I opened my own florist in inner city Brisbane!

Ever since my family and I moved to Brisbane in 2022, I have been looking for a beautiful shop space, a place to call my own, for the last 18 months. Whilst I have loved working with other florists, and have been lucky enough to work closely with Bart Hassam – a world champion Florist! I felt that it was time to spread my wings, and share my love of flowers and lovely gifts with my very own customer base. I ended up finding the perfect space, snuggled right next to a very Melbourne-esque café, The Soul Pantry.

Whilst I won’t go into detail about the weeks leading up to the opening, I wanted share a little bit of what the opening week was like for me, and over time, these blog entries will hopefully give you a glimpse into the life and times of starting up a small business in the north side of Brisbane, the community I support (and am supported by), how I try to be as sustainable as possible, and how we give back to our community people in our own special way.

I do need to acknowledge the massive support I received from the Soul Pantry owners, without whom I would not be achieving my dream of owning my own florist. The generosity and patience that Patricia and Kimbra showed me in setting up my little dream has been truly inspiring, and I will always be grateful to them for this opportunity.

On Monday my shop was closed (and also the café), so it was market day. I am not sure if anyone knows this, but florists get very little sleep, especially when they are mums like I am. I woke up at 3.00am and headed to the flower markets on the south side of Brisbane. Just a few of the local, Australian-grown flowers and foliage I bought from several of the wholesalers were:

Poppies

Oriental Lillies

Sunflowers

Roses

Dahlias

Delphinium

Pink Ice Protea

Banksia Prionotes

Hyacinth

Tulips

Sweet William

Jonquils

Erli Cheer

Paper Whites

Peonies

Foliage:

Tea Tree

Eucalyptus

Magnolia

Wattle

Leucadendron

These were all bought to support the recipes which I had put together for the flower arrangements and bouquets I planned to make. To be as time and cost efficient as possible, planning what goes into arrangements and bouquets is key. Whilst we can work with any product in a bespoke manner and make it look amazing, planning arrangements and bouquets creates a cohesive look and feel for your brand. There was some last-minute shopfitting going on, so that was all that was done at the shop for the day, and off I went to school pick up.

From there, I had to go back home and begin visually sketching out the designs I wanted to create. Page after page of sketching was discarded, until I had it just right. A glass of wine and a few chocolates to celebrate, as I was ready for Tuesday.

Tuesday was the big day – there was a new florist in Brisbane! I was again up with the sparrows, as the flowers needed to be arranged, the florist shop needed to be tidied, and I needed to be prepared for the first customers to come in. I was very pleased with the way the fresh flower arrangements matched the sketches. I decided to leave the website offline, giving myself the time to open and grow at my own pace. Plus, taking great photos of beautiful arrangements needed to happen, so that the product photos shown on the website were fresh, current, and accurate.

Funnily enough, mum was my first customer, and I will always remember and cherish this moment. She didn’t even buy a flower or a plant – she had helped with some merchandising earlier in the week, and had her eye on a fan from my gift collection – the fan folds away, nice and small, so that it fits unobtrusively into a handbag. And from there on, customers who were enjoying a cup of coffee or breakfast at the Soul Pantry wandered over and had a peek at the new flower shop. It was bliss. They loved the arrangements, oohed and aahed at some of the giftware which was on display, and all up, it was a nice, easy way to ease into business. As we chatted, I found out that they were from Windsor, Grange, Wilston, Newmarket, Wooloowin, Kedron, Wavell Heights, Lutwyche, Chermside (and Chermside West), Stafford (and Stafford Heights), Everton Park, and so many more suburbs.

At the end of the day, all the flowers were packed away in the fridge again, to keep them as fresh as possible. A quick tidy up, a little point of sale reconciliation, and reality set in: this was very real, this was going to be very hard work, and most importantly, this was most definitely what I wanted to do.

It felt like I had just closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, and Wednesday was suddenly upon me. The call had been made to keep the website turned off, and to allow myself more time to immerse myself in the experience of owning my own flower shop. Nothing could prepare me for what Wednesday had in stock. Word seemed to have gotten out that there was a new florist northside of Brisbane, and it was busier than I could have imagined. From the moment the doors opened at 7.30 in the morning until they closed again at 2.00 in the afternoon, there always seemed to be someone there in the shop. What a feeling it was, to be this busy, so early, and all before the website had even been switched on. Another market run was on the cards for Thursday.

In addition to being another flower market run, Thursday was a bigger day yet, because the plants were arriving today! A florist is not a florist if they only sell flowers and gifts – plants make the complete package, but these need to be packaged up with ceramic pots too. Potted plants make excellent, long-lasting gifts. I was swiftly reminded how heavy ceramic pots are, as I lugged these from the car to the shop space. Anyway, I got these in, and managed to snap a few photos of these beauties too. Oh, the website went live too, much to the pleasure of my husband, who now fancied himself as a bit of a web designer. The decision was made to load products slowly and surely onto the website, again not wanting to overburden myself with too much, too soon. At the end of Thursday, I felt like I had been run over by a train, but I thankfully had some recipes up my sleeve for early Friday morning creation.

Friday came around swiftly after a few winks of sleep, and it was a busy, bustling day, filled with friendly, smiling customers, and coffee. Lots of coffee. I had a few friends drop in, and I started seeing some familiar customer faces which I had seen a few days before – did I now have regular customers? In week one? It appears as though I did.

Saturday was rather busy, and business ebbed and flowed, as my florist shop matched the steady rhythm of the café. Some more familiar faces, many, many dogs (I always have time for puppy cuddles) a very busy day of sales. Before I knew it, 2.00pm had arrived, and it was time to close again.

Sunday was super busy, as the Love Me Again Markets were on that day. There is definitely a crossover between people giving clothes new life, and flowers.

I am so glad that Monday is a non-working day for me, because I get to do this all again next week.

New flowers, new designs (and some of the same, successful designs too), new customers, new ideas, new experiences.

Until next time, bye.

Nikki x