We have been approached by lots of students who raise the questions as
stated below:
1. I like flowers and I would like to own my floral shop. Is this a right
way to join your school for this purpose ?
2. I would like to learn floral designs in order to open my own floral shop
in the future. Can I learn floral arrangements at your school for this kind of
purpose ?
3. Although I have never learned floral designs, I am interested in earning
flower arranging skills because I am planning to have my own floral shop in the
future. From where should I start ?
4. I learned floral designs and I want to become a florist. However I have
no idea how to do. Should I join your school for this kind of purpose ?
For answering above mentioned questions, I would like to summarize what kind
of conditions should be satisfied in order to start a florist or floral
business as an owner of a floral shop.
You need to satisfy the under-mentioned conditions for running your own
floral shop:
(1)Flower Arranging related knowledge and skills:
A.
Earn a minimal required knowledge about how to handle and store fresh flowers.
B. Earn a certain level of skills of floral designs so that you can take
care of your customers' request.
C. Get a certain level of knowledge such as name of flowers, type of floral
designs and decorations.
(2) Flower Business
related knowledge:
In order for you to start your own floral shop, following conditions must be
satisfied:
A. Find a floral shop to buy or to rent where you can sell flowers to your
customers as a retailer.
B. Obtain a business license from the city where you are planning to open
your floral shop.
It is not difficult to get this business license. You need to apply for a
business license to the city. Typical annual fee for keeping this business
license is about $100 per year.
C. Obtain a Seller's Permit from State Board of Equalization.
It is also easy to get a Seller's Permit. This permit is also called Resale
License or Sales & Use Tax Permit. By getting this permit, you are allowed
to collect sales tax from your customers when selling flowers. Another merit of
getting this permit is that you can buy flowers at a flower market at a
wholesale price which is much cheaper than retail prices.
You need to understand that once you get this seller's permit, you are
required to file a sales tax return to the State Board of Equalization every
quarters or every year.
If all above mentioned conditions are satisfied you are ready to start your
own floral shop. California Flower Art Academy focuses on teaching a variety of
floral designs which can be used for various purposes and occasions such as
running a floral shop, making floral decorations for weddings or funerals etc
etc. I would like to add one very important point.
Most people can achieve above mentioned tasks if he/she follows what should
be done. However the most difficult factor for doing a business as an owner of
floral shop is how to get and attract customers. You opened your own floral
shop after earning a decent level of floral design skills and satisfying all
legal requirements. However if you do not have enough number of customers, it
does not make sense at all to do a floral business.
If you are familiar with doing business by gathering customers or if you
have ample experiences in doing any retail business, it will greatly help. If
you do not have any experience quite unfortunately, you must learn how to do
and what to do. There are many ways to get such know-how as mentioned below:
a. Belonging to a college where you can take lessons of floral business
management or similar ones.
b. Buying a floral shop. Once you buy a floral shop, you are usually given
opportunities of getting a training from the seller (previous owner of the
floral shop) so that you will become familiar with how to run a floral shop,
how to take care of customers, how to make the use of FTD, how to make
advertising, how to update a website etc etc. This training is usually done for
a period of one to two months. It depends on negotiation how long you will be
trained. Most of floral shops have their own website. And you can get such
website once you bought floral shop. It may be much easier to start from
scratch to buy a business if your financial situation allows you to do so.
c. Having experiences of working at a floral shop. Make the best use of this
kind of opportunities to learn how to take care of customers, how to deliver
flowers, how to get customers, how to do advertising or marketing, how to
update a website of the floral shop etc etc.
California Flower Art Academy is specialized in teaching European floral
designs and Japanese Ikebana for various kinds of occasions. If you want to
learn floral arrangements for doing floral business, Ikebana is not recommended
because the skill of Ikebana arrangement can be seldom used for doing floral
business in the United States.
From student to student, the purpose of learning floral arrangements is
different. Some for hobby, some for running a floral shop, some for working as
a floral designer specifically for wedding decorations and some for funeral
decorations and quite limited number of students want to learn for the purpose
of having his/her own flower arranging class. You can find a
WIDE RANGE OF
PROGRAMS offered by
California Flower Art Academy.
REMARKS/DISCLAIMER:
Above information is provided based on our experiences in the State of California.
In
other states than California, situation and the conditions that must be
legally cleared MAY be different. If you are planning to engage in
floral business, it is advised that you consult a legal counselor,
lawyer or attorney at law.