You have a creative passion and love for flowers, you dream of owning and operating a flower shop.

Your dream can be a reality! What other career choices can be as rewarding than being a flower shop owner and opening a flower shop?   How many times have we heard people say, “I wish I owned a flower shop.”

There are tons of nostalgic when it comes to being a flower shop owner. Using your creativity to sell everlasting emotions with flowers and surrounded by natures beauty on daily basis is priceless. Have you pondered taking the leap into the floral industry as a business owner? Go For It!

If you have come across a neighborhood flower shop that is for sale, even better! There are important key factors to look for when buying a flower shop.  Let’s review the benefits and 8 tips to consider when buying a flower shop.

Benefits Of Buying A Flower Shop

• Less Up Front Costs
• Easy Turn Around Time
• Established Reputation
• Continuous Cash Flow
• Great SEO
• Guidance from current owner
• Trained Staff

7. Whats Included In Purchase Price?

To run a flower shop, equipment, inventory and supplies are needed. Find out what is actually included in the purchase price. Look over the condition of equipment to see if it will need to be replaced sooner than later.

• Coolers
• Equipment
• Inventory
• Customer Data Base
• Delivery Vehicle
• Current POS & Website Software

Note: Does the purchase price include House Accounts (Accounts Receivable) take a look at these and see what is outstanding. 

6. What Debt Are You Buying?

Take into consideration all the acquired debt when purchasing an existing shop. It is good to know what you will be responsible for once you take over ownership of flower shop.

• Are suppliers owed money?
• Are utilities up to date?
• Are Government and State Taxes up to date?
• Are there any liens on the business?

5. Flower Shops With Wire Services

Some flower shops participate with wire services. If this is the case for the flower shop you are purchasing, establish whether or not the hardware of the wire service has been paid off.

• Wire service hardware includes computer servers, printers, receipt printers and cash drawers.
• Is the shop you are planning on purchasing in a contract with a wire service?
• If you wish to continue to participate with said wire service, see whether you will resume payments on hardware or if the loan should be paid off before you take over.

Note: Not all existing flower shops for sale still owe balances on wire service hardware, if they do not, then you can just resume the monthly payments due if you wish to continue the wire service.

4. Flower Shop Name & Domain Name

Will you have full rights to flower shop name and domain name? You must also take into consideration any domain names the existing Flower Shop has, domain names are the address for the flower shop’s website.

• Regardless if you want to keep the existing flower shop name, it is always recommended to keep the domain name of the existing flower shop if it is placing higher on search engines.
• Make sure that you read and go over any limited liabilities attached to the existing Flower Shop name when purchasing.
• Make sure you have access to email accounts with the flower shop’s name, in particular, the one associated with Google Business account for the domain name.

3. Credit Card Processing

There are many facets to credit processing and good to know and understand the basics. Will you continue with the same credit card processing merchant the existing flower shop is using?

• If you are, then make sure to speak with the credit card merchant to change information.
• You will also need to update your gateway if you are processing credit cards online. Be sure to update the bank information to receive timely deposits of sales.

Payment Gateway: A payment gateway is necessary to process sales online or brick and mortar. The gateway can store and encrypt customers credit card information.

Credit Card Merchant: A credit card merchant functions like a bank account who authorizes you, the merchant, to accept credit cards as payments. These accounts will work with a payment gateway.

Payment Processor: A financial institution that works behind the scenes. Connects to both the payment merchant and gateway passing the information back and forth.

Payment Aggregators: Allows you to accept credit payments without having to set up a merchant account. Payment aggregators have an internal gateway so no gateway setup is required with no extra costs for a gateway. The best-known payment aggregators are Stripe, Square and PayPal.

2. Will you need to Hire Staff?

In some cases, most, if not all, the staff will stay when new owner acquires the flower shop.

• There are times when the owner of the flower shop will also offer to stay for a specific time period to help out with training you, the new owner.
• Are all current employees staying?
• Will there be changes in scheduling?

1. Be Hands On In The Floral Industry

It goes without saying that understanding the way the flower industry works is the key in pursuing a career as a floral business owner. Most business owners learn as they go, however, in the floral industry, floral designing, flower prep is important as all other business management tools. 

• Even if you will have full-time floral designers, it is important that you understand floral design. Take a floral design class.
• If owning a flower shop is your dream, think of working in a flower shop for some time to understand the business.
• Have a flower shop owner mentor you, connect with other florists for help and guidance.

Florists, did you buy a flower shop? What is your experience?  What key advice would you give to our readers? Please share your feedback or questions below in the comment section.

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