Houseplants have infiltrated every room in my house. The foliage hoarding started long before the pandemic, but I, like the legions of housebound plant parents everywhere, doubled down. Of the pandemic-borne hobbies, raising plants has it all: physical health benefits, mental health benefits, and a very low barrier to entry. In a time that felt stagnant, nurturing growth was the antidote.
Your green thumb could be worth more than you think. If you’ve ever thought of selling plants online, now is the time.
Unsurprisingly, searches for “buy plants online” surged in the middle of March 2020, just as retail businesses and greenhouses everywhere were shutting their doors against COVID’s first wave. Unspent going-out funds collided with our collective need for at-home joy.
More online plant stores sprung up from garages and garden sheds to answer the demand—a demand that doesn’t show signs of slowing. Your green thumb could be worth more than you think. If you’ve ever thought of selling plants online, now is the time.
In this beginner’s guide, we’ll take you through the steps of starting your own plant selling business and consult experts to bring you tips on how to succeed. Learn everything from planting the seed to cultivating your brand to nurturing your customers.
Danuelle Doswell, a marketer and brand strategist, and Mignon Hemsley, a graphic designer, photographer, and DJ, met and bonded over their lifelong love of food. But it was another part of their similar upbringings that inspired their business, Grounded Plants. “My mom would always encourage me to keep a garden at the house,” says Mignon. “We would grow strawberries and tomatoes and peppers.” And Danuelle recalls the houses of all of her relatives being filled with plants.
When Danuelle saw a stat that 33% of millennials, like themselves, owned plants, the two paired up to serve that audience. Grounded now sells houseplants and accessories from their Washington, DC, headquarters to customers across the country, and offers services like “planterior design” to corporate clients.
Sonja Detrinidad started dabbling in plants as a distraction from her stressful career in the mortgage industry. When she discovered her knack for sourcing greenery and inspiring audiences with her straight-shooting plant content, she quit her job. During the pandemic, her California-based plant business exploded. The bulk of Sonja’s sales and traffic come from TikTok, a platform she uses to share humorous and helpful plant advice to more than 350k followers.
Read more about how Sonja discovered the formula for succeeding at TikTok for business.
Yes, you can ship live plants in the mail! As someone who made her first plant order during the pandemic, I can attest to this fact. Three succulents, two cacti, and a string of dolphins arrived in a cardboard box, unharmed and ready to be repotted. Ready to propagate this trend and grow your own plant selling business? Let’s dig in.
There are more ways to get into the plant selling business than simply shipping houseplants in the mail. How you decide to define your own offerings may depend on the climate where you live, your access to wholesale greenery or space to grow, and how much you’re willing to invest upfront.
Here are a few ideas to get you started selling plants online:
Growing your own plants to sell is possible if you have the right space and conditions to do so. If you’re starting small, you can grow plants in your own backyard garden or create a DIY greenhouse—but do consider space limitations if you plan to scale. Growing your own plants on a larger scale will require a lot more space and specialized plant know-how. There are plenty of free online resources to teach you the production side of the business.
For the purposes of this guide, we will focus on the business of selling plants online by working with a wholesaler, greenhouse, or nursery. Note that you will still require sunny space to store and care for the plants on their brief stop between their origin and final destination, but this method is much easier for new plant entrepreneurs.
When I asked Sonja if she’d ever consider scaling her business to grow her own, she reminded me that in California, she didn’t need to. “I have growers that have been growing certain varieties of plants for 40 years,” she says. “When I’ve got this guy, literally three blocks away from me, I could just buy his product.”
Many local greenhouses, nurseries, and plant suppliers offer a wholesale program. Look for details on their website or inquire directly. There are generally a few requirements to become a registered reseller, including purchase minimums.
Tips on working with nurseries, greenhouses, and plant wholesalers:
Don’t skip this step. Differentiating your business from another website selling plants relies heavily on brand. And we’re not talking about your logo—that’s branding. For plant selling businesses, your brand should achieve the following:
Now, you can use your clear vision for your brand to help you develop branding assets and a visual identity for your business.
? Grow your knowledge:
You can follow standard pricing models for pricing most goods for online sale. To find a retail price for your plants or plant accessories:
Even if we’re paying a little more wholesale than usual, we’ll still keep it at that price point just to remain consistent.
Mignon Hemsley, Grounded
There are a few other factors to consider when pricing plants:
Seasonality can affect pricing. For example, if you choose to sell a specific plant in a set number of sizes because you have a reliable supply chain, factor in fluctuations to the wholesale cost of the plants (nurseries may adjust prices seasonally). If you want to be consistent with pricing on your site, consider the highest possible cost when calculating retail price. “Say if we sell a golden pothos for $20, we’ll keep it at $20 across the board,” says Mignon. “Even if we’re paying a little more wholesale than usual, we’ll still keep it at that price point just to remain consistent.”
Market price is important to keep in mind. While your brand may be very different from another brand, a snake plant is still a snake plant, and you should price within an acceptable range based on the market.
Who is your customer and what do they expect to pay? “We strategically put our price points at a place that is affordable and accessible to most people,” says Mignon. “We want everyone to be able to experience having plants and being able to take care of something.”
Consider labor when calculating your fixed costs. Even if you’re not paying staff to help grow and care for plants, your effort should factor into the overall cost.
? Grow your knowledge:
While I fancy myself quite the green thumb *gazes with motherly pride over a brood of tomatoes,* there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to cover water and sunlight needs for every species of plant. Once you decide what you will sell, research each variety to understand its specific needs.
Generally, you will need enough climate-controlled space to adequately care for your plant inventory before it ships to your customers. Sonja, who has had to hire staff to manage the volume of orders pouring in, still uses her home’s garage as her headquarters, but has recently announced a move to a dedicated greenhouse space.
For plant businesses, managing your inventory tightly is critical. Developing a relationship with reliable suppliers will help you plan ahead. You should also ask yourself:
As you are running a business that may have items going in and out of stock seasonally, create a system for yourself that helps you identify and manage inventory within your Shopify store. A consistent naming/numbering convention along with grouping plants into standard sizes can help you keep inventory organized. For example, if you are selling a variety of houseplants, you may want to establish a SKU system as follows: three letters representing the category, three letters representing the plant type, and two letters representing the size.
Example: SUC-ALO-SM could represent a small aloe plant in the succulent family. Define what “small,” “medium,” and “large” mean to you for the purposes of pricing and inventory, as plants will come in a range, usually measured in inches by pot/plant diameter.
For any business selling physical products, it’s important to invest time and care into photography. You can either hire a professional or DIY your photography needs. Either way, follow the basic principles of product photography that exist across all product categories.
The last thing you want to do is use filters, because it’s not the reality. It leads people down the road of having unmet expectations of what their gardens should look like.
Sonja Detrinidad, Partly Sunny Projects
Photography tips for online plant brands:
? Grow your knowledge:
The best way to sell plants online is through your own website. Sonja started her business by taking orders through a WhatsApp group chat and invoicing each customer. When too much of her time was spent making invoices, she opened a Shopify store. The switch allowed her to spend less time with paperwork and more time building her brand.
Shopify is designed to make starting a business simple, even if you have no coding or design skills. Use one of the preset themes in the Shopify Theme Store, then customize with your own branding, fonts, colors, and unique layout.
These themes are our top picks for plant stores:
As you grow, you can continue to customize your online store. Shopify Experts are trusted professionals who can help you improve the design and function of your store if you’re much better with plants than computers.
Layering apps onto your Shopify store increases functionality and allows you to customize your site to your—and your customers’—individual needs. Browse the Shopify App Store for apps that plug in to your site and make it easier for you to sell plants online.
A few highlights:
Your product pages should include standard information like plant species, description, and size, along with clear product photos. Consider also using this space for education. You’ll want to ensure that your customers are equipped to care for their new plants indefinitely. After-care customer service is important—and we’ll cover that later—but you can minimize the burden on your customer service team (or you, if you’re a team of one) if you provide helpful care instructions upfront.
The product page is a perfect place to include plant education. Use tabs to keep the page uncluttered or link out to the resource elsewhere on your site.
The product page is a perfect place to include plant education. Use tabs to keep the page uncluttered or link out to the resource elsewhere on your site. West Coast Seeds packs each product page with useful info like hardiness zone, difficulty level, ideal pH for growing conditions, and detailed planting instructions.
As you sort products into collections, you can organize by species, size, or, like Grounded, helpful categories such as “pet friendly” and “beginner friendly.”
? Grow your knowledge:
Consider gaining more exposure for your brand and accessing new audiences by selling plants through online marketplaces or finding local retail opportunities. Beyond opening your own brick-and-mortar store, there are many affordable ways to add in-person selling to your mix:
Good news: with the rise in searches for plant content online, there are opportunities to grow your audience with the right mix of search optimization, social media, and content marketing paired with a unique and cohesive brand.
If you’re starting out with a limited budget, grow your social audience and email list organically with consistent posting and incentives for those who sign up. You can add value through social media or a blog by establishing yourself as an expert, sharing free advice about plant care. Invest time in a content marketing strategy and learn how to optimize content to rank. Content that lives on your site can help drive organic traffic that you can convert into sales.
Sonja has positioned herself as a subject matter expert on TikTok and has found that she doesn’t need to lay on a heavy sales pitch. “Make yourself valuable on the platform as a source of information, then do a little sidestep like, ‘Oh, by the way, here’s the link to my website,’” she says. “And they’re going to trust what you’re putting out there because they’re seeing results from the things that you’ve advised them to do.”
As Grounded was gearing up for the big launch in 2020, it struggled to get initial traction on social and with its newsletter. “Danuelle made her dad an Instagram so he could be our hundredth follower,” says Mignon. Then Danuelle wrote a press release and shopped it around to local DC publications. One picked it up and their follower account surged to 8,000, and 700 people signed up for their newsletter.
The press release caught attention because it highlighted the brand’s subscription program—a feature that was different from other businesses in the area—and tapped into the need for joy in a world entering a long pandemic lockdown.
Take it from me—buying one plant is the gateway to a house full of them. While you absolutely want to attract new customers to your site, don’t forget about your existing customers. These are easier sales to make because they already trust you, you’re top of mind the next time they’re looking for plants, and you have direct access to them via email, mail, and/or social.
Subscription boxes are an easy way to guarantee future purchases and continued engagement with your loyal customers.
Consider loyalty programs that give your customers even more incentive to come back: points programs, referral rewards, and exclusive discounts or promotions for those already on your subscriber list.
Grounded recently ran an experience survey to gain valuable feedback from their loyal customers. The partners use data to drive decisions around marketing and other aspects of the business.
Subscription boxes are an easy way to guarantee future purchases and continued engagement with your loyal customers.
? Grow your knowledge:
“Imagine that your package is going to be in a rugby match until it gets to its destination,” says Sonja. “You have to do everything you need to do in order to protect it.” Packing your plants for shipment is extremely important to ensure their survival—and customer happiness. “The plant community will tear you apart if your packaging is not up to par,” she says.
Imagine that your package is going to be in a rugby match until it gets to its destination.
Sonja Detrinidad, Partly Sunny Projects
There are many factors to consider depending on shipping location and method, climate, and hardiness of the plant. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you determine your packing and shipping processes:
“This is kind of embarrassing, but at the beginning, we did not have packaging for the dirt specifically,” says Danuelle. “I remember hearing the dirt sliding around inside of the boxes when USPS came to pick them up. I would pray over each packet like, ‘This is in God’s hands now.’”
I remember hearing the dirt sliding around inside of the boxes when USPS came to pick them up. I would pray over each packet like, ‘This is in God’s hands now.’
Danuelle Doswell, Grounded
Grounded’s founders learned from their early mistakes and now secure the soil as well as the pot and plant so customers don’t open a box full of loose dirt. “That can be overwhelming, especially if you’re a new plant parent.”
? Grow your knowledge:
Like plants that need adequate sun, water, and nutrients to thrive, your customers require care before and especially after their purchases. As we discussed in our content marketing section, customer education is a huge opportunity for plant-selling businesses to gain exposure and establish trust.
People can sign up for free Zoom office hours. It’s easier for us to assess the issue with the plant through video and help bring it back to health.
Mignon Hemsley, Grounded
But beyond marketing benefits, education ensures that your customers are equipped to enjoy their plants for a long time—and even become repeat purchasers.
Customer service tips for plant brands:
“We have a plant specialist who speaks with our customers whenever they have an issue with their plants,” says Danuelle. Grounded mitigates customer disappointment by investing heavily in education and customer support. “People can sign up for free Zoom office hours,” says Mignon. “It’s easier for us to assess the issue with the plant through video and help bring it back to health”
? Grow your knowledge:
For those looking for a more hands-on business to nurture, selling plants is a rewarding one. Studies show that plants reduce stress and increase productivity, counteracting the hectic pace of being a new business owner. And, with interest in plants blooming since the pandemic, the time is now to harvest that dream!
Although selling plants requires more specialized knowledge (plant care), and has specific needs for space and shipping, it is a great business idea in 2021. Interest in plants trended through the pandemic and shows no signs of stopping.
With the right care in packing and shipping, many varieties of plants can be sold online. If you’re new to selling plants, try succulents. Many varieties are hardy and compact, making them easy to package, and most don’t require much water to survive the trip. Succulents come in many varieties, are common houseplants (therefore easy to source), and most are uncomplicated to care for.
Yes, it is legal to sell plants online in most places. That said, there are laws that vary from country to country regarding the import and export of soils and organic matter. Look into the regulations where you sell and in all of the territories that you plan to sell.
This may vary from country to country or even state to state, but in some places you may be required to obtain a business license or a specialized permit for selling plants. California, for example, requires different permits for selling “nursery stock” and selling seeds.
If you live in a home that has the ideal conditions for caring for a large inventory of plants, you can pretty much sell any plant from home. Consider space, water, and sunlight needs as well as each plant type’s vulnerability (i.e., will it survive shipping?).
You can absolutely make money selling plants online. This guide has everything you need to get started building a profitable business. Remember that many businesses take a while to earn a profit, often investing back into the business to buy inventory or run paid ads. Temper your expectations at the start and keep a close eye on your finances. You may need to adjust your pricing strategy or rein in expenses—this is all part of growing a new business.
Feature illustration by Leonard Peng
