Meg’s Flowers Pty Ltd is an online business. The company admitted that it had breached the Australian Consumer Law by making false or misleading representations that it was a local florist located in each of the towns, suburbs or localities referred to in 156 websites and in 7,462 Google advertisements.

In fact, Meg’s Flowers did not directly maintain any local shopfronts accessible to customers. Orders placed with Meg’s Flowers were fulfilled from any one of 11 Meg’s Flowers premises, or, in some instances, by subcontractors.

How is this a problem, one has to ask and the ACCC's answer it that "by making misleading claims about the location of the florists, Meg’s Flowers denied some consumers the opportunity to make an informed decision to support a local business, and likely denied truly local businesses the opportunity to make a sale to those consumers."

The Court also ordered that Meg’s Flowers establish a compliance program, publish a corrective notice on its website, and contribute to the ACCC’s costs.

Meg’s Flowers made admissions and agreed to make joint submissions to the Court with the ACCC on the appropriate penalty and other orders.

Meg’s Flowers is an online retailer owned by Flowerscorp Pty Ltd that receives customer orders for floral and other gift products through its location-based websites and/or via its Brisbane-based call centre. It does not maintain local shopfronts.

Flowerscorp fulfills orders Australia-wide for its network of subsidiaries through its corporate warehouses and through several independent florists.

Early in 2022, the ACCC put the online florist industry on notice about its concerns about reports of false or misleading representations about the location of online florists and issued some recommendations to consumers.

Later in December 2022, United Florists Pty Ltd trading as Lily’s Florist and Elysium Marketing Pty Ltd, provided the ACCC with a court-enforceable undertaking in relation to misleading representations that Lily’s Florist was a local florist. In addition, florist Fig & Bloom Pty Ltd has removed potentially misleading representations from 940 web pages that may have given the impression that it was a local business in a specific suburb.

In May 2023, the ACCC commenced proceedings against Meg’s Flowers for allegedly making false or misleading representations that it was a local florist.

In March 2024, online florist Bloomex was ordered to pay $1 million in penalties after admitting it had breached the Australian Consumer Law by making false and misleading online star ratings and price representations on its website.

One question remains: what about Interflora-style services? Are they safe from criticism because they don't use the word "local" in their advertising? As Meg's seems to have had arrangements with local suppliers for fulfilment, is this a distinction without a difference?

Can a national insurance company say it's "your local insurer" when it has a network of independent sales agents with a defined area?

On the face of it, this is not an important case but under the surface, the implications across the entire range of advertising are significant .