Florist News

Hi all,

Wonder if anyone can (or wants to! ) help!

I'm seriously looking at opening my own shop, I've never had my own business before.

How much roughly should I expect to spend in-order to start-up my own shop?

Thanks!


Kathleen

Would you buy an existing business or start from scratch and take on empty premises?? If you look on websites like businessesforsale or Daltons Business that will give you an outline idea but obviously running costs etc on top of that

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www.treesfloraldesign.co.uk

Hi Tree,

Oops forgot to mention that! It would be starting from scratch taking on empty premises.

Do you have a shop in mind?

I have seen a few empty premises from searching on the web, but gone no further than that.

Are they in areas you know well Kathleen? Are there other florists nearby?

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www.treesfloraldesign.co.uk

Good luck but whatever figure you arrive at double it at least.

Try and take it easy to begin with - dont be like a kid in a sweetie shop when visiting wholsalers/sundry suppliers

I used to have a lot of wastage when I started last year cos what I liked/thought would sell didnt always suit the market here.

Get a good book - buying and running a florist shop by Alan Peck - I found helpful. I sure there are many others but this was written in clear easy to understand lingo

Costs vary so much from shop to shop and town to town. Alot of the costs will be unknown until you decide on the shop.

I did a business course before opening which helped greatly.

When I open (10 years ago) it cost me about 5000 pounds, this covered rental deposits, basic shelving and stands, flooring, till, phone etc, sundries items and my 1st lot of fresh flowers. I had 200 pound left in the bank EEK (it was very scary stuff)!!!!

Hope this Helps

I started from scratch but had to buy the lease to get the tenant out. I think the whole exercise has cost me circa 25k. You will need alot more then you think as a contingency as rent has a habit of sneaking up and biting you on the bum when you start out!!

It really is difficult to say what it will cost you, depends on location, state of shop, what you intend to do to it, stock, etc etc. Like someone else said, think of a figure and double it. Also dont expect to earn anything for quite some time.