How My Friend Plans to Turn a $600k Flower Shop Into a 7-Figure Ecom Brand
Welcome to the Dave vs. Startups.
My friend used to work for a major e-commerce platform, and he was looking at this flower store to understand their e-commerce footprint and what they were doing.
The store owner is in their 60s and they do about $600,000 a year with a 20 to 40% margin, which is pretty good.
But here's where it gets interesting…
My friend is looking at this business and thinking there's so many different things he could do to optimize this business and make a lot more money that doesn't require the traditional brick and mortar approach.
My friend’s vision is almost exclusively online.
The current owner knows flowers and knows brick and mortar.
But my friend knows how an e-commerce business like that could do really well.
So here's the strategy he's considering:
Buy the flower store, lease a warehouse not too far away from it, fill that thing with flowers and start selling online.
He thinks he could potentially do double or triple what they're doing in that physical location.
This is a perfect example of bringing modern e-commerce approaches to traditional businesses. It also shows how profitable boomer businesses are enormous opportunities.
The flower store owner has decades of knowledge about the product, supplier relationships, and customer preferences.
But they're limited by foot traffic and local market size.
Meanwhile, someone with Shopify expertise understands:
Online marketing
Conversion optimization
How to reach customers beyond the immediate geographic area
You're taking a business that's already profitable and proven, then expanding its reach through digital channels.
The warehouse operation would let them handle much higher volume without the constraints of retail space.
And online sales can happen 24/7 instead of just store hours.
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As a founder, what are you thinking about doing today to prepare yourself for an AGI world?
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