Dropshipping house plants means you sell plants on your Shopify store, and a greenhouse packs and ships each order straight to your customer. You don't buy stock upfront, you don't water anything, and you never pack a box. You pick the plants, set the prices and run the store. The grower handles the part that's alive.
Plants are trickier than most dropshipped products, though, because they're living things. Here's how it works, what to watch out for, and how to get your store set up.
How it works
It's simpler than it sounds:
- A dropship app pulls plants from the grower's catalog into your Shopify store as products. You can edit the photos and descriptions.
- A customer buys from you, on your store, at your price.
- The app sends the order to the greenhouse with what they need to ship it: the customer's name, address, order number and the plants.
- The greenhouse packs it and ships it straight to your customer, so the plant spends as little time in a box as possible.
- You pay the dropshipper for the plants and shipping. The difference between that and what your customer paid is yours.
Why plants aren't like other products
A phone case can sit in a warehouse for a year. A pothos can't, and that changes a few things.
Where the plants ship from matters a lot. A greenhouse in the US gets plants to US customers faster, and in better shape, than anything coming from overseas.
Weather matters too. A plant can freeze in a delivery truck in January or cook in one in July, so good growers add protection like heat packs when it's cold.
No two plants are exactly alike, either. Customers get a plant like the one in the photo, not a copy of it, and it's worth saying so on your product pages.
And some damage is just going to happen. Even well-packed plants occasionally show up with a broken leaf or stem, so know your dropshipper's claim process before you start selling.
Setting up your store
- Pick an angle. "Plants" is a lot. Easy plants for beginners, pet-safe plants, big statement plants for offices: a clear focus makes your store easier to find and easier to trust.
- Install a plant dropship app from the Shopify App Store and connect it. Some suppliers also let you place orders on their website if you'd rather not use an app.
- Start small. Fifteen to thirty plants that fit your angle is plenty, and it's much easier to write good pages for 20 plants than for 400.
- Price everything so it covers the plant, shipping and any winter protection, plus your margin. There's more on that below.
- Write product pages people can actually use: light, water, whether it's safe for pets, and a note that every plant is a little different.
- Set your shipping zones to only the places your grower ships to, and decide on free, flat-rate or calculated shipping.
- Write a damaged-plant policy that matches your dropshipper's, so you never promise customers something you can't claim back.
- Order something to yourself before you launch. Seeing the box and the delivery time firsthand tells you more than anything else.
Shipping live plants
A lot of plant dropshippers only ship within the continental US. Alaska, Hawaii and other countries tend to mean plant-import rules and longer transit times. Set your Shopify shipping zones to match your grower, so nobody can order to an address you can't deliver to.
Cold is the big one. With House Plant Dropship, for example, winter protection is required whenever average daytime temperatures where the order is headed drop below 50°F. Cold damage isn't covered if protection was needed and not added. Build that cost into your winter prices instead of hoping for a mild week.
Another approach is to let shoppers add protection themselves when a cold snap is headed their way. That's what we're building Kelvin to do.
When a plant does arrive damaged, ask the customer for clear photos right away, because claim windows are short. With House Plant Dropship it's 7 days from delivery, with the order number, shipping details and photos, and you choose a refund or a replacement. Your own store policy can just be a simpler version of that.
What it costs
Your cost on each order is whatever the dropshipper charges for the plant and shipping. Whatever's left after that, Shopify's fees and your ads is your profit.
Here's an example with made-up numbers:
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Plant from the dropshipper | $12 |
| Shipping | $9 |
| Winter protection (cold months only) | $3 |
| Your cost | $24 |
| Your price to the customer | $39 |
| Left before Shopify fees and ads | $15 |
Two things are easy to miss. First, some plant dropshippers charge each order to your card or bank account when it's processed, separate from your Shopify bill. House Plant Dropship works this way, so keep enough in that account to cover a busy week.
Second, winter. Heat packs and slower shipping eat into your margin, so a small price bump or a winter minimum order beats losing money on every small order.
A few common questions
Do I need a business license to sell plants? That depends on where you live, so check your state and city rules for selling online. Growing and shipping the plants is the dropshipper's job.
Will customers know it came from a dropshipper? They're buying from your store, under your name. The box ships from the greenhouse, though, so ask your dropshipper what the packaging and packing slip look like.
Do my customers' details get shared? The grower needs a name and address to ship. With House Plant Dropship, greenhouses get the name, company, address, order number, items and any order note. They never get the customer's phone number or email.
Can I sell plants next to other products? Sure. Dropshipped plants are just Shopify products, so they can sit right next to pots, care kits or whatever else you sell.
Where House Plant Dropship comes in
House Plant Dropship is our app for this. It syncs hundreds of plants to your store, and orders are packed and shipped from greenhouses in Southern California and Florida to anywhere in the continental US, with winter protection added when it's needed.
We work with plant farmers in Southern California and Florida, so the plants are grown and shipped in the US. There's a free trial, and each order, plants and shipping included, is charged to your card or bank account when it's processed. Not on Shopify? You can also order straight from houseplantdropship.com.