By Gladys Mae
Gladys serves as the General Manager and Head of Student Services at the International Career Institute.
Floral organising and styling is fun as it allows you to express your creativity. But starting your own business as a florist is even more exciting as you can work with flowers and bring happiness to people’s lives every day. What’s more, a floristry business can be profitable if the right steps are taken. With this in mind, these tips can help you build a successful florist business.
There’s more to owning a floristry than just choosing and organising flowers. As the business owner, you’ll have to:
Here are the skills you’ll need as a florist business owner:
You can learn floristry and general business skills by undertaking a Floristry course.
Knowing the pros and cons can help you prepare for the highs and lows of running a floristry business.
Pros
Cons
You can get more people to come to your flower shop if you set it up in an area with high foot traffic, such as near a train station or close to grocery stores. Alternatively, you can set up your business in an area with high car traffic and lots of free parking.
As for your storefront, it should be suitable for business. You’ll firstly need to make sure it’s legally compliant and meets the relevant government regulations. Apart from this, it’s also important that your storefront is enticing to enter for customers, and easy for suppliers to drop off material. Finally, your storefront needs to be connected to electricity for online orders and electronic payments, and connected to water so you’re able to easily water the flowers.
People buy flowers for a number of reasons, for example for a loved love, decorations at home, an event, a workplace, or even on a whim. Customers can be young or old, but the people who’ll be buying from you depends on where you set up your business. Do a bit of research into the neighbourhood and its demographic to determine what kind of flowers you should sell and what their prices should be.
Also check if there are other flower shops in the area. Consider their flower designs and arrangements, their offerings, and their tone, look, and feel. Try to differentiate your business by selling flowers with unique designs and arrangements, or offering flowers that aren’t available in the other stores.
If you don’t have enough savings, you’ll need a business loan of about $10,000 to $50,000 to start your floristry business. This amount will help pay for the storefront and fit-outs, where a fit-out could cost you $15,000.
You will likely also have to pay for the following:
Getting a business loan can involve a lot of paperwork and dealing with solicitors and banking staff for several months, so be patient – it will be worth it.
Marketing your business can help you attract more customers to both your brick-and-mortar store and your online store, as well as boost your annual revenue. Offering special promotions is an easy way to entice people to visit your store and may result in word-of-mouth marketing for your business.
When you set up your business, you should consider creating Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook accounts to display photos of your flowers and storefront. You can use location tags in the posts that you make on these platforms so people know where your storefront is. You should also develop a website for your business to so that people can also buy your flowers online, and create content that is engaging and will drive traffic to your website.
Starting your business with a proper education in floristry will help to ensure you’re successful. Plus, the more effort you put into your floristry business, the higher your chance of success. This includes having fun and using your creative talents to your advantage.
Interested? Check out the International Career Institute’s Floristry course and enrol today!
Floral organising and styling is fun as it allows you to express your creativity. But starting your own business as a florist is even more exciting as you can work with flowers and bring happiness to people’s lives every day. What’s more, a floristry business can be profitable if the right steps are taken. With this in mind, these tips can help you build a successful florist business.