Tweet

How to Start a Floral Shop 1-2-3

Written by: Sue Barrett

Article Overview: Do you want to know more about starting a floral business? Use these start-up strategies and creative business tips to successfully take your unique ideas and turn them into a money-making operation.

How to Start a Floral Shop 1-2-3

Floral arrangements and delivery service is in demand year round. I guess you could say they are seasonal products for all seasons. This makes floral design a profitable business to get into. Yet, if you don't have the funds or desire to open a shop, but still like working with plants and have a creative flair, you have options. You even can work out of your home!

For example, you could offer a floral arranging service for flower shops, grow the flowers at home selling to stores or produce and sell floral arrangement accessories such as vases, cards or other trimmings. If you decide not to have a storefront, you may be able to cheaply lease outdoor space in a popular downtown area with lots of traffic. You can also work from home. With a delivery service, you can easily operate out of your house with a vehicle. To get started, you'll need the items used to create your arrangements and a few basic tools.

With events and holidays happening throughout the year, the opportunities to make money are all around you. You can work with individuals to provide arrangements for holidays, birthdays, special events like weddings and graduations, etc. In addition, you can look for longer-term contracts with churches, hotels, restaurants and other businesses who need flowers delivered or arranged on a regular basis. These clients can provide a more stable and consistent income flow. It's also an easy way to showcase your designs to other prospective flower-buyers (for free!).

As a floral designer, you can charge a certain hourly rate, and also have established prices for certain arrangements or orders that clients place. What you charge will depend on how much you pay for your wholesale supplies and also what other flower shops are charging, so you can stay competitive with the market yet still remain profitable.

Finding customers: Whether you are working from home or out of a shop, start with people who know and trust you. Offer special discounts for free flowers in exchange for referrals, and you'll be surprised at how your prospect list will grow. If you really want to make a statement, create mini-arrangements and deliver them free-of-charge to local businesses you think could be interested your service (i.e. wedding planners, funeral homes, party supply stores). Attach a business card with a simple brochure of your services and rates. Make sure you include a coupon or special introductory price to have them like you even more. Don't forget the advertising opportunities you have in the yellow pages, local newspapers and radio stations

Donating a flower arrangement for a large event is another inexpensive way to get your business name out there - in front of lots of people. Submitting a press release is a great example - the media will promote you for free if you send them a great news story about your business. This could be as simple is having your friend write a review about your "Store Opening" and sending it to your local paper.

So how do you actually start your floral business?

1.Learn your business. If you don't have experience arranging flowers, get some! Take a flower arranging class, learn about plants - you want to know a lot more about your product than your customer does. Get an inexpensive start-up guide on how to start afloral business orinterview a floral designer or flower shop owner who can give you helpful advice.

2.Find out who your customers are. Who is buying flowers in your community - and what for? What extra service can you provide that they are not already getting, and how much is it worth to your potential customers (what are they willing to pay)? What are other flower shops charging for their designs? As long as you offer more value (i.e. unique products, faster service, weekend or evening hours, etc), you don't necessarily need the lowest price to gain market share.

3.Find out which licenses or permits you need from your local government office. Talk with an accountant, insurance agent and banker (you can get referrals from other local business owners or friends) to get helpful tips on financing, tax issues, insurance and business management that will save you time, money and hassles in the long run.

Get Started!

Owning a floral business can be very rewarding. Working directly with customers will help you learn the ropes faster and grow your company. Use your creativity to offer a truly unique service that you really enjoy - after all, it's YOUR business.

Related Articles
  What Would You Do If You Were Brave?
  Claim Your Niche Market for Guaranteed Business Growth
  Aromatherapy - The Best Scent for Relieving Stress
  How to Create Search Engine Friendly Title and META Tags (Part 2)
  Choosing the Business That is Right for You

Article Tags: floral business, floral design business, floral shop, flower business, flower company, flower shop, sell flowers, start a floral business



Related Forum Posts
New Women Entrepreneurs to Profile - Thanks Mikki! We've got Madam C.J. Walker on the list as well as Anita Roddick (The Body Shop), Mary Kay Ash, and Ruth Handler (Mattel). I'm not too familiar with the Debbie Fields story - what do you know about it? Sheldon, Are you connected with these two companies? What can you tell me about them?
Re: Should you hire ambitious workers or employees with no goals - According to Guy Kawasaki, he says "you should only hire and keep people that you'd hustle over to and engage in a conversation...Life is too short to work with people you don't naturally like-especially in a young, small organization" ("The Art of the Start" pg 112). I think the reverse is also true and I wouldn't want to work for anyone I didn't like or want to talk to if I saw him/her outside of the office. In addition, Kawasaki also says "Steve Jobs has a saying that A players hire A players; B players hire C players; and C players hire D players...This trickle-down effect causes bozo explosions in companies. If there is one thing a CEO must do, it's hire a management team that is better than he is" ("The Art of the Start" pg 101). Kawasaki's quote is definitely in favor of hiring the ambitious worker, but do most CEO's even have the humility to admit that someone is better than them?
Canadian Entrepreneurs - Hi Evan, I think you should profile Anita from the Body Shop. Is she Canadian? It would be nice to get a Canadian perspective for all of us who are starting businesses in Canada. Do you find th stories of the entrepreneurs vary depending on country? Thanks for all these great stories - it helps inspire us! Jessica
Re: How can I promote my site? - To promote website online you need to hire professional SEO expert because you have to perform the below activities for your website promotion:- Start On page optimization which includes the following task:- 1. Meta tag optimization 2. Header Tag Optimization 3. Alt tag Optimization 4. Content Optimization 5. Anchor Text Optimization 6. URL Optimization 7. Navigation Optimization After On page optimization, Start off Page Optimization which includes the following task:- 1. Link building 2. Directory submission 3. Classified Ads submission 4. Article submission 5. Press Release submission 6. Social Bookmarking 7. Business Listing 8. Local Listing 9. Blog Optimization 10. PPT Creation & Optimization
Re: Alexa Ranking Goals - Hi Evan, Thank you! I have been upgrading my websites to Wordpress and more actively adding content to them. The only exception is the one decliner, Japanese-Mahjong.com which I hope to upgrade and revive early next year... New Alexa ranking objectives: Japanese-Games-Shop: 350,000 Free-Wordpress-Websites: 120,000


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

A Guide to Franchise Financing

Executives and Elevators Perfecting That Pitch

What I Really Want Is...

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.