Benefits of Adding a Subscription-Based Product to Your Floral Shop
Over the past few months, I’ve had a few of my florist friends reach out and ask questions about offering a flower subscription—be it weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.
Their questions range from wanting to know why I decided to offer a flower subscription to how hard it is to manage the recurring payments—and everything in between.
I ran into these same questions myself. Finding the right solution to scaling your business at the rate that is right for you is quite daunting for any business.
For a florist, I could argue this problem is even more daunting because flowers are an expensive perishable, and buying them so that you don’t end up wasting and losing money is a tricky business.
I needed to find a solution that would allow me the security of purchasing flowers that would not go to waste, on a predictable schedule, while staying true to the brand I started building in 2019. Then a good friend of mine suggested exploring a subscription-based model, right around the time I had a large bouquet delivery going out the door.
When she suggested this, I thought it was a great idea to explore, and I had thoroughly enjoyed the hustle and bustle of designing, arranging, and delivering a large order all on the same day!
The Benefits of Offering Floral Subscriptions
I didn’t even have an online store at this point, so I had to begin by exploring the benefits of offering a subscription before diving in and investing my time and resources. After a bit of research and brainstorming, I concluded that a subscription model has six key benefits for any floral business:
It provides a predictable income and schedule for purchasing blooms. You can find stability in the predictable revenue and plan your flower purchase in a way that ensures little to no waste.
You won’t be losing money. It doesn’t take too many subscribers to break even, and only a few more to begin making a profit.
You gain exposure to new clients. It is an easy way for clients to experience your work at a lower price point. Offering a subscription at $50 a month is a lot more accessible than charging $600 in one shot.
It helps to establish you and your brand. You get out in the community, connect with new clients, and nurture a loyal client base.
Your creativity blooms. You have to design the arrangements monthly, and that requires you to be creative and offer something new and beautiful each time. You get to explore countless stems and colour combinations.
Online is the only store you need. You may dream of opening the doors to your own floral shop one day (just like me!), but you do not need a storefront to be successful with subscriptions, just an online shop.
Where to Begin: Ask Yourself These 6 Questions Before Offering Floral Subscriptions
After reading these key benefits, if you’re like me, it’s a no-brainer: Subscriptions are a great way to grow your small business and offer a product to a new client base with little upfront investment. But where do you begin?
I often want to start a new business project from a creative standpoint, but it is always more beneficial to start by putting your business hat on, especially when it comes to subscriptions.
Offering a floral subscription is meant to grow your business, but it requires an investment (of both money and time). So begin by asking yourself these questions:
What do you want to offer—and how frequently? Determine if you will offer bouquets and/or vase arrangements weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. Knowing what you want to sell informs the answers to the following questions.
What hard and soft goods will you need? You need to sort out if you will need just floral wrap and string to tie off your bouquets, or if you will need to purchase a large number of vases and chicken wire (my preferred mechanic) or both! Additionally, you will need an online shop, and most platforms that process purchases usually charge a small percentage per purchase, so be sure to look into that.
What will your packaging look like? You will need to decide how your flowers will look when you deliver them and what that requires you to buy. Is it paper wrapping, a branded sticker, and ribbon for your bouquets? Or something more? How much will this cost you upfront?
Do you need extra tools? You are committing to fulfilling a large order all at once, which might require more tools. Do you need more buckets to accommodate more stems in your studio the day before all the orders go out? A larger cooler? What will your studio need to be able to fulfill orders?
How are you going to price your subscriptions? Understanding everything that goes into offering a subscription, you will need to determine your price point. Assess how many stems you will use per creation and what it will cost you, how much it costs for packaging, and what you want to charge for labour and delivery. This will help you to determine your price point.
How many subscriptions do you need to sell to make a profit? And when do you need to hire help? Do the math to figure out how many subscriptions you need to sell to start making a profit and how many you can reasonably handle yourself. Then determine the number of subscriptions you will need to sell to hire someone to help. This exercise takes a bit of guesswork but allows you to plan for the future when your subscriber base begins to grow, and you need to assess when an employee is necessary.
If you’re coming out confident after answering all of these questions, it’s time to start getting to work!
By answering the above questions, you’ve really created your to-do List of what needs to get done before launching.
I found the online shop to be the most significant barrier to entry because it felt intimidating and seemed complex to set up.
Launching a Floral Subscription
To be honest, I launched my subscriptions in June 2020 without an online shop at first because I just wanted to offer a subscription right away while I sorted out my nerves about diving into an online shop.
“But once I got over my fears and I looked into what my website platform offered, I discovered that adding a shop to my page was not scary at all. It was seamless.”
But once I got over my fears and I looked into what my website platform offered, I discovered that adding a shop to my page was not scary at all. It was seamless. I work in Wix, and I do all of my own website updates, so navigating how to add a shop was far more straightforward than I anticipated.
Wix offers a subscription-purchasing model within their store platform and has payment processing partners connected in the back end. I simply had to set up the subscription product offering and Wix/Stripe track and manage the recurring payments! I had my store up and running within 24 hours. So check out your website platform. It might be easier than you think!
Once you’ve put in the work preparing and your store is ready, it’s time to launch and promote your new subscription! Be sure to utilize your social media accounts (organically and paid), email marketing, and even good old fashioned fliers around town! And be patient. Your subscription base will grow, and before you know it, you will turn a profit.
“While subscription-based offerings are becoming increasingly popular, you still need to consider what is best for you and your business.”
If you’re someone who has been thinking about offering a subscription to either scale your small business or simply provide another product for your clients, I hope this article sheds some light on the key benefits and important questions to evaluate.
While subscription-based offerings are becoming increasingly popular, you still need to consider what is best for you and your business. Speaking from experience, after putting in the time and research, I found the work to set up a subscription and initial investment worth it when weighed against what my business stood to gain and where I wanted my business to go. Perhaps you will discover the same for yourself!
