A Sydney dad managed to make millions of dollars selling roses and his business brought in a whopping $811,000 during his best month.
James Stevens, 56, only started Mr Roses three years ago but hit $5.4 million in revenue during the last fiscal year.
He has been exposed to flowers from a very young age when his parents ran a flower shop at Town Hall Station in 1964.
The longtime florist told news.com.au “I I wanted a brand that was never going to be at the mercy of one owner.”
Watching his parents expand their flower shop onto other busy streets to attract as many customers as possible, Mr. Stevens realized that it would be a more stable business model to deliver flowers rather than rely on foot traffic.
“I started in the flower game when I was a child,” he explained. “I was born and raised in the flower industry, the mom and dad business model was a pretty simple business model.”
As a result, Mr. Stevens started a flower business that had no physical stores and instead offered home deliveries and relied on advertising and word of mouth to reach customers.
The business has grown tremendously, with the number of sales in February, during Valentine’s Day, a good indicator. At Mr Roses, the first February 2020, the business made $203,000 but fast-forward to 2022, and that month they made $811,000.
He used a strategy he referred to as the “sticky spike factor” and credits it as one of the main reasons his business has taken off.
Mr. Stevens acknowledged that “Google is not going to advertise for you” and decided to try everything to get the name out there, not just online advertising.
“The packaging and the way we present our roses is huge,” explained Mr. Stevens.
“Mostly I wanted our flower delivery in the halls of a building to be noticed by its presentation.
“I wanted (our flowers) to be noticed when they arrived at the recipient’s desk. Then the sticky beak factor, when you get four or five more pairs of eyes on that gift, that’s what (I knew) was going to grow our business.”
He also used traditional methods, including television and radio ads and even billboards.
And obviously it was worth it; in the last 10 months, 25,000 customers have purchased a long-stemmed rose from the company.
“We also sell a lot of chocolate, and candles and champagne with roses are the three main lines of additional gifts,” he added.
In a poignant moment earlier this week, Mr. Stevens said that one of his clients spent $1,600 on 200 stems of roses to send to his fiancée, excited for her wedding day in the near future.
Although Valentine’s Day is obviously the biggest day of the year for florists, Stevens said people flock to it for all kinds of occasions.
“We’re an anniversary business, we’re a birthday business, we’re an ‘sorry’ business, it’s a year-round business,” he said.
The company has expanded rapidly and is now able to offer same-day delivery services to most capital cities and one smaller city: Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane and Newcastle.
Earlier this week Mr Roses launched in Canberra, the Central Coast and Wollongong and there are also plans for Adelaide.
There are 30 employers in various states, who work as florists and couriers. Each city you deliver flowers to only needs one central location to prepare the flowers.
Mr. Stevens has launched a stock crowdfunding campaign for his business that will allow anyone to own shares in Mr. Roses.
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