- There are many things in the environment that creates the opportunity for a plant subscription service. The weather is a big force in the environment. It changes often and it is hard to take care of plants during certain weather conditions. If it is too cold outside the plants burn, if its to hot outside the plants dry out, and if it rains too much the plants get sick. All these different factors are what makes taking care of plants difficult. Lucky this is where my opportunity comes from. My service helps the customer take care of plants by replacing ones that die with new ones.
- This market is large geographically. It is anywhere in which people have plants. Plants can live inside also so this broadens the market even more. The whole United States and Canada is the market. Demographically my customer basis is people who are middle class and up. People who own houses and have yards. I say this is my demographic because I figure these are the most likely the people who would want to spend extra on a plant service to make their life easier.
- Right now customers have to rely on going to garden centers to pick up plants. There are very few online services that deliver plants to customers. I do not believe customers will be very loyal to going to the garden center because my service will make there lives easier. Having things delivered right to your door is becoming more popular every day. The customer likes the connivance of having something shipped to them. With my service, they will not have to go to the garden center to pick out plants. They can just have them shipped to them.
- I believe the opportunity is huge for this opportunity. Most houses have plants in their yard. Anyway, people can have plants delivered to them will make their lives easier. People from any age will have use for this service. Most people buy plants every year. So if they find there life easier on ordering plants then they will do so.
- I believe the window for this opportunity will be open for a while until new technology comes and overtakes it. We are just at the beginning of online services right now so I believe the window will remain open for a while more.
Innovation.
My innovation is an online website in which you can order plants or sign up for a subscription. When you sign up for a subscription, you will be delivered plants monthly or weekly based on what the customer wants. They can choose online which variety of plants they want to be delivered. There will be plenty of varieties for them to choose from. We will be constantly changing the types of plants on our website to offer our customer a new product. If you do not sign up for the subscription we can still send you plants. We will offer better deals to our customers who are signed up for subscription because we know they are going to be paying next month. I believe this is a good opportunity because many people are shopping less in stores because of the convenience of online shopping now. Our average cost of a plant will be around $10-12 dollars for foliage plants. We can buy these plants for around 3-4 dollars so we will have good margins. Depending on the volume the customers order we may lower the price for each plant because they are ordering more volume.
Venture Concept.
- Some reasons I believe customers will switch to this online service is because they will not have to drive to a garden center to pick up plants. Also, many times garden centers have a very limited selection. We will be able to offer a larger selection of plants for our customers since we have a broader market.
- Our competitor is Amazon and other online websites that do sell the plant. Their weaknesses are that they do not offer subscription service for plants or information on the plants. We will offer how to take care of varieties and how to make sure the plants do well. I want to create a company where customers know they will be sold quality products and a service to help ensure they are informed on how to take care of the plant. When you go on amazon they do not have information on how to take care of the plants. Many people out there do not have knowledge of plants. They do not know if they should put the plant in shade or sun. So often these plants look terrible a week later because they do not know where to put the plants. I also want to make this company as a family. If the customer wants to call us and ask any questions I want real people to answer the phone who know all about plants. I want people to feel like they're shopping at a real company with real people. I do not want my customers to think they are shopping at some massive corporate company.
- The cost of packaging will not be kept at a minimum to ensure we are profitable. The distribution will be our most difficult point. I want to ensure our plants get delivered alive and healthy. Customer service is very important I want to make sure that our customers can call and get that help they need. I want this company to have a small feel to it. Customers can get to know our employees and relies on them for help.
- The expansion would be the way to support ongoing product and service. However, I think that greed is your enemy. If you get to big your profits can go down and customers will suffer also from this. I want this to be a small company with good profits. I want our customers to feel this is a small operation that they can depend on. I want my customers to feel like they're going to their local garden center, but it will be online. I want to have ten to twenty employees.
The three minor elements
Our biggest resource will be with our suppliers. I want them to be able to offer us to varieties and quality plants to sell to our customers. I want to build good relationships with our suppliers. Our connections will be the hardest things for competitors to copy our success. The plant industry is a fairly small industry and not many people are getting into it. I believe many people out of college want to get jobs in corporate America.
My next venture is just to keep expanding our services to a broader market. Offering different types of plants and products to our customers. We could sell types of pots, soil, and fertilizer to our customers that we think will be best for our plants.
In five years I want this venture to be profitable and have a loyal customer basis. I want to keep the company simple. I think if you expand to much you will only dig yourself into a deep hole that makes it less profitable. I eventually want to start up a different company down the road. Maybe another company in the plant industry or a company similar to this. I think to remain thriving you have to be innovative constantly.
Feedback
I received a lot of helpful feedback on my first venture concept. They gave me insights as to what they would be a good way for me to expand the company. One path people said to go was to sell pots and soil. Even to add a custom option where customers could pick the pot they wanted and we would put the plant in it. Everyone said that a subscription service is a good idea right now because they are so popular. The world is moving more and more to the internet. So adapting the plant industry to online will be a huge impact.
