Flower Shop Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

start a flower shop

Flower Shop Business Plan

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 1,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their flower shop companies. We have the experience, resources, and knowledge to help you create a great business plan.

In this article, you will learn some background information on why business planning is important. Then, you will learn how to write a flower shop business plan step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

What Is a Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your flower shop business as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategies for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.

Why You Need a Business Plan

If you’re looking to start a flower shop business or grow your existing flower shop company, you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your flower shop business to improve your chances of success. Your flower shop business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

Sources of Funding for Flower Shop Businesses

With regard to funding, the main sources of funding for a flower shop business are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans, and angel investors. When it comes to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to ensure that your financials are reasonable, but they will also want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business. Personal savings and bank loans are the most common funding paths for flower shop companies.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

If you’d like to quickly and easily complete your business plan, download Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template and complete your plan and financial model in hours.

How to Write a Business Plan for a Flower Shop Business

If you want to start a flower shop business or expand your current one, you need a business plan. The guide below details the necessary information for how to write each essential component of your flower shop business plan.

Executive Summary

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your executive summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the kind of flower shop business you are running and the status. For example, are you a startup, do you have a flower shop business that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of flower shop businesses?

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan.

  • Give a brief overview of the flower shop industry.
  • Discuss the type of flower shop business you are operating.
  • Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers.
  • Provide a snapshot of your marketing strategy. Identify the key members of your team.
  • Offer an overview of your financial plan.

 

Company Overview

In your company overview, you will detail the type of flower shop business you are operating.

For example, you might specialize in one of the following types of flower shop businesses:

  1. Retail Flower Shop: this type of flower shop is located in a retail location as part of a  shopping mall, store, or is housed in a stand-alone building. Customers served are typically from the local residential and business areas, with a high rate of repeat customer business. Flower delivery is usually offered at an additional cost.
  2. In-Store & Online Flower Shop: this type of flower shop supplies flower arrangements in various formats for both walk-in or call-in retail customers and, additionally, serves online retail customers. Pricing for flower arrangements is congruent in both types of sales; however, delivery charges vary according to the type of delivery required.
  3. Online-Only Flower Shop: As the name suggests, this type of flower shop is concentrated on the primary website of the business and offers numerous floral arrangements created and delivered to customers who order online. No services exist for walk-in or call-in customers and there is no store location.
  4. Mobile Flower Cart: Customers of a mobile flower cart include those who work in businesses or frequent busy city districts. Mobile flower carts typically carry floral bouquets wrapped in paper or loose arrangements rather than formal floral arrangements that  include vases.

In addition to explaining the type of flower shop business you will operate, the company overview needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to questions such as:

  • When and why did you start the business?
  • What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include the number of flower shop customers served, the number of deliveries made, reaching X number of mobile flower carts, etc.
  • Your legal business Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.
Quickly and easily complete your Flower Shop business plan with Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template and complete your plan and financial model in just hours.


Industry Analysis

In your industry or market analysis, you need to provide an overview of the flower shop industry. While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the flower shop industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your marketing strategy, particularly if your analysis identifies market trends.

The third reason is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your florist business plan:

  • How big is the flower shop industry (in dollars)?
  • Is the market declining or increasing?
  • Who are the key competitors in the market?
  • Who are the key suppliers in the market?
  • What trends are affecting the industry?
  • What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
  • What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential target market for your flower shop business? You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of the market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.

 

Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section of your flower shop business plan must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: individuals, wedding parties, families and corporations.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of flower shop business you operate. Clearly, individuals would respond to different marketing promotions than corporations, for example.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, including a discussion of the ages, genders, locations, and income levels of the potential customers you seek to serve.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can recognize and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.

Finish Your Flower Shop Business Plan in 1 Day!

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your business plan?

With Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

Click here to finish your Flower Shop business plan today.


Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other flower shop businesses.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from that aren’t directly competing with your product or service. This includes grocery stores selling loose flowers, flower farms, or wholesale flower markets. You need to mention direct competition, as well.

For each direct competitor, provide an overview of their business and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as

  • What types of customers do they serve?
  • What type of flower shop business are they?
  • What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
  • What are they good at?
  • What are their weaknesses?

With regard to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective. And don’t be afraid to ask your competitors’ customers what they like most and least about them.

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

  • Will you provide packages for wedding floral arrangements?
  • Will you offer preferred customer discounts that your competition doesn’t?
  • Will you provide better customer service?
  • Will you offer floral arrangements for all budgets?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

If you’d like to quickly and easily complete your business plan, download Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template and complete your plan and financial model in hours.

Marketing Plan

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For a florist business plan, your marketing strategy should include the following:

Product: In the product section, you should reiterate the type of flower shop company that you documented in your company overview. Then, detail the specific products or services you will be offering. For example, will you provide floral arrangements for weddings, funerals, social gatherings and corporate events?

Price: Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your plan, you are presenting the products and/or services you offer and their prices.

Place: Place refers to the site of your flower shop company. Document where your company is situated and mention how the site will impact your success. For example, is your flower shop business located in a busy retail district, a business district, a standalone office, or purely online? Discuss how your site might be the ideal location for your customers.

Promotions: The final part of your flower shop marketing plan is where you will document how you will drive potential customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

  • Advertise in local papers, radio stations and/or magazines
  • Reach out to websites
  • Distribute flyers
  • Engage in email marketing
  • Advertise on social media platforms
  • Improve the SEO (search engine optimization) on your website for targeted keywords

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

If you’d like to quickly and easily complete your business plan, download Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template and complete your plan and financial model in hours.

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your flower shop business, including answering calls, building floral arrangements and delivering them, billing corporate accounts, or restocking your mobile flower cart daily, etc.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to sell you Xth floral arrangement, or when you hope to reach $X in revenue. It could also be when you expect to expand your mobile flower carts to reach your entire city.

 

Management Team

To demonstrate your flower shop business’ potential to succeed, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally, you and/or your team members have direct experience in managing flower shop businesses. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act as mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in managing a flower shop business or successfully running a small gift shop.

 

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements.

Income Statement

An income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenue and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you sell 50 floral arrangements per day, and/or contract with corporations for monthly floral services? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets

Balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. While balance sheets can include much information, try to simplify them to the key items you need to know about. For instance, if you spend $50,000 on building out your flower shop business, this will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a lender writes you a check for $50,000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement

Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and ensure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt.

When creating your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a flower shop business:

  • Cost of equipment and office supplies
  • Payroll or salaries paid to staff
  • Business insurance
  • Taxes
  • Other start-up expenses (if you’re a new business) like legal expenses, permits, computer software, and equipment

 

Appendix

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your office location lease or a list of corporations interested in long-term contracts for floral services.

 

Summary

Writing a business plan for your flower shop business is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert. You will understand the flower shop industry, your competition, and your customers. You will develop a marketing strategy and will understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful flower shop business.

 

Flower Shop Business Plan FAQs

Starting a Flower Shop business is easy with these 14 steps:

  1. Choose the Name for Your Flower Shop Business
  2. Create Your Flower Shop Business Plan
  3. Choose the Legal Structure for Your Flower Shop Business
  4. Secure Startup Funding for Your Flower Shop Business (If Needed)
  5. Secure a Location for Your Business
  6. Register Your Flower Shop Business with the IRS
  7. Open a Business Bank Account
  8. Get a Business Credit Card
  9. Get the Required Business Licenses and Permits
  10. Get Business Insurance for Your Flower Shop Business
  11. Buy or Lease the Right Flower Shop Business Equipment
  12. Develop Your Flower Shop Business Marketing Materials
  13. Purchase and Setup the Software Needed to Run Your Flower Shop Business
  14. Open for Business

Learn more about how to start your own flower shop business.

Click here to download the pdf version of our basic business plan template.

Our free business plan template pdf allows you to see the key sections to complete in your plan and the key questions that each must answer. The business plan pdf will definitely get you started in the right direction.

We do offer a premium version of our business plan template. Click here to learn more about it. The premium version includes numerous features allowing you to quickly and easily create a professional business plan. Its most touted feature is its financial projections template which allows you to simply enter your estimated sales and growth rates, and it automatically calculates your complete five-year financial projections including income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. Here’s the link to our Ultimate Business Plan Template.



Finish Your Flower Shop Business Plan in 1 Day!

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your Flower Shop business plan?

With Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

Click here to finish your Flower Shop business plan today.

 

OR, Let Us Develop Your Plan For You

Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.
 
Click here to see how a Growthink business plan writer can create your business plan for you.

Other Helpful Business Plan Articles & Templates