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I sell carnivorous plants online. It's not my main job/revenue so it doesn't fit your description of successful. It could certainly be my main income but I like
by phito 7y ago
I sell carnivorous plants online. It's not my main job/revenue so it doesn't fit your description of successful. It could certainly be my main income but I like keeping it as a side job.
Here's a few things I do that made it "successful":
- Obviously, selling good quality product is the most important thing.
- Offering rare species that are hard to find elsewhere
- Having a good website that works, is well organized and easy to use.
- Friendly customer support, I like to talk to my customers as I would talk to a friend (to a certain extend).
- Fast shipping after receiving an order, or at least let the customer know when their order will be shipped.
- A good logo made by a designer, this has been super helpful for brand-awareness
- Good packaging that minimize most damage the plants, with printed plastic labels for each plants (with my logo on them)
- Active presence on social media, with good quality picture posts (with my logo on them)
- Always give more to the customer than what they expected to get. Even a small surprise when they open their package will make them feel good about their purchase.
- SEO optimisation so that people can find you on google. I struggle with this because google keeps autocorrecting my name.
Most of these points feel obvious to me, but I would say 95% of the other sellers fail at multiple of them. Mainly the customer support point, a lot of them feel like I'm talking to a robot.
I would say the part that I struggle the most with is staying on schedule and not forgetting about people who order via email/private message. Thankfully cold weather in the winter allow me to take a 6 months break each year. During that time I can relax and dive into other projets.
- babycake 7y agoCan I ask how much profit you make off the plants?
- phito 7y agoThis year I made around 6000€ in profit. I could make more but the limiting factor here is mostly time. My main goal is to cover my hobby's expenses, which are mostly the electricity bill and acquiring new species.
- collyw 7y agoWould it be worth hiring someone at this stage? Actually that was what I was curious about reading the title of the question. If you are successful as a one person business, it makes sense to scale it past a one person business.
- magduf 7y ago>If you are successful as a one person business, it makes sense to scale it past a one person business. That's not necessarily true. A lot of businesses just don't have enough demand out there to justify scaling up. For instance, suppose you make a business selling a custom LED set for a particular mechanical keyboard (or come up with some other obscure niche product); just how many people out there do you think are willing to pay for that? Larger businesses need lots of customers to pay for all the overhead, which for a 1-person side gig is essentially free (they're working in their spare time): you need employees you have to pay by the hour, regardless of demand, year-round; you need a building/commercial space; etc. You can get away with a lot of things as a 1-person side gig that you can't when you take on employees, and those costs are significant.
- sellingwebsite 7y agohow did you find your first customers?
- phito 7y agoIn this market, the demand for certain species is much higher than the offer. So I just advertised in the online carnivorous plants communities that I had these species for sale on my website. People rushed in to get them and bought other species alongside.
- sellingwebsite 7y agodo you mind sharing the URL for your business ? I love discovering indie businesses outside of software realm
- phito 7y agoof course, it is https://phito.be/ https://phito.be/
- sellingwebsite 7y agoI wish you had a blog where you share "behind the scenes" stories running this business
- phito 7y agoThere's a few pictures here about how I pack my plants (warning: large sized images will load with this page, still have to fix this...) https://phito.be/frequently-asked-questions/ https://phito.be/frequently-asked-questions/ and a few blog articles here https://phito.be/articles/ https://phito.be/articles/ I would like to write more blog articles, but I am a very slow writer and I don't have a lot of time :/
- trikko 7y agoNext feature for website: organize plant by trap's type or insect they eat :)
- callym 7y agoWhereabouts do you ship to (and if possible can you share a link or something)? I'm always looking for more Europe/UK plant suppliers! I'm also trying to start up a small online plant shop but am finding it hard to a) get the growing space, and b) get the interesting stock - would love to hear about how you dealt with these issues when first starting up! :)
- phito 7y agoMy website is https://phito.be https://phito.be :) I ship in the EU and any other countries that have trade deals that allows plant transfer without requiring phytosanitary certificates (Switzerland for example)! Sadly after Brexit I don't know if I will still be able to ship over the UK :( Finding the growing space is hard, especially if your plants are big. Thankfully I focus mostly on the Drosera genus, which are mostly small plants. I can fit multiple plants in a 7x7cm pot. I grow the winter-hardy ones in a greenhouse, the tropical ones are grown inside under LEDs. Finding rare species is not too hard if you have good contacts in the community (I've been part of it for more than 10 years, so it was relatively easy for me). The hard part is propagation. Thankfully for me, a lot of Drosera are really easy to propagate by leaves cuttings but for the species that are not easily propagated, I work with an university that propagate them in tissue culture for me. Good luck with your project, it requires a lot of work but if you're passionate about it, it won't feel like work!
- callym 7y agoYeah there's been a lot of Brexit talk in the orchid communities, it's a big problem because of how hard they are to propagate - there's only a few orchid nurseries left in the UK that can grow from seed because you need a lab setup, which is a huge shame I've had good luck growing a few Drosera from seed, never even thought about leaf cuttings, that's super interesting! Hopefully depending on Brexit I'll be able to order from you next Spring! Do you have a mailing list or something?
- phito 7y agoYes Brexit is a real mess for plant collectors (and for almost everyone else, but that's just my opinion). Looking forward to send you plants, make sure to say you're from hacker news in the notes of your order ;) I don't have a mailing list yet, although that is a good idea and I will look into it for the next season!
- ratsimihah 7y agoI could read threads like this all day <3
- DonHopkins 7y agoDon't feed the plants!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbQwEAvSMHM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbQwEAvSMHM
- DangerousYams 7y agobest idea in this list!
- phito 7y agoThanks :)
- Agentlien 7y agoMy father-in-law also cultivates and sells carnivorous plants as well as water lilies as a hobby. And he's also Belgian.
- phito 7y agoThat's awesome, maybe I know him!
- Agentlien 7y agoI thought you might. His name is Guido Lurquin.
- buraksarica 7y agoIs your father-in-law also on HN? :p
- WheelsAtLarge 7y agoI appreciate your advice. It may seem obvious but obvious is easy to miss sometimes. Anyhow, question, how do you maintain your supply? I would think those plants are hard to cultivate?
- phito 7y agoI do a lot of leaves cuttings and sow a lot of seeds during winter, then they can reach a good size for the next spring. For plants that are slower to grow or impossible to propagate via cuttings, I work with an university near me that propagate them in tissue culture.