14 June 2020
Flowers bring a lot of bright emotions and positive energy to our life.Those who do business on them, can also have a good income. We are not guessing on daisy "will take off – will not take off", let's just figure out together with experts how to grow a business on the sale of flowers.
The flower business attracts many entrepreneurs because sometimes the markup on such goods is up to 300%, but the risk to go bankrupt is high – flowers are quite perishable goods and they need specific supervision and care.
So, where to start if you still decide to do a floral business?
Legal entities registration
To start working on your own business, you must register as an individual entrepreneur or open an LLC.
Next, you need to choose a convenient tax regime for yourself. You will have to choose the tax regime yourself since they are different for each region and you need to make calculations.
You don't need a license in this business, but an online cash register is something you can't do without.
Rental of premises
One of the most important success criteria for a flower point is its location. Here, the important role is played by traffic, as well as premises and buildings near your future point.
There are four formats for opening a flower shop:
Small flower pavilion
Such small flower tents are usually opened near the metro, transport stops, and if you choose the right place, there are quite a lot of buyers.
The disadvantage in this format is a narrow range, as well as limited space: flowers are quite fragile and capricious goods and they need special and sometimes expensive equipment. But about this you can read below.
Flower shop at the shopping mall
Renting a retail space for flowers in a popular shopping mall will allow you to open a flower point as profitably as possible. Utility problems, fire protection, sanitary and epidemiological service, here the landlord takes care of everything. And he also deals with attracting traffic to the shopping mall.
A big advantage when opening a flower shop in a shopping mall can be the factor of combining several businesses in one place.
So, now it has become fashionable to combine flowers and coffee. This will not only set you apart from your competitors, but also add at least another 20% to your flower sales turnover. While the florist is collecting the bouquet, the guest can have a cup of coffee or take it with them to take away. But it's not all that simple, in addition to the cost of equipment for flowers, you will still have to spend on equipment for coffee. We recently wrote about how to make money on coffee here.
Online flower shop
The rhythm of big cities has made the flower delivery service quite popular. For many flower shops, online delivery brings up to 40% of revenue and allows you to save on expensive rentals in places where people are most crowded. Just like an additional sales channel, florists use aggregator websites for delivering bouquets, although the Commission for their services will still have to be included in costs.
As a result, working via the Internet brings additional expenses to entrepreneurs: for website development, promotion and advertising, and delivery service.
By the way, the selection of the courier should be approached as carefully as the selection of the florist. It is important for the client in what condition the bouquet will reach him, and the appearance of the courier plays an important role. Especially, now the delivery of a bouquet directly to the event is quite popular on the market.
Flower online store is most often combined with delivery of balloons and other attributes for decorating holidays.
Salon-boutique of flowers and floristics
The difference between a boutique salon and just a flower shop is that often experienced florists with diplomas work there. They select compositions with great elegance and taste. Besides, such salons offer a more interesting assortment: exotic types of flowers and plants, compositions made up not only of flowers and plants but supplemented with exclusive decor, landscape, and phytodesign services.
Such a salon requires a fairly solid investment: expensive equipment, charming interior, investment in promotion, and established relationships with suppliers.
You need to understand that such a salon is unlikely to go for a bouquet of 25 roses at a special price because customers of such flower salons-boutiques are not interested in the price, they need an individual approach and exclusivity.
Выбор торгового оборудования
We have already written above that flowers are a fragile product that requires special care and often special equipment. Therefore, when opening a flower business, a significant part of the cost will go to the purchase of a refrigerator for storing flowers. Its size plays an important role here, since not all standard refrigerators are suitable for a small room, and its temperature properties. Small fluctuations in temperature can ruin the entire product.
We wrote more about how to choose commercial refrigeration equipment here.
The florist selection
Recruiting staff to work in the flower business is the key to success. It is an experienced florist who knows how to properly care for and "reanimate" flowers in time, make designer bouquets and compositions, correctly design and select plants for events that will bring you profit.
But the cost of such a specialist is quite high – florists-designers with a large portfolio expect a decent salary. It is also worth considering that florists are creative people and they need a favorable environment. Your revenue will depend directly on this.
Purchasing a product
The Russian flower market is well represented by products from countries such as Russia, Ecuador, the Netherlands, Colombia, and Kenya.
Before the sanctions were imposed, the Netherlands imported up to 40% of all flowers into the country. After the ban, there were no fewer Dutch tulips in flower stalls. No one can cancel the "grey schemes" and the banned products are repackaged and imported under the guise of Italian or Belarusian flowers.
Nevertheless, due to all the manipulations, the share of flower imports to Russia continues to fall, and the prices of imported flowers are jumping significantly.
Источник: РБК, 2017 год
Nevertheless, due to all the manipulations, the share of flower imports to Russia continues to fall, and the prices of imported flowers are jumping significantly.
However, Russian producers against the background of rising prices of imported flowers did not lose their grip. Many began to grow well-known European varieties, thereby saving themselves from having to pay the royalty for growing and meeting the quality standards of such varieties. And here a completely different picture is already emerging: the export of such homegrown flowers from Russia has grown quite significantly in recent years.
Amidst the battles in the Russian market, an entrepreneur who has decided to start a flower business should carefully choose the supplier. It is important not to be limited to one counterparty, otherwise, in the case of force majeure, you risk losing profit. And the costs of the premises and the salary of the florist will not be canceled by anyone.
Opening and full operation of the flower shop
If you decide to do business on flowers, we want to show you on the infographic what investments you will need.
When the flower business is up: work with suppliers is established, a competent florist makes beautiful bouquets, there is stable traffic of customers, the business begins to pay for itself, it seems that you can sit down, relax and make a profit. But this was not the case – in the flower business, beauty, inspiration and distraction are only the visible part, but it is based on a business approach with a clear calculation of what, where, how much and how.
The product has its own fashion and seasonal and festive fluctuations in demand. In order to catch trends in time (growth or decline of requests for certain flowers or their compositions), as well as plan and manage costs and profits, and avoid cash gaps, it is important to correctly automate and track the business.
What should I do next?
The market is changing, in the digital age, the customer is becoming more and more pretentious. So ordinary bouquet of just the same 25 roses is already regarded as a mouveton. It is important to track changes and sales for each flower position, the dynamics of the number of receipts and its average value, so that you can catch variations in customer demand in time and make the right management decision.
The JoinPAY Smart Cash Register makes it easier for the flower shop owner to work!
In real time, an entrepreneur can see a report on revenue, profit, changes in the purchase price, monitor their employees and keep a full inventory not only at one point, but also throughout the network of their flower salons.
Do not delay the automation of your business for a "rainy day", buy a JoinPAY Smart Cash Register now. Increase your revenue by up to 20% by optimizing purchases, monitoring store performance, and providing up-to-date analytics at the current time.