Florist News

Are there other reasons for people's previous attempts failing? Is the garden centre seen as somewhere to go shopping? Not just for plants, but gifts etc? May make it difficult otherwise.

I wonder how easy it is to be taken seriously as a 'full' florist in a garden centre, eg. wedding/funeral orders. It seems weird, but that might just be me!

You need support to make it work. Is your husband likely to bend to your way of thinking. It will be tough enough without a battle at home too.

Apart from rent, are there huge start-up implications involved? The 'stall' idea sounds like a good way to trial it.

5000 people is not a huge amount considering the square footage of the premises, don't be seduced by big numbers!

No competition is good in one way, but a little competition can be good. Also people tend to shop where there are lots of the same shop, cause you have more choice, like shopping malls.

The demos might be a very lucrative sideline to consider, just don't let him charge you too much for rooms etc.

Will you get some say in advertising etc?

Would you automatically get contract for vases in restaurant etc?

I hope that doesn't come off as too negative, it's just my ponderings!

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actually there was a little florists shop open for a while at a garden centre near me dont think it got much trade didnt stay open long.Shame really

Gina, have you decided what to do yet?

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Life is not measured by the breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away....

Gina, I worked for a garden centre as their florist and it was very difficult. People who go to garden centres can be put onto two catorgories. The first are the true gardeners, they know what they want and they are only there to buy plants or garden products. The second are those that have nothing better to do in the day, other than to get in their car for a drive and "pop" into garden centres, where they may purchase a house plant or have a nice cup of tea in the tea-room/restaurant.

The other factor that i had was the shop was situated in a large green house and trying to keep flowers looking their best in the heat of summer was a night mare. I had to keep limited stock as the owner was not prepared to put in fridges, which was ok if you were only doing the odd arrangement, but I was doing a lot of wedding work. In the end the owner realised there was not a lot of money to be made from it and I was made redundent.

Having said all that if the venture had been approached in a proper way I think it could have been very successful.

Best of luck Gina but make sure you do everything on your own terms

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

There is a florist in a garden centre in my area. They have been there for years, and they seem to work quite while with the garden centre that sources vases etc for them and can get all manner of venue dressing things to hire. It is quite tucked away in the garden centre and you wouldn't really come across it unless you knew about it. But I think they have relay membership and seem to do quite well as they employ a few florists and have quite a lot of weddings.

As someone else mentioned, the area will make quite a difference, the gadren centre near me is in quite a nice area and not far from some nice wedding venues.

Most garden centres are like huge greenhouses which get very hot in the summer, so I would say a cooler of some sort would be essential. You mentioned that obviously so can't sell plants and that might also include soft toys and vases etc so you could be relying solely on selling flowers for gifts, weddings and funerals. Though you could offer a gift wrapping service for items bought in the garden centre and do a deal with the garden centre to gift wrap their products on display at peak times like planted arrangements at xmas and mothers day.

The workshop part could be very lucrative, especially if you can advertise in the garden centre on display boards or leave leaflets at the tills

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Sarah Creating Bespoke Wedding Flowers Cheshire

Thank you all so much for your replies I have decided to not go down this path anymore Thanks for making me see sense

I know wyevale garden centres in the midlands already have florist outlets, branded under 'Fleurista' - a Carol Caplin creation i'm lead to believe! Whilst i agree that it could be a good venture, in terms of footfall etc, i would be VERY cautious. A similar thing happened to someone i knew. About 12 - 15 years ago this guy opened a florist outlet in a local ASDA- at the time, all the asda stores had a few independant retail units within each store. He had a large display in the entrance/ exit area of the store and business was good. He then managed to branch out into several other ASDA stores and his business was fantastic. He didn't just sell bunches, but had skilled florists making funeral/ gifts / weddings to order. Everything was great until ASDA decided that they would like a bigger slice of the pie and kicked him out of all their stores. Then low and behold, ASDA were then selling flowers of their own, and with the boom of dot.com the introduction of flowers to order. ok, slightly different circumstances, but what's to say that you take all the risks with your money and do build a fantastic business, for the garden centre to then kick you out and trade on all your previous hard work??