How To Price And Market Your Greenhouse Plants
Topics: greenhouse nursery, greenhouse
The price you charge for your plants will depend on whether you sell finished or unfinished stock, and whether your greenhouse enterprise is a full-time business or just a profitable sideline or self-supporting hobby. “Finished stock” means plants that have reached a size or state plants, such as African violets, begonias, and gloxinias when they are in bloom-and-bud or in full bloom or foliage plants potted and of large enough size to be attractive.
“Unfinished stock” refers to young, undeveloped plants. This can mean seedlings like annuals sold from flats or pots; started or dormant begonia, gloxinia, and other tubers or bulbs in pots; cuttings, either rooted or un-rooted; and small foliage or other fibrous-rooted plants. Since it requires time and expense to bring a plant to maturity, finished stock should sell at a considerably higher price than unfinished plants in the seedling or dormant stage.
Price your plants realistically. Before setting a price, total your upkeep, such as the original cost of seed, cuttings, plants, tubers, or bulbs; your pots and potting material; and an approximately proportional share of heat, light, and water, fertilizer, insecticides, and greenhouse deterioration.
Take into consideration, too, the customers you will serve. If you are offering a general, popular selection of plants and you aim to capture the trade of the home town folks, you may have to meet local competitive prices. Also, because your venture is new (as is your reputation), your merchandise will have to be as good as and preferably better than plant items available elsewhere in town. What’s more, you’ll have to maintain high standards to keep your customers coming back for more.
Markets for Your Plants
Dime, chain, variety, grocery, drug, and department stores and even pet stores and cafes – all these can become your customers. These outlets usually have to purchase the plant material they sell and generally have the plants shipped in from out-of-town wholesale growers. Look over the plants and seeds at these retail counters. If you feel you could make money by being a wholesaler and selling a store similar plant items at about the same to 1/2 the price that you see they are charging the public, seek out the manager and have a talk with him.
Once you have established yourself, the buyer is likely to go on from his first cautious dealings to purchasing some of the unusual (and more profitable) plants you grow – cacti, new philodendrons, pilea, peperomias, and such flowering gesneriads as columnea, kohleria, and species gloxinias. You may find yourself growing specialties just for one outlet, which will want even more than you can grow (a pleasant and profitable experience).
When you arrange sales to a large chain store, you may be asked to ship sample plants direct to their central buying station. If you get the O.K. there, you will be placed on the preferred list, and from then on you should be able to count on this store as a regular outlet.
Roadside Markets
In a roadside market you have another really excellent prospect. Here is sold everything from dairy products to plants and vegetables. Usually on the outskirts of a city, the roadside stands attract the Sunday drivers, people returning from vacations, and those who feel they obtain fresher produce in such places.
Make your contact with your potential customers by carrying with you a box or two of the type of plants you sell. These people have to buy from someone; and if your plants are well grown, nicely potted, and priced so that the market can resell them at profit – why, you’re elected.
If local zoning rules allow you to have a stand on your property, and you are near enough to a highway, you may be able to dispose of your plants yourself. Friends of ours have a very attractive redwood roadside stand where plants and garden supplies are sold exclusively. Their greenhouse, 20 by 18 feet, is attached to the stand, and on the land adjacent they grow roses, shrubs, and some perennials to sell.
Now sit back and enjoy the profits you make from the plants you have grown in your greenhouse.
Long Lost Manuscript Resurfaces With The Secrets On How To Make Money With Your Greenhouse Nursery!
Click here for FREE online ebook!
Previous Articles Highlighter:
How To Handle Money For College (1)
You can save a lot with a needle and thread. (8) Learn sensible buying methods and apply them to yourself. If you're handling your own wardrobe at school, take advantage of neighbor hood store sales and off-season clearances.
How To Begin A Scientific Career (2)
All these ideas will get you off on the right foot for a rewarding career in science. Long Lost Manuscript Resurfaces Revealing Everything You'll Ever Need To Know To Start Your Very Own Science Fair Experiments!
Principles Of Keeping Good Aquariums (3)
However, a very shallow tank is an eyesore, and a compromise is always made between biological and artistic requirements. Many prefer a "double cube" type of construction, with the tank twice as long as it is wide and high, i.e. , 24 X 12 X 12 inches.
How To Get Goals In Hockey (4)
That means assists, too. So let us take a look first at the various ways of shooting and of beating the goalkeeper. Before we do this, you should know a very important fact about shooting.
How To Help Your Child To Read (5)
Building the Word This uses all the patterns of sight and sound carried over from seeing and saying, and the child who has learned the fundamentals of these will build with a satisfactory degree of success.
How To Prepare Hors D'Oeuvre (6)
For each serving, the following is suggested: 2 leaves crisp lettuce 1/2 hard-boiled egg sliced lengthwise 3 anchovy fillets 2 sardines 2 thin slices tomato 3 small ripe olives 2 stuffed green olives 2 spring onions 2 small stalks celery 3 thin slices cucumber 1 slice salami 1 thin slice boiled ham 2 wedges lemon Place the lettuce leaves on a salad plate and arrange the other items on them.
How To Teach A Parrot To Talk (7)
Some imitate the barking of dogs of various sizes; others the screaming of babies; and almost the sole sentence of some I have encountered has been "Polly want a cup of tea?" which I suppose does at any rate show that they have come from a typically English household!
Exercises To Help With The Golf Backswing (8)
First, the shoulder, and with it that priceless knack which may seem elusive at first but which you must work to acquire upper-left-arm-leverage. Unless you keep that left shoulder UP you cannot hope to achieve upper-arm-leverage, which comes as near to being a secret formula for success as anything in the golf technique.
How To Set Up A Workshop For Furniture Making (9)
With your workshop set up thus, you are ready to start the important work of furniture making. Discover How To Build Your Own Amazing Furniture With Our Free Furniture Plans!
Understanding Prereading Skills For Preschoolers (10)
These, he insists should be carried out in a game atmosphere - no pushing, no shoving, no staying at it until the child becomes bored or restless or inattentive. 1.
Newer Articles Highlighter:
Selecting Wheels For Your Ride (1)
You will damage your chassis. You will destroy your tires. Worst of all, you may even crash your car and hurt yourself. Wheels are very important for obvious reasons.
Container Gardening Drainage - How Vital Is It For The Healthy Growth Of Plants? (2)
The standard containers available in the market, such as plastic pots, already come with drainage holes placed at the bottom. But what if you would like to get creative and use anything and everything around the house as a holder for plants?
How To Plan A Science Project (3)
Think it through, planning progressive steps, controls and checks in some detail. Try to foresee blind alleys before you become stalled in them. List unwanted factors that might influence your results and plan ways to prevent or make use of such accidents.
How Can Search Engine Optimization Benefit For Your Website? (4)
Go to the Edit menu and click Select All. Now go to the Tools menu and select Word Count. Write down the total number of words in the page.
How To Make Your Resume Specific And Results-Oriented (5)
If your resume reads, "Compiled information and research," those reviewing it might rightfully think that you yourself don't know exactly what your responsibilities were. Focusing on the results is equally as important: why would someone hire you if you can't get results?
Fixing The Gap So That You And The Customer Wins! (6)
The various business gaps are all too often taken for granted. There is a gap between sales and marketing. This shows up as all those leads generated by marketing have a checked pattern of concise follow up.
How Home Owners Can Skip Through Their Amortized Schedule And Beat The Banks (7)
When I started in the business I knew nothing of mortgages, but I picked up on it quickly and had many opportunities available to me in learning about the industry.
Understanding Your Air Bags (8)
Even the most basic vehicles like the Toyota's will have great air bag safety features to brag about. You have to make sure that you are safe when you are driving.
Subprime Mortgage Rates For Some Borrowers May Be Frozen (9)
For an individual with three hundred thousand mortgage payment, the monthly payment will increase by five hundred dollars. And if you are tight with your budget and just making enough to pay your mortgage, then it will be very tough to maintain your monthly payments in good standing.
Is College Really Worth It? (10)
Overseeing a school with over 22,000 students has given Ron a special insight into the mind of the online student. Ron can be contacted at www.libertyuniversityonline.com or at Ron@RonaldKennedy.com.