How to Sell Plants Online with a Website Builder Platform

For most people, keeping some plants in their home, in the drawer next to their bed, or in their garden, and even in their office and workspace is a must. The reason for this is clear keeping some plants in the environment not only adds color to the place but also lightens up the mood of people around it, reduces stress and anxiety, and adds a calm relaxing vibe to the place.

If you find keeping and tending to plants interesting, you might also like to help other people with their plants' related problems, like how many hours they need sunlight, how often you should water them, or how to stop your new plant from dying. If you are that kind of person, you might find "selling plants online" an interesting idea, you should also know that it's also a profitable venture.

Why would you like to sell plants online?

You might like to keep and tend to your plants on a daily basis, and if you do like to do that, having a business selling plants online can be your dream job. Why?

Because it not only fulfills your desire to keep plants and help them grow but also is a way for you to start your own business and make a lot of money doing so.

On the other hand, having an online store and selling your products online through a website or even on Instagram and Twitter is a better option for you in 2023. After Covid-19 broke out a lot of local businesses went bankrupt, and many others started setting up an online platform for their business to make sure they were up for business even on a lockdown and to prevent them from going bankrupt. Some might even say that having an online shop is the new normal these days. So selling your plants online, aside from the revenue it creates is also covid proof and won't be closed on another potential lockdown.

If you want to sell your plants online, you might wonder how you should do that. As it may be totally new to you and the few first steps could easily confuse anyone. But don't worry, in this article we are going to cover How to sell your plants online step by step, so you will have a clear roadmap to go through and start your online business selling plants. So, without any waste of time, let's dive in.

How to sell plants online: step-by-step guide

In this section, we're going to give a detailed step-by-step guide on how to start selling plants online.

1. Defining a source

The first step in starting selling plants online is finding and defining a source from which you would provide your plants. The reason for this is obvious, for you to start your plant-selling business you need a supplier that provides your needed plants at a competitive price. You can pick one of these two options: grow your own plants or partner with a nursery or a wholesaler.

Growing your own plants:

This can be a good way for you to provide the plants you need. For someone who loves taking care of and growing plants, this can be a great option as they enjoy it the most to grow the plants on their own and keep on taking care of them.

This way, you'll be able to reduce some costs and also have control over the supply of your plants, meaning you can grow the plants that your customers need, or grow the plants you want to sell to your customers. If you want to start selling expensive plants online, this is also a great option as you can tell the plants' origin story.

Partnering with a wholesaler:

Partnering with a wholesaler and buying your demanded plants from them is a cheaper way than growing the plants yourself, as the cost of growing the plants is much cheaper for them than a regular person. In partnering with a wholesaler you can't have any type of control over the supplies. To put it differently, the wholesaler just grows what they want to grow and you buy the plants you need from them. There's no saying on what type of plants they will grow, hence you would be limiting on plants your store is able to sell.

2. Choose a place to sell plants online

Fortunately, there are many ways you can sell your plants online. You can set up a website and sell your plants there, or use social media such as Instagram and Facebook or set up a shop at ecommerce platforms such as Selldone, Shopify and Wix. In this section, we will cover each of those options so you can choose which one of them fits you the best.

Building your own website may be beneficial in some ways as you have complete control over some aspects of the website as you can totally customize it the way you like. The problem with this is that building a website needs time and money investment and you usually need to pay an amount of money upfront to have your website built for you and building a website is not as cheap as you may think it is.

Using platforms such as Selldone, Shopify and Wix is a great option as it doesn't need you to pay that kind of money at the beginning of your business's journey. Platforms such as Selldone, Shopify are easy to use and trusted and utilizing them gives you a good amount of control over your customers.

Another alternative is to use social media platforms such as Instagram to start social selling plants online. Using platforms like Instagram and Facebook can be especially beneficial as your customers are already spending a lot of their time there. Even if you don't want to do social selling on these platforms, you can always use them to monetize your brand further grow your audience and gain potential clients. Using social platforms is great as you can use them to define your brand and also they're a great way of gaining more attention towards your business.

3. Showcase the plants

It doesn't matter which way you use to sell your plants, either if it's social selling, setting up your own website or you are setting up an ecommerce store to sell your plants in, this step is necessary to be taken seriously as it helps drive more attention and customers towards your business. In this section, we'll be covering how to showcase your plants the right way.

In showcasing products online, capturing great photos makes it much easier for you to grab your audience's attention. In products that look good on the eyes and are colorful like plants, taking photos suddenly becomes more important a job than products that are not. Because a good photo of a certain plant can result in you selling more of that plant and even grab the attention of your audience.

To take good photos there are some things you need to remember, lighting is very important for taking good photos and the background shouldn't be noisy that distracts the audience. Using a white background helps as the white color gives plants the opportunity to show off their beautiful colors (unless the plant is white I guess!). You can also take photos from the way you're going to wrap them before shipping them to your customers, or set up the background as such that shows how the plant will look while it's inside the house.

The next step in showcasing your product is writing a compelling description. It's true that you should use description to give key information about plants such as their size, the plant's lifespan, and how to take care of them, but you should also use this as an opportunity to convince and better sell your plants.

4. Choosing the right price

Choosing a price for your plants is a very defining part of marketing and will directly affect how many plants you're going to sell and how much you're going to make doing so. If you set the price too high, no matter how great or good-looking your plant is you will scare away potential customers. And if you set the price too low, the audience would appreciate it and your sales would go through the roof, but you won't make any profit off of it.

To set up a fair price there are some factors you should take into consideration. For starters look up your competitors and others who are selling plants online and check their prices for their plants. Checking the price of a certain plant you want to sell or similar plant prices gives a good idea of how much you should set the price for it. The time and money you invest in your business should also affect the price of the plants. And at last, you should also calculate how much your business costs to run and how much should you profit off your plants for you to have a profitable business.

5. Setting up the store

Now we're going to cover the steps you need to take to set up your business and start selling the plants. The steps you should take depend on the platform you choose to set up your business on. We'll cover the steps you need to do to set up and start off the store. So without wasting any more time, let's begin.

Steps for setting up an online plant store

Steps for setting up an online plant store: on social media

1. Select the right social media

After doing market research, you can find the best social media for you to set up your business in. By getting insights about your audience, you can identify which platforms your potential customers are interested in.

2. Create an account

Create an account for your business in the social media you're about to sell your plants in. The platform you use might also offer business and if they do, that must totally be the type of account you should go for creating. Business accounts offer good info and insights on your audience and help you better manage your business.

3. Publish your products online and start selling plants

Now that you have your account ready, you can publish great photos with good compelling product descriptions. Don't forget to write the description in a way to helps you sell better.

Steps for setting up an online plant store: on a website

Setting up and managing a website is a time-consuming and costly job to do. But if that's the route you want to take, these might be the steps you need to take.

1. Set up a website

If you're comfortable with spending money on creating a website, you can start your business from there. The first thing you need to do is to set up a website for your business, to do that you can work with companies that specialize in designing websites, or you can head out to freelancing platforms and hire a professional freelancer to do the job.

2. Designing the look of the website

You need to design a look for your website that represents your business. The whole theme should be customized and professional looking as the viewers won't spend time on your website if it doesn't look good, doesn't matter how good the content is.

3. Post content

Now that the website is ready, all you have to do is to create and post some content. Your main contents are the part where you show off your plants. Aside from that, other content such as articles on different plant's origins or tutorials on how to take care of them is also a great idea.

Steps for setting up an online plant store: on ecommerce platforms

These are the steps you may need to take if you're using an ecommerce platform such as Selldone:

1. Create an account

After you've chosen which platform you want to sell your products on you should create an account there and select a domain name for your business.

2. Set a theme for the store

What you need to do now is to select a theme for the store and customize it in a way that better suits your business and represents your brand.

3. Upload the products

The last thing to do is to upload your plants and decide which payment method you want to use. Then start selling and enjoy!

6. Decide on shipping

Now you need to decide on how you want to ship the products to your customers. This may seem like an unimportant issue but this can actually affect how much money you'll make by selling a plant.

You should carefully calculate the costs of different shipment methods and select the one which is best for you. The way you do the packaging also affects how much you'll sell and help with your marketing as if a customer is happy and surprised about the packaging of your product they will tell their friend about your business.

7. Marketing and branding

After you're done with all of the said steps above you might feel like the job is done, but a good part of the job is branding and marketing. These are easy to look over but the price you pay for not paying attention to them is a lot.

If you don't have a good plan for marketing the chances are that even if your plants are awesome with a fair price and everything, they won't even find you in the first place to buy your products. Good branding also helps your business to stand out from all the other competitors. These are very important, and if done right, they will directly affect how much money you're going to make running your business.

If you have created your own website, the role of marketing becomes even more important as you are completely responsible for driving traffic to your website. To drive traffic to your website you can use ads, either on google or social media. Creating useful pieces of articles and keeping the website SEO-friendly will also help you grasp the attention of the audience.

If you're selling plants on an ecommerce platform, you're already working on marketing by paying fees for every sale you make. In other words, these platforms offer an active audience, and you pay for it by fees. But even in this kind of platform, you need to do something to stand out from other competitors. You can try offering deals and promotions or use sponsored listings offered on the platforms.

If you are running your business on a social media platform, you need to focus on creating high-impact content. By grabbing your audience's attention, you have a chance to sell your products to them. Other things you can do are paid promotions and advertising to boost the attention you drive toward your business.

10 Steps to selling plants online with a website builder platform

1. Determine the types of plants you will be selling. This will help you narrow down your target audience and determine the best website builder platform for your needs.
   

2. Choose a website builder platform that offers e-commerce capabilities. Some popular options include Selldone, Shopify, BigCommerce, and Wix.
   

3. Set up your online store. This will include choosing a domain name, setting up payment and shipping options, and creating product pages for your plants.
   

4. Create a marketing plan. This may include social media marketing, email marketing, or paid advertising to promote your plant business.
   

5. Source your plants. You may choose to grow your own plants or purchase them from a wholesale supplier.
   

6. Create high-quality product images and descriptions. This will help customers make informed purchasing decisions and increase the chances of a sale.
   

7. Set up a customer service system. This may include a live chat feature or a customer service email address for customers to contact you with questions or concerns.
   

8. Stay up to date on industry trends and best practices. This may include attending trade shows or joining plant-specific forums or groups.
   

9. Regularly update your website and social media accounts to keep your customers engaged and informed about new products and promotions.
   

10. Keep track of your sales and customer feedback to continually improve your business and customer experience.

Top inspiring success stories in the online plant retail industry

These businesses demonstrate the potential for success in the online plant retail industry through a combination of unique offerings, strong branding, and excellent customer service.

The Sill. The Sill is an online plant retailer that has gained widespread popularity for its stylish and easy-to-care-for plant collections. The company has grown significantly since its founding in 2012, with multiple brick-and-mortar stores across the United States and partnerships with major retailers such as Urban Outfitters and Neiman Marcus.
Bloomscape. Bloomscape is another successful online plant retailer that has gained a loyal customer base for its wide selection of plants, including rare and hard-to-find varieties. The company was founded in 2018 and has already expanded to multiple brick-and-mortar locations in the United States.
The Plant Club. The Plant Club is a subscription-based plant delivery service that allows customers to receive a new plant every month. The company has experienced rapid growth since its founding in 2016 and has gained a strong following on social media.
The Little Plant Shop. The Little Plant Shop is a small online plant retailer that has gained a loyal customer base for its unique and well-curated selection of plants. The company has a strong presence on social media and frequently collaborates with other small businesses.
Rooted NYC. Rooted NYC is an online plant retailer that specializes in hard-to-find, rare plants. The company has gained a devoted following for its extensive collection and personalized customer service.

Final Note

By taking these steps said in the article you can go ahead and start your business selling plants online. If you are passionate about growing and selling plants, you need to channel that passion and spend time and energy on your business.

Having a good marketing plan can define whether or not your business is profitable. No matter how good your plants are or how beautiful your posts and articles are, if no one pays attention to them, there's no way for them to buy them.

Nowadays a lot of people are opening online businesses so by focusing on your branding you make sure to stand out from all the rest get through to your audience and better sell your products. Running businesses online is a relatively new area so anyone can make mistakes doing so and you will face a lot of challenges, remember to learn from your mistakes and grow your business for the better, Good luck!