Table of Contents
If your dream is to grow plants, you live in the UK, and you intend to open a physical plant shop but are not getting the right direction, then keep reading our article.
Green-dense leaves give our mind peace and we plan the future with them. If you can support your family through your passion for plants and want to establish one in the UK, then you should go ahead and implement the idea of opening a plant shop.
Since the fall of 2020, when everyone was confined to their homes due to COVID-19, they have been turning to plants and indoor plants to use their time at home. Since then, the demand for houseplants has been growing at an even more intense rate, increasing every year until now. By capitalizing on this demand and doing proper research, many online and offline stores have been established.
In this article, we will discuss in detail how correct and rational the thought of investing in a plant store is at this moment.
If you have a long-time experience with houseplants, you can generate a good amount of profit every month by selling plants in the local area. If you want to have a physical store, you can increase the number of potential customers and increase the profit ratio.
Retail vs. Local Seller
Retailer businesses are developed quite differently from local area sellers. Large investments and areas are dealt with here. It is possible to meet the internal needs of the country not only in terms of manpower but also the needs in specific areas. A local plant seller or an online seller can run the operation from the comfort of their own home, but not in the case of a retail plant shop.
Here, teamwork is seen, and manpower is needed day by day as the business grows. Retail plant sellers deal with all types of plant accessories and home decor items, while local sellers sell plant extras in their homes.
Business Plan
First of all, you have to open a physical store, and you have to do proper planning for your business to be successful in order and marketing. You have to move forward along that planning roadmap and achieve success step by step.
Who will you buy trees from, and who will be your customers?
Why do you think potential clients should buy from you rather than your competitors?
Are you ready to offer some advantages to the customers?
How is your experience and business policy going to be, what are the profits and expenses?
After a year, what is the objective of your business and position in the market as a whole?
By doing this, you will easily understand what activities you need to do in your plant store and when you will and will not do these activities. You can learn more about how your plant business model is going to be.
Business planning can help you with your funding later, increase work progress, and manage properly.
Identify your risk factors in your business plan. You don’t skimp on planning. You don’t just aim to make money with your business, but you should also focus on how to take your business to the top and build a loyal customer base in addition to making money. It is recognized and not unknown that a business map contributes to the success of a company.
Register Your Business
If you want to open a physical plant store or retail store in America, you need to register your business. Your location plays an important role in registering your business. It can be seen that there are different rules and regulations in each state of America. There are no restrictions on opening your small online plant shop, but you have to go through many different legal documents and processes to open that shop in other places.
If you want to open your plant store in Florida, then your task is to contact an attorney in that area, or you can directly visit the legal website to get the rules and documents there. It is best to contact a lawyer who can inform you about the documents or who can help you obtain the documents.
Taxes and Permits:
- LLC
- EIN
- IRS
Plant Shop Name
Once your documentation is ready you can start searching for your business name. Choose a name that is simple, catchy, and memorable. You can follow others to select the name. Analyse the names that your closest competitors are using. Remember that the more distinctive your business name is, the easier it will be for people to remember. You can take the help of Chat GPT to select a name, or you can take the help of social media. Ask them to suggest names by posting in any public group, and you’ll gift a few dollars to the person whose suggestion is selected. This method allows you to select the name of your plant shop.
Retail Shop Location
Opening a small shop in America can require a lot of research. Determine a location space of 1,000-5,000 square feet for your plant shop. Spaces are rented on a per-square-foot basis. You can get a place in popular areas with high rent or a little bit away from the city at a low rate, but you have to keep in mind that you will be doing business here.
You need to look for a place where there is a lot of traffic, and you should also think about the ease of parking. It gets worse when people are near walking paths. Even non-gardeners can walk in and become your customers. An essential factor in the growing popularity of a plant business is location. A good location can increase the sales of your business. You can follow newspapers to search for locations where space rental campaigns are run.
Plant Store Design and Display
Now that you have the location of your dream plant store, your next task is to focus on organizing your store. Arrange the location to your heart’s content. You can talk to a designer or decorating company to get details on how you want your space to look. After doing this, your efforts and time will be saved. Where should you place the plants in your location, what kind of grow lights should you install, which side should the counter and table be on, and so on?
You can keep your shelf or separate space for plants and other accessories, and you can design the product or category names separately on the wall.
You can design your business name in large size on the wall behind your counter table. It will be noticed by the customer. Display your plant shop in a way that will make customers want to walk in. Your clients’ attention is going to be attracted by this.
Don’t forget to put a large signboard on the main entrance door outside the store so that your store is noticed even from far away.
Keeping Greenhouses in Plant Stores
Try having a small greenhouse in your plant centre so you can grow seedlings there. You need to have your plant production system because when you are opening a store, you need to keep a large number of plants in stock and take advantage of offers that will appear at some point. You have to develop your plant store with all kinds of customers in mind.
Store Plant Care and Routine
You need to take care of the plants in your store because they require a certain amount of care. Do not give any unhealthy or insect-infested plants to customers. Remove unhealthy plants from your greenhouse and make them fit for sale. Have the staff at your plant store develop a specific weekly routine to take care of the plants. Check plants throughout the store 2-3 days a week, fill in empty spaces on shelves with plants, remove dead leaves, and spray plant leaves.
Once your store is decorated, it’s time to choose plants and think about other products.
Suppliers
First of all, it is essential to choose an honest provider for your plant business. The stronger your supply chain and the faster and cheaper you can get plants into your stock, the higher your market dominance and sales profit rate will be. Your product may be out of stock within hours of being stocked, and if your supply chain cannot get the product or plants to you quickly enough, you may miss out on the sales you hoped for.
Product Stocking
Now it’s your turn to organize your store. You start stocking the plants now. But where do you find the plants? Or how do you get low-priced trendy plants?
Plant Selection Process
First, you start doing market research. Follow your competitors around your US location. Go to their websites, open an Excel sheet, and list what plants they are selling. Keep checking 5-10 shops or online shops in your area to mark plants that are out of stock first, so you can understand which plants customers in your area are buying and which sellers can sell them quickly. When you look at the 5-10-15 websites’ plant collections and out-of-stock tree lists, you’ll get an idea of plants, which customers in your area are currently purchasing. This list changes by the time. After a few days, new plants are added to the trend. You need to focus on analysis to bring the right plants into stock. This allows you to keep the right plants in your plant store. You can also follow Facebook groups, Reddit, and Instagram for research. These groups will give you an idea of what plants customers are looking for in your area and what prices they are selling for.
Visit Local Markets
Visit the local markets in your area to get an idea of what plants are being sold there. List them and take some time to observe the steps and prices of the plants selected by the customers. You will have a clear idea of how to move your business forward and reduce the tendency to stock the wrong plants.
Buying from Local Sellers or Online Sellers
In your plant business, you need to be prudent and keep your eyes open in all directions. Connect with local sellers in your area or those who sell plants online, and try to purchase the plants they have in stock at a low price.
You can find local growers in your area on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, email them, and offer to buy all their plants. Local sellers may be willing to sell their plants together at a lower price than nurseries or importers.
Another benefit is that when your local sellers are selling all their suitable plants to you, customers will not be able to find them elsewhere and will be more likely to buy from you.
Establishing a Relationship with the Nursery
You need to establish good relationships with nurseries in your area and outside of your area. The benefits are endless. When they stock new plants or gardening products for wholesale, you can buy from them. This only becomes a reality when you have a good relationship with the nursery owners and good dealings with them. They will introduce you to new products first, and you can try to buy all the trendy plants wholesale from them at a low price. As a result, your plant stock will be better than your competitors, and you will be able to profit by selling at a slightly higher rate.
Plant Accessories and Other Category add
It is not the case that you will only sell plants in your store. Yes, you will sell plants, but your objective should be to sell plant-related products as well. Customers in your area may be looking for plant accessories and related products that are a little different to give as gifts. If you keep these in stock, your customers will be more likely to purchase from you, and when they visit your store, they can buy other items too. When you open a plant store, you have to think differently.
Other items you may include are:
- Soil: potting soil, cactus soil, terrarium soil, substrate, orchid mix, etc.
- Pots: Ceramic, Plastic, Terracotta, Clay
- Seasonal Seeds
- Terrariums
- Home decor items: tree tables, shelves, glass globes, kitchen decor items, mini bookshelves, hanging baskets, mats, etc.
- Gift items
- Gardening-related books
- Fertilizers, insecticides, and plant food
- Watering cans, misters, sprays, pipes
- Hydroponic systems, hydroculture grow pots
You can easily add hundreds more items if you do market research.
Visit Amazon and search for gardening items. You’ll find thousands of items to choose from and you can also visit local plant sellers and online shops in your area or your competitors’ sites to get an idea of what they’re selling.
POS System
Don’t forget to add a POS system to your counter table to keep track of your plant centre’s sales and expenses.
Add software to it, and it’s easy to keep track of your accounts offline, online, on Amazon, or other platforms. Integrating, maintaining, and managing your entire business account will also save time. Even if you have more than one store, you can connect them and calculate the accounts. You can collect emails from customers through the POS system, run your business promotion campaign, and stay connected with customers.
Business Bank Account
You should not transact your business money through your personal bank account. You will transact all the money of your plant store through the bank account, which will be the business account. You will also enjoy special benefits on business accounts. The banks set the annual transaction amount, your next loan, and guarantees as per your needs. Here, your maintenance fee will be added.
Product Pricing
Calculate and associate the cost of product arrival at your plant centre with your product quantity. I think you can make an opening offer as a result of opening a new plant store and keep the price of your product and plant reasonable, but the price should not be so low that your competitors will have problems and the market value will be lost, which can stress you out later. You add all the costs from the production of your product to you and add price tags and labels to each product or plant. Houseplants increase in value at a rate of 13–15% annually. You need to be aware of the pricing of your plant store.
Sales and Marketing
Your plants and accessories are stocked and your store is almost ready. Now you need to focus on sales and marketing.
Try to make your plant store popular in America. We have learned from research that plant sales are increasing at a rate of 20-25 per cent every year since COVID, which can be said to be a very good rate.
The more marketing and excellence you have compared to your competitors in the plant business, the more your sales will increase. When you are opening your plant store, you can advertise on your area radio, newspaper, and weekly magazine. This will cost you money in marketing, but it will be easier to promote your new plant store.
You can also add to the popular podcasts in America; here, you can save a good amount of marketing costs.
Social Media & Promotion
After you open your offline plant store, you need to open all social media accounts in your plant store’s name. You should open a business profile, maintain it, and post regularly.
You’d be surprised that people do 75-85% of their marketing on Instagram every year and generate the majority of their sales there. Why not use social media to promote your plants? There is no reason not to. You will be able to build a loyal target audience by maintaining regular activity there. You can collaborate with an influencer who has an audience to plant videos or you can run your promotions with them to generate huge sales.
Creating Websites
Since you have a physical plant store, shouldn’t you focus on online marketing to increase sales? You need to convert the online audience into customers and create a website to give them an idea about your store, including the products you have in stock, your business policy, location, etc. Also, through your website, you can send products within the country and outside the country.
You can give some discounts to those who order gardening items or plants from the website, and your customers will be very happy to buy from you.
You can do website SEO and paid promotion, which will increase your organic traffic and sales through websites in your area.
Restaurant and Landscaping Design
Many restaurants and home yards are designed with plants. You can offer design and landscaping services to restaurants. A huge amount of sales can be generated from this. Because restaurants and landscaping are done in the form of large-scale projects. If you can offer your products there, you will be able to make huge sales.
Shop Management
You may need manpower to manage your online and physical plant stores. Yes, you can manage alone at one stage, but even if you can manage alone, you should increase the manpower and ensure that the tasks are done perfectly and smoothly. Your physical store may require people in various positions, including hiring a marketing expert and a manager for the shop. You may need people for delivery. You can hire a manager to manage your business and shop, allowing you to relax 1-2 days a week.
Recruitment of Staff
As the business grows, you will need staff. You can run staff recruitment ads on your social media or use other popular channels. Make sure you give them basic training for the plant center, as they may not have proper knowledge about plants. Inform them about plant care, names, variations, how to treat customers, and so on. Good staff behavior will increase the number of your repeat customers. Staff are paid an hourly salary in the US, which can be 20-30 dollars.
Delivery System and Packaging
You may need home delivery for your retail store because you have an online store and receive a good amount of regular orders for plants and accessories from there. Arrange delivery with your delivery team in your area. If you don’t want to have a delivery team, you can send your products to your customers by contacting agencies (couriers) that deliver parcels in America.
An important concern is the packaging of the plant. You need to be most conscious about your packaging. It is your responsibility to deliver the plant correctly and safely to your online or offline customers. You will need to maintain the highest packaging quality, which will add to your costs.
We have shared packaging videos in this article that you can watch to get an idea.
Branding
Brand with your plant store name. You can add your plant store name, address, and vision to your packaging material, carton, or bag. Don’t forget to use a personal logo. You can use free tools to design your logo. You can also create it for free using Canva. Branding represents the uniqueness, quality, and product of your store.
Funding
You may need a huge amount of investment to start your plant store. You can raise funding from your family, relatives, or friends. But keep in mind that no matter who you take funding from, don’t forget to make returns and documents on time. Failure or recession in your business may put you under pressure and cause tension in your relationships. You can also get funding from the Small Business Association of America, which has several low-risk funding programs that you can research.
Gardening Items Imports & Exports
You may need to procure plants from abroad to stock more and newer varieties of plants for your physical store. You may need to import these items legally following the country’s laws and regulations for your export. Also, since your business will spread across/ outside the country, you need to make arrangements to deliver your products and services outside the country as well. When you contact a lawyer for business registration, take care of the import and export paperwork and the necessary conditions and guidelines.
Estimate of Annual Costs
Here we will try to find out what your plant store costs can be on an annual basis:
- Rent TMI
- Legal fees
- Retail Insurance
- Signage / Branding
- POS hardware + monthly and processing fees
- Bank account and card fees
- Electricity/ gas/ water bills
- Internet and phone bills
- Garbage / Recycling Service
- Staff salary
It is not the case that you will have to pay all the above costs, but most of them will be yours. Other costs may add up with these because each business runs on a different policy.
If your plan, research, pricing, product, promotion, and location are right, you can grow your business in a place like America and take it to profitability. Every business has both risk and success; you have to take the risk and keep up with the competitors.
Update plant stores regularly and work on customer satisfaction. With a plant store, you can generate a huge amount annually. Find out everything related to the registration from the lawyers and collect all the documents so that you don’t have to get into consumer service, legal, and tax trouble later.
Here is an idea about plant retail stores. When you first start an online business, you get an idea of the market and the progress of your work. If you don’t know first, avoid jumping in Because this business requires a lot of investment, we don’t want you to lose significant money because of a small mistake
You can now open physical stores to grow your business online and build a loyal audience. Calculate all costs and profit margins and consider whether this business is right for you. If yes, then continue.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read our article. If you have experience, let us know.
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on pinterest
Share on telegram
Share on email
Share on whatsapp
Share on reddit
Share on print
