Your Guide to Starting a Flower Truck Business
Starting a flower truck business can be a really fun way to get out of your studio and in front of the customers who love and value the product you have to offer!
After owning my truck for nearly six years and diving into the world of pop-ups and local markets, I've learned the ins-and-outs of creating a successful floral truck—and how it can also be a great way to market your wedding business.
If you’re curious about how to start a flower truck business, here are eight tips that I’ve learned on my own journey.
Wherever you’re headed on your floral journey, we can help you get there. Get access to our step-by-step video tutorials, how-to articles, and more in our newsletter. (Over 36,000 floral pros and fans have joined!) Sign up here.
1. Know The Audience and Brand for Your Flower Truck Business
Like any business, the first step is to clarify your target market and brand. Here are some questions to ask yourself:
What sets you apart from the other flower trucks that already exist?
Who do you envision stopping to buy your product?
What kind of businesses mirror your brand that you would like to plan a pop-up with?
What local markets do you think would be beneficial and also reflect your brand?
Where are you located, and how does that affect your style or brand?
All of these things are great things to consider when coming up with your business name, logo, and overall style of offerings you'd like to sell and even how you would like to design your truck.
I found many of the flower trucks that already existed were running on a “pick your own stem” business model, so selling pre-made bouquets in a more bohemian style that mirrored my wedding design aesthetic made the most sense for me.
I also bring my dog and #twsidekick, Oscar, with me to almost all of my pop-ups, since he's become an integral part of my personal flower truck brand (plus he's pretty darn cute)!
2. Design and Invest in a Truck that is Reliable and Timeless
I learned the hard way on this one. Being the “creative” I am, I bought the most adorable truck that ultimately needed a TON of mechanical/bodywork.
It took almost five years just to be able to fund the remodel of my vehicle. Moral of the story: Always check under the hood and make sure your truck is reliable.
If you’re unsure if it will start the morning of your pop-up, that is a huge risk to your business. Thankfully, the remodel time allowed me to hone-in on the design I wanted for my truck.
When I originally purchased my truck, I was leaning more toward painting it a bright color. Ultimately, I decided that painting it white and adorning it with my gold-leaf logos would be an aesthetic I would love for years versus what was trending at the time.
Think about what will work best for your brand long-term; repainting a truck every year is costly and confusing to your customers!
3. Market Your Pop-Up or Location
Now that you've created a brand that's unique to you, you know your ideal customer, you've reached out to local businesses and markets that align with your brand, and you've got a date set, it’s time to market, market, and market again!
Post to Instagram, create a Facebook event and invite your friends, continuously post to your Instagram stories encouraging people to come to say hi, and you can even create a poll to see who of your followers plan to come out. There are so many ways to get in front of your customers!
What's equally as important is that the business you've decided to partner with or the market you've paid to sell at is also marketing you being there. Cross promoting is always a great way to make new connections and support other businesses. Foot traffic is wonderful, but the more anticipation you can create around your pop-up, the better!
4. Pre-Orders Are Key for Flower Trucks
If you're able to collect pre-orders before your pop-up or market, you'll be set up for success! These guaranteed sales will buffer the more “unknown” numbers that come with planning a truck pop-up.
Offer a section on your website for customers to place their pre-order or offer DM orders where customers can pay in advance. This will also help you gauge interest in what you're providing and help you decide how much other product to bring to sell.
5. Limit Your Product Selection and Come Up with Appropriate Pricing
Get clear on the products you'd like to sell at your truck pop-up or market! I would suggest starting with 4–5 essential products. Possibly two different sized market wraps? A wreath? Some sort of hard good with branding on it?
The more definitive you can get on a stable product offering, the better. Try not to confuse a passerby with too many options.
If you provide 10–12 products, not only can it be overwhelming to a customer, but it's also challenging to keep track of your inventory.
Start with 4–5 products and see what sells best for you. Use pop-ups as a tool to identify your reliable sellers and then rethink for the next one you have planned.
This comes hand-in-hand with sizing and pricing. Price and size your product while keeping in mind that many times flowers are impulse buys for people passing by.
You want to avoid pricing things so high that people second-guess their purchase; instead, price where people cannot resist your beautiful product! This leads us to the next tip.
Take the mystery out of floral product pricing and ordering with our comprehensive Pricing and Ordering online class. Get the education, tools, spreadsheets, examples (and more!) that you need to solve your pricing and ordering woes once and for all!
6. Buy Smart
Buying a product for a truck pop-up is much different than buying for a wedding or event.
I've personally found that my brides value premium flowers much more than my clients who are shopping on a whim at my pop-ups.
Keep costs down and be selective when purchasing your flowers. Think beautiful antique carnations and those fun fringe tulips you've been eyeing versus products like garden roses and fritillaria.
There's a difference between a unique product and an expensive product, and you want to be sure to know the difference.
In addition, be sure to be conservative when thinking about how much product you will be producing for your pop-up. Is the market determined to have 1,000 people walk through? Or is your truck going to be parked out front of the coffee shop in your hometown with limited foot traffic?
Plan to only sell to 2% of the anticipated people walking by. It may sound low, but that's still 200 people buying your product. It's always best to underbuy and oversell then get stuck with a ton of extra product that then has to be tossed due to flowers being a time-sensitive.
There is a bit of trial and error to this process, and you'll learn your local market the more you use your flower truck. Each event and pop-up is unique, so try not to get overwhelmed!
7. Plan Your Space/Booth/POS System
Make sure your truck is shoppable! Will you be parked on the street? Or will you be at a farmers market where your truck has more of a booth space?
Take your environment into consideration when planning how you will display your product so that customers can easily come and touch your offerings.
I've learned that customers like to physically pick up and smell flowers before purchasing, so be sure they can do so. Also, make sure you have a reliable and easy-to-use POS system!
I suggest using a system like Square or PayPal that takes credit card/Apple Pay and advise against carrying cash in an open environment as that comes with some safety risks depending on where you are.
In our modern world, most customers prefer to pay with a card anyhow. If you do elect to carry cash, be sure you have a safe cash box that can be stored and locked somewhere secure and out of sight.
8. Follow Up with Your Client Mailing List
Your truck pop-up is over—and it was a huge success! Now what?
Be sure to collect emails during your pop-up either with your POS system or with a notepad for people to write down their name and email.
Now you have an easy way to market your next pop-up to customers who you already know love your work!
This is such an easy way to gain traction as you do more and more with your flower truck.
Happy Flower-Trucking, Friends!
Have fun with this process and enjoy chatting with your customers when you're out there on the streets. Be sure to stop to celebrate your successes and learn from your mistakes (they happen to the best and most experienced of us). Remember, this is an iterative process, and you'll master it as you continue your flower truck journey!
You’re not in this alone.
Starting and growing a floral business can sometimes feel like difficult, lonely work. But it doesn’t have to be!
There’s a global community of kindhearted floral pros of all experience levels and backgrounds available to give you feedback, help problem-solve, lend wisdom, and so much more.
We’re all waiting for you in the Team Flower Community! If you’re not a member already, discover how to join here.
