Hi Gina

Just be careful about going into this - you may not have a huge amount of control over your own business and be quite vulnerable to the actions of the garden centre owner in the longer term. For instance, if his business went belly up, would your business stand up on its own or would you be reliant on the garden centre being busy for the success of your business? I think you would have to work hard to brand your florists business so that it (and you) are seen as a business in its own right and can stand on its own and not just be the florist at the garden centre. My experience of keen gardeners is that they don't buy a lot of cut flowers but it could be particular to my location - big farming community. But I do think you would still have to attract your own customers rather than relying on the garden centre's customers.

I would have a look at the costs of having your own premises and compare the two - there may not be a great difference. Another idea would be to plan to do it just for a year or so, so long as you don't have to spend much on setting yourself up there and make sure anything you do buy for the business can be moved to new premises in the same local area. This would give you the chance to dip your toe in the water and hopefully get a few regulars who will follow you if you move.

I think the stall idea is also a good one to let you test out the market before jumping in. It is a difficult retail environment at the minute.

Flowerfool