I also had a bad experience with Avasflowers. It was around Christmas 2.5 years ago and girlfriend got the flu. She didn't want me near her and I understood, but I wanted to have flowers delivered to her, at least. It was to be a surprise.
I had not had flowers delivered in years, and Avas seemed like a legitimate business based on reviews.

So, first they couldn't find her house, or so they claimed.
Then, I thought, well, I'll have them delivered to me personally, and I'll just place them at her doorstep so I won't be exposed to the flu. Well, that also didn't work.
At this point I was very frustrated, and just asked for a refund. They really didn't want to do that, offered to deliver a different day, a partial refund, a discount on later orders, etc.
After calling them several times and rationally explaining the entire chain of events, they gave me a full refund. Which actually really surprised me.
So I did get the refund.
To this day, I don't know exactly what local florist the flowers would have been delivered from. It was very vague. I believe it was ordered thru some clearinghouse, which in turn went to a national florist network, which in turn went to some unnamed local florist.
So I definitely do NOT recommend Avasflowers.