Valentine's Day: Tips on buying chocolates, flowers and more

Still can't decide what to get for that special someone? With Valentine's Day just around the corner, time is quickly running out. Fortunately, there are plenty of options available, from premium chocolates, to flowers, to tiny electronic baubles. Some of our top picks: 

Chocolates
Our expert taste-testers checked out a range of chocolates, from Target's Choxie brand to French import La Maison du Chocolat. The results? While we can't divulge our full Ratings here (though you can look them up if you're a subscriber to ConsumerReports.org), we can tell you that our Quick Recommendations include sweets from Candinas, La Maison du Chocolat, Jacques Torre and Norman Love Confections (all rated Excellent). Looking for a bargain? Stay away from supermarket mainstays Hershey's, Russell Stover and Whitman's. Our tasters found offerings from these brands to be "quite sweet, not very chocolaty, [with] artificial flavors." One budget brand did make the cut, though: See's, the West Coast company known for its retro stores (not to mention its famous sugar daddy, Warren Buffet), got a Very Good rating, on par with more upscale mass-market brands such as Godiva and Leonidas. See's was also ranked a Best Buy, thanks to its price of about $14 for a one-pound assortment. As for Target's offering, our tasters ranked them as Good, on par with the supermarket brands. 

More from ConsumerReports.org: 

• Dandy candy (free) 
• Quick Recommendations (subscribers only) 
• Ratings (subscribers only)

Flowers
We've reviewed a number of online florists over the past several years, and have come across some good deals — along with some reliability problems. In our latest report, for example, we placed several orders with Jungle Roses. In one case, we ordered pink roses, and received a box with red ones. In another, we ordered red roses, and received yellow ones. ProFlowers, on the other hand, was more reliable, had better quality flowers, and, at $40 a dozen, vs. $128 at Jungle Roses, was significantly cheaper as well. In an earlier report by Consumer Reports Money Adviser newsletter, Hallmark.com got high marks for both value and for delivering flowers that actually looked like those that were pictured online. However, FTD.com delivered the nicest bouquet. Our recommendation: Since many of the online florists — including FTD.com, 1800Flowers.com and Teleflora.com — fulfill their orders through local stores, you may be better off working directly with a reliable local florist. That way, you'll know exactly what you're getting. However, if you're ordering for a long-distance lover, the services that use a central packager (Hallmark.com and ProFlowers.com) may provide a more predictable — if less creatively arranged — result.

More from ConsumerReports.org:

• Mail-order flowers (free) 
• Keeping flowers fresh (subscribers only)

Other

If you want to give a gift that goes beyond the traditional chocolates and flowers, here are some ideas from recent reports:

• Wine - We reviewed 14 zinfandels and 22 chardonnays last December. You can find some of our top picks here. 
• iPods - Apple's latest iPod shuffle now comes in hot colors, and can be engraved with a short love note. We liked the shuffle's diminutive size, handy clip and simple controls. 
• Food Baskets - We liked the offerings from several mail-order food companies, many of which include fruits, cheeses and sweets. Order one, and invite your paramour to a private Valentine's Day picnic.

— Marc Perton

Woot makes bargain-hunting fun again

We have a regular feature in CR called "Selling It," where we highlight the "goofs, glitches & gotchas" of the marketing world. Some are misleading ads, some are bizarre typos, and some are scratch-your-head oddities that you couldn't make up if you tried. At least I couldn't. But the copywriters at Woot manage to come up with insane marketing pitches on a daily basis. The site's concept is so simple as to be utterly mundane: Woot is basically a liquidator that sells one product each day until it's sold out. Some days the product for sale is actually useful, like the 4GB pocket USB drive sold last week. Sometimes, it's a random "Bag O' Crap" (yes, that's exactly what it's called). And sometimes it's a 10-pack of outdated computer keyboards, as the site featured earlier today. Regardless of the product for sale, Woot manages to pitch it in a way that is both refreshingly honest and laugh-out-loud funny. Take today's keyboard pitch:

Right now you’re probably wondering, “What in the name of Christopher Sholes would I want with ten Kensington 64362 Keyboards?” We’ll grant that it’s a legitimate question. Unless you’re running some sort of rest home for retired PCs, your household’s need for PS/2 keyboards probably maxes out at one (maybe two or three, if you’re prone to destroying your computer peripherals in fits of Bag O’ Crap-induced rage). So we understand why you’d wonder.

But here’s an even better question: what are we supposed to do with hundreds of these Godforsaken things? If ten seems useless and excessive, what about five hundred? A thousand? And every one takes up crucial warehouse space that could be occupied by more exciting electronic gizmahickeys. We know we don’t want them. But you people are weird, so maybe you might.

Where else would you find a sales pitch that insults both seller and customer — and invokes the memory of typewriter pioneer Christopher Sholes (yes, I had to look it up on Wikipedia, too). The best part: Woot sold all of its keyboards, at a bargain-basement price of $17.99 (that's right: $17.99 for ten keyboards). Presumably, some were sold to other liquidators, who will mark the price up to $4.00 a keyboard and make a profit (if they're actually able to sell them). And some were likely sold to distributors who resell older PCs to consumers in the developing world. But it's a safe bet that at least some were sold to buyers who were taken in by the marketing copy and laughed so hard that they couldn't resist clicking on the "I want one" button. And the owners of Woot are, no doubt, laughing all the way to the bank.

— Marc Perton

Let the "Harry Potter" price war begin!

No sooner did J.K. Rowling announce that the seventh and final Harry Potter book would be released on July 21 than I received two emails in quick succession, offering me a chance to pre-order the book: one from Barnes & Noble, for $20.99, or 40 percent off of the book's list price; and one from Amazon.com, with a price tag of $18.99, or 46 percent off. The fact that the price war over the book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," has started a half year before its release should come as no surprise to fans of the series. Back in 2005, when volume 6, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," came out, rampant discounting — much of it from non-traditional retailers like supermarkets and drugstores — forced some booksellers to treat the book as a loss-leader and hope to make up the lost profits on sales of other products. This time around, the question for Potter-mad readers is whether to pre-order now or wait around for even deeper discounts. While we can't predict the future, our most recent bookstore report did determine that Amazon.com's prices are hard to beat; our test "basket" of 23 books came to $360 at Amazon vs. $456 at bn.com. And Amazon is already offering a low-price guarantee on "Deathly Hallows." However, that might not be reason enough to pre-order: when "Half-Blood Prince" was released, some retailers offered additional discounts on other books — even those purchased after the Harry Potter book — to encourage repeat business. Then again, if you absolutely must have "Deathly Hallows" on July 21, Amazon could be your best bet (unless you like standing in line at midnight). Last time around, the company guaranteed release-day delivery to customers who pre-ordered, and managed to fulfill "hundreds of thousands" of orders on July 16, 2005. While Amazon has yet to make a similar offer for "Deathly Hallows" customers,  Amazon.co.uk has already announced a July 21 guarantee, so it seems likely that the company will find enough extra floo powder to get some copies out early on this side of the pond as well.

— Marc Perton