Online Gardening Products and Services Business

There are now companies that offer subscription services for house plants. If you google “plant subscription services” you will come to a lot of information about such services. Even big e-commerce sites sell plants and products related to gardening. The sellers are both big companies and small individual sellers. You can be one of these individual sellers…

WHAT IS OUT THERE

Plant Delivery and Subscription Services
In this kind of product and service clients receive a plant in exchange for a fee from the seller. This could be expanded into a form of subscription where the client receives a new plant on a set interval which for example could be monthly. The client selects the type of plant they want to receive.

They can for example receive an assortment of “house plants” if they choose the house plant category when they subscribed. The client receives a carefully packaged plant complete with soil and container as well as a decorative pot. They also receive a manual about the plant. This usually contains a description of the plant as well as the information on how to take care of it.

There could be additional information included. It depends on the seller. The packaged plant could also include plant maintenance tools. If you want to know more about these kinds of products you could go to YouTube and search the keyword “plant subscription”. There are many videos available for these plant service.

Gardening Tools and Supplies
The next set of products would be gardening tools and supplies. Samples of gardening tools are rakes, forks, pails and so on. Samples of gardening supplies are fertilisers and pest control products. These are also sold online. They have the advantage of not being delicate for delivery as compared to live plants. They are also safe for exporting to other countries because of this.

Plant Bulbs and Seeds
Many people especially farmers have been buying these sort of organic products for a very long time. Plant bulbs are grown in plant nurseries and then when they are old enough are harvested for sale. The seeds meanwhile are sealed in airtight packages and sold to consumers in such diverse stores as farmer’s markets and hardware stores.

Can You Compete?
If you did your research by visiting many e-commerce platforms and gardening websites you would notice that there are sellers of all types of sizes. They range from big companies to small individual sellers who grows their plants right in their own backyard. So the answer is you can compete especially if you offer products that are of high quality and unique.

WHO ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS?

Customers Who Have Big Gardens
These are homeowners who have lawns and big gardens that are big enough to accommodate trees. We can readily deduce that they would need a lot of gardening tools and supplies to maintain their gardens as well as a good number of plants. You could also offer gardening services such as garden maintenance and lawn care.

This is especially true for garden owners who are too busy to maintain their gardens. They could also be physically deficient to maintain a garden like very old people. At most there would be garden owners who just do not want to work on their big gardens and would rather pay other people. This is why it is good to also offer garden maintenance services.

Customers Who Have Small Gardens
There would be people who even though they like gardens only have a small one. This is mostly due to economic reasons. These people tend to maximise their garden space and tend to grow plants based on quality and not on quantity.

They are still a good potential customer for plants and garden tools and supplies but not much for garden maintenance. They could potentially be a good buyer of gardening supplies such as fertilisers and pest control products. This is because they have the best garden size for personal care.

Customers Who Have No Gardens
These are the type of people who live for example in apartment blocks where there is literally no garden space. They mostly put their plants in the terrace or inside the house itself. It is difficult to grow plants under this condition. You could potentially have repeat sales of plants to these type of clients unlike people who have their own gardens.

All of Them or Just One
As discussed everyone could be your customer but there are already a lot of competitors selling to everyone and you could find it hard to compete. You could also niche down and target a specific market segment. For example you could specialise in house plants, vegetables, cactuses, herbs & spices, orchids, bonsais and so on.

By only having one or a few niches you could concentrate your resources and marketing and would save on costs. Unlike for example a big plant seller that sells all types of plants you can concentrate on for example herbs and spices. These sort of plants require less soil space and need more personal care. This could be factors that a big plant competitor cannot match.

YOU CAN ALMOST SELL EVERYTHING IN YOUR GARDEN?

You can sell the plants you grow in your garden. This can be the plant itself, the bulbs, the fruits, leafs and so on. The great disadvantage of plants is that they dry out and rot fast. This should not be a big problem if you are selling live plants. All you have to do is to put your live plant in a container with soil together with adequate water and ventilation.

For the others like the bulbs, fruits, leafs, stems and so on the big obstacle in delivering them is the speed of delivery. Unless you can provide a speedy delivery any business that relates to selling such plants parts will not succeed. Most businesses involved in such products usually sell in bulk to compensate for the fast transport of these very perishable products.

If your plants or plant parts do dry out there could still be a market for them. For example dried up plant husks, flowers, stems and other plant parts can be sold as art and craft products or as derivatives for energy. If a plant can be made into an alcohol there is a big chance if can be used as a fuel or energy source.

There are also many people who buy dried parts of plants for herbal and alternative medicine purposes. Many people who believe in alternative for example boil many dried plants and drink them like tea. You can also make bottled pickles, sweets, caramels and powders out of your plants. This is especially if you have a lot of inventory and cannot sell them dried.

Take note that many people do not buy plants purely for decorative purpose but also for their medical purposes. They buy them in the hopes that they can grow them to be a regular source of medicine for them but many fail. Many plants are delicate and would grow only under certain conditions. Usually if they are transported from one place to another they wither and dry out.

WHAT IF I DO NOT HAVE A GARDEN?

It depends upon the plant. There are plants that can grow indoors anywhere even inside an apartment block. There are even plant growers who grow their plants in their basement complete with artificial sunlight and an irrigation system. There are even plant growers who could grow plants the hydroponic way.

But we have to be practical. The size of your potential income if you are growing plants to sell is very dependent on the size of your garden or farm. It is important that your plants be sized appropriately. If you have a small space then you could for example grow expensive plants like orchids, cactuses and bonsais.

BE A PLANT GROWING TEACHER

There are many people who show the gardens they take care online and also show how they do it. Gardening topics are one of the top searches online and many people have been able to monetise successfully their online videos, blogs and websites. You can do this too. You can earn online income by selling your digital products as well as your own plants, tools and supplies.

You can for example show a plant planting video or a blog. After the video or blog has finished and even in the middle of your video or blog you can mention the name of the plant and where to buy it as well as the tools and supplies you used. It is preferable if they come from your own store but you can also do affiliate marketing.

BE A GARDENING E-COMMERCE SITE

This would take more capital investment as well as internet knowhow especially in e-commerce operations but you can be one. You could initially start by gathering a list of potential sellers to your e-commerce site and determine if the income you would generate from them is enough to sustain your e-commerce site.

Take note that web hosting fees can be as cheap as a few dollars a month but when you add an e-commerce facility in your website your monthly website cost can easily balloon to a few hundreds. This does not take into account the problems associated with an e-commerce store.

You would definitely encounter the problems of product rejections and returns. There is also the issue of wrong deliveries. There are also the problems of scammers who pretend to be either buyers or sellers. Then there is the technical issue where payments gets lost due to a technical glitch.

If you are not ready for these problems then ally yourself with a stable e-commerce store and link your website to it. You can still promote the products of other sellers in your website through affiliate marketing, ad based income and income sharing.

BE A DEDICATED PLANT HUB

I have seen many YouTube channels and websites solely dedicated to plants. They are very informative and geared towards the academic or scientific side. They are largely funded by donations by their supporters. You could also try this approach to sell your plant products. One disadvantage of this is that you could be spending a lot of effort in plants that are not commercially available.

These plants may be exotic or only thrives in the wild and do not blend well with normal garden conditions. There is a high probability that you would attract plant collectors or those who want exotic plants. You may have to gather these plants in the wild. Make sure you have the legal permit to do so.

By positioning yourself as a plant hub you also expand the products and services you can offer. You can sell academic books on plants for example and not only gardening books. You might even be able to offer tours to plants that only thrive in one place.

CONCLUSION

Even though you are a one person business you can still offer gardening products and services. You can sell the entire plant or its parts as well as gardening tools and supplies. You can also offer garden maintenance. You could also offer digital products related to gardening and plants in general.

It is important however that you realise that you are entering a mature industry where most of the innovation is happening online. Even though you are a small company or even a small one person business who is home based you can still compete successfully. You can niche down and be a cost effective and unique seller.