves from it, so here is how to run it on Lovebug Florist.

Message the number on our site on WhatsApp and see whether a person answers.

Ask for our physical address and go, or send somebody.

Look at our Google Business Profile and check whether the reviews accumulated over time or arrived in a cluster.

Ask us what came in on this week’s freight and judge whether the answer sounds like somebody who handles flowers.

Ask whether we send a delivery photograph. The answer is yes, on every order, and you should hold us to it.

Confirm that any account we give you is in the business name.

And if we ever fail one of these, do not buy from us. A checklist that exists to make you trust the person who wrote it is not a checklist, it is marketing. This one is meant to be used against everybody, which is the only way it is worth anything.

Checking a florist from abroad specifically

The diaspora buyer cannot walk in, which removes the strongest check available, so the substitutes matter more.

Use a relative or a friend in Lagos as your eyes. Ask them to ring the number or stop by the address. Most people have somebody who can do this in ten minutes, and almost nobody asks.

Use a video call. Ask the florist to show you the shop on WhatsApp video before you pay a large amount. A real business will, and the request is not unreasonable for a significant order.

Check the Google Business Profile photographs, specifically the ones uploaded by customers rather than by the business. Those are much harder to fake and they show the actual shop.

Look at how long the domain has existed. A site registered three weeks ago selling Valentine’s flowers is worth a second look.

Pay by card rather than international transfer wherever the option exists, because a card gives you a chargeback route and a transfer gives you almost nothing.

And test with a small order first if the calendar allows. A N45,000 bouquet to a relative, with a delivery photograph, is the cheapest due diligence available and it settles the question permanently.

Why we would rather you checked

A closing note on motive, since a guide like this invites the question.

A buyer who has checked carefully is a better customer than one who ordered on impulse. They know what they are paying for, they understand why the floor price is where it is, and they do not assume a florist is overcharging because flowers are expensive here.

A market where buyers check is also a market where bad sellers struggle, and bad sellers damage everybody. Every person who loses sixty thousand naira to a fake account is a person who tells five friends that ordering flowers online in Nigeria is a gamble.

The trade here is small enough that reputation is the whole business. We would rather compete on whether the flowers are good than on who looks most convincing on Instagram.

So run the checks. On us, on everybody. The florists who deserve your money will pass them without hesitating, and the ones who hesitate have answered the question.