Can you make money from selling plants?
This pandemic is like some sticky ex-spouses that never want to go away. More than 6 months into it, and we haven't seen any clear signs of it disappearing. Restaurants and stores are closing, and people are losing their jobs, risk living without health insurance or housing. While the US economy is collapsing, the plant business is surging like it got a superpower. Some plants' prices have increased by 10 fold, and some people compared them to diamonds. Nurseries are hiring more employees and expanding their businesses. On top of that, you see them buying houses, cars, and lands as if they have a gold mine in their backyards. The question I have is, could an individual or a small business make money by selling plants? The short answer is, yes! Absolutely! However, it is much more complicated than that. I have been observing this trend, and personally dabbled into selling recently. Let's take some time to look into this and have an open discussion.
Why are people so into houseplants?
We all may have different answers to why houseplants have become so insanely popular, but we can all agree that the pandemic has played a big part in pushing this trend. I had started buying plants before our lives went down into the toilet. Plants are healing to our souls. Having plants in the house, they distract us from the issues we have to deal with. Seeing plants grow is one of the most satisfying experiences. You feel like you have the magic to make things grow, turning your baby plants into stunning specimens. If your plants don't do well, you can always restart and find yourself a better one. It is less exhausting than building a relationship with people.
Going into quarantine life, many of us have been stuck at home. Jobs are slowing down, but we have those stimulus checks to spend. It's a perfect time to start a hobby. A hobby that heals our pain and keeps us from sinking into boredom. We can keep buying plants, from 10 to 50, and then hundreds, the more, the merrier. That way, we won't have time to be bored and worry about how COVID-19 could kill us. We will be busy killing pests, snapping gnats that circling us like what flies do to the field cows. Once we became a collector, we will be occupied by hunting down thrips, mealy bugs, and spider mites. Houseplant hobby helps enrich our lives; otherwise, days of staring at the blank wall.
Most people started buying plants from the local big box stores like Lowe's and Home Depot. Sometimes you can snatch some good ones at the grocery stores like HEB or Trader Joe's. Just like anything else, people started to look for collectibles, something uncommon or rare. The next stage was having plants showing up in the mail. Some people may not care about politics or voting, but you bet they don't want their plant orders stuck somewhere in the post office. Online business is booming despite the pandemic. Popular nurseries online have done really well, making a profit from people's splurge of interest in houseplants. Oftentimes, they said you could contact them anytime if you have issues with your orders, they would be happy to help you sort it out. The truth is, many of them don't reply because they are too busy counting dollars. You find businesses that market it like customers are their priority, but they increase their plant price every week. Plant stores online, and the nurseries cannot grow their plants fast enough for the consumer market. That led people to venture into buying plants on Facebook or eBay. EBay's auction feature has caused the plant price to skyrocket because people are desperate and eager to bid on their dream plants. The astronomical sales price on eBay then inspired plant stores online to follow and started their own auctions. Balls keep rolling, and the plant price keeps climbing. People are not happy that they can't get their hands on the plants they want because the demand is much higher than the supply. Some YouTubers even criticized this phenomenon as consumerism at its worst.
Where you can sell your plants
Apparently, the demand is there, so can you make money as a plant seller? And how? There are ways you can sell plants online. As aforementioned, eBay is one of the places you can sell or auction off your plants. Other than eBay, ETSY has become one of the main battlegrounds for plant sales. If you are active on Facebook, you can also sell plants on the purge groups or post your sales on your Instagram. To sell locally, I have heard people selling at farmer's markets or even at a garage sale. If you decide to go big and compete with the legit online plant stores, you can start your own business and have your own online plant store. Like anything in life, you find ways to do things. It's not one better than the other, but which one suits you the best.
Sourcing your plants
Before you jump straight into selling houseplants, let's discuss how you source your plants. Personally, I want to reduce my collection to have more time to be creative and travel when the world opens back up. I am mostly selling what I have, either cuttings, propagated plants, or plants that I no longer want to keep. It's not likely you can do what I do to have a profit if you started to collect after the pandemic began. The plant price has been so high that reselling what you bought won't profit you unless you somehow got it for an amazing deal.
From time to time, big box stores like Lowe's and Home Depot will sell some highly sought after plants like Raven ZZ, Cebu Blue, Monstera Siltepecana, Syngonium Albo, or Calathea Musaica. Flippers would go in and grab everything once they sniffed it. I have seen flippers double the price and resell plants from Trader Joe's without trying to hide where they got it. Often, the general public is frustrated by the flippers. They know these plants were from local stores, and flippers double or triple the price without having to do much other than drive to the stores. If this is who you want to be, you will have to be on social media all the time because people tend to post their great news when they score a good deal. Besides, you need to figure out when your local big box stores restock their plants. I used to obsess with plant shopping before the pandemic hit. Due to my frequent visits, I noticed the Lowe's I went to restock their plants twice a week on Monday and Thursday. New plants started to be put on the shelf in the early afternoon.
If you want to sell plants as a living, you certainly can't depend on big box stores to supply your stock. That means you will have to make a bigger investment before making big bucks. You can import plants from all around the world these days. Many sellers import their plants from Indonesia, Thailand, and Ecuador. To buy from international suppliers, you will need to ensure they provide a phytosanitary certificate shipped along with your plants to be less likely for the US custom to return or destroy your import. Be aware that if you are importing large quantities, you may also need an import license to avoid getting into legal issues. To do it long term, I have heard sellers travel to Southeast Asia to scout out suppliers. Even the internet has made everything possible; it's still best for you to meet your business partner in person to understand how they grow their plants.
Issues in the plant business
Like any business, there are millions of problems that could hit you if you are not well prepared. First of all, you can't avoid pests. You can manage them better if you use pesticides like Systemic or release beneficial insects like ladybugs and lacewings. If you consistently increase your houseplants collection without quarantining the new plants you acquire, you are at risk of having a big pests infestation. Aside from bugs, there is also the infamous lethal Mosaic virus you need to be aware of. You can't cure an infected plant, and the virus does spread if the plant is in contact with other plants through touching or the tools you use. Recently, there is a potential Mosaic virus outbreak at a popular plant shop in Florida. People love buying and reselling their plants because of the lower price point they have. However, they did not disclose how bad the virus had spread or how they had taken care of the problem. If you have been actively buying plants, you may likely have plants that came from their store and potentially infected with the Mosaic virus.
If you decided to flip plants, you need to have thick skin, and sometimes you have to be at the stores before they open. On top of that, you need to shamelessly grab every plant you can sell in front of other potential buyers, taking away their opportunities to shop and buy plants they love. The plant community is like a tightly weaved fabric. Locally, we all know each other, especially those who are active. We know who bought out all the nice plants at Lowe's, we know who resells plants from Trader Joe's without even taking off the labels. People may not talk about it in your face, but you better bet everyone is talking if you are an aggressive flipper. For sure, it's not illegal to flip plants or price gouging, and you don't need everyone to like you; not all businesses are indeed built on love and passion. We all have to do what is needed to be done to survive, particularly during a pandemic. I would suggest that if you want to go this route, it might be better to flip plants nationally and sell them to people in other cities instead of locally. When you build a reputation as a flipper, people tend to do things against you, like not sharing information with you when they found a good deal. Worse, they may tell their friends not to buy from you.
Importing plants sound heavenly when you imagine the price you paid and how much you can gain by reselling the plants. Despite how sweet that dream was, you are going to have nightmares from time to time. Being active on Facebook houseplant groups, I have seen a ton of failed cases. People opened up boxes of rotten plants in tears and drama. I am not sure what was going through their mind, but pretty sure it was unpleasant. Yes, I saw some successful import cases like how some Hoyas stayed alive for 2 months being shipped from Russia, but those were rare. Mostly, imported plants look like something not edible in your fridge. Even when the plants look alright, they could still lose all the leaves and die from the shock of shipping. Ethical plant importers have to hold on to their plants for a long time before selling. If you resell your imported plants immediately, it is likely to have unhappy customers that either never buy from you again or obliterate your name everywhere on Facebook groups. When you import plants, you will likely deal with someone you have never met across the globe. You don't know who they are or if they are real. Plant scam cases have been on the rise because of how profitable the plant business can be. New to importing plants, people are often being scammed when their sellers disappear completely from ETSY, eBay, or Facebook. Like any other business, you can run into people who take advantage of you if you are not prepared for that. Another issue that arose from importing plants is environmental. In countries like Ecuador or Indonesia, people see this as an opportunity to get wealthy or use this financial chance to improve their lives. Thus people started to rip the plants of their natural habitat in the forest. Some rare species could become extinct because of deforestation.
Selling plants locally is a simpler process compared to selling nationally. Once you start to ship plants, things get complicated. Recent political events in the election have affected USPS performance. Due to intentional budget-cutting and removing sorting machines, plant mails are delayed, and many plants don't do well in the shipping box for long. Damaged plants in the mail lead to unhappy customers. Unless you are a big company like Amazon or own a big growing facility, you can't afford to refund or replace the broken plants frequently. Particularly when it comes to rare plants, you may only have one, thus replacing may not be an option, and refunding the purchase will cause a big financial loss.
Well, did I make money from selling plants?
As I have discussed in this article, there are many ways you can buy and sell plants. If you decided you want to sell beyond the local market. You are looking at the long term. The question is, once this pandemic is over, people will be back at work, busy with their social life, actively traveling around the world; will this plant business still be viable? I probably owned a couple of hundred plants before I started my plant purge on Facebook. After occasionally selling off my plants in the last few weeks, I did make over a thousand dollars. It may sound like an easy, profitable side hustle to do, but when I look at the cost and average out my earnings, what's left is about 25% from all the sales I made. You may want to consider that not all plant prices are inflated. For example, regarding plants that are mass-produced by Costa Farm, the price has dropped significantly. If you are like me, bought those plants at a big price tag, it's painful to absorb that loss. Therefore, you may want to up your radar if you plan to do this long term. Be aware of what big companies are growing, so you don't invest in plants that end up being only worth pennies.
Thanks for reading my thoughts, and good luck in selling and buying plants! I wish everyone healthy, and I hope that you feel less isolated and less stressed in life by surrounding yourself with houseplants.
