An owner looking for flower shop software usually chooses between two familiar options: cloud florist software on a subscription, or selling through a flower marketplace. The second option has a price that is easy to miss in the overall turnover: the marketplace keeps about 30% of every order, and that is the minimum loss rather than the ceiling, because the buyer also remains the marketplace’s customer. The third option is a system of your own, running on your own server. We built one for Doch Sadovnika, an author’s flower studio in Moscow, and use it here to explain what such software should do, what a marketplace and a subscription cost, and when your own system pays for itself.
30% of every bouquet: what a flower marketplace takes
Before we started, the studio’s orders came through a flower marketplace. It takes about 30% of each order for the use of its storefront and system. That money goes with every bouquet, without exception, however many years the shop has been selling there.
Take one of the studio’s real bouquets as an example. “Peonies with eucalyptus” costs 8,900 roubles. Sold through the marketplace, almost a third of that price stays with the marketplace. Ordered on the studio’s own site or through its own bot, that third stays with the studio.
Over a month the gap is larger. If 400,000 roubles a month go through the marketplace, about 120,000 roubles go to commission. Over a year that is twelve such sums. The amount grows with sales: the better a shop does on the marketplace, the more it pays it.
The second loss is less visible. The buyer remains the marketplace’s customer: the shop gets no name and no phone number, and cannot reach the person again when they next need flowers. If that person comes back through the same marketplace, the repeat order pays 30% again. That is why we say 30% is the floor.
What florist software usually does
Break a flower shop’s work into parts and you get roughly the same list everywhere. A catalogue of bouquets that customers see. A purchase list, so you know what a finished bouquet costs. A customer base, expenses and wages, and requests from the website and messengers.
Cloud florist software such as Posiflora covers this set and charges a monthly fee per user. The data is kept in the software maker’s cloud. For many shops that is fine: sign up, add staff, start working. A subscription does nothing about the marketplace commission, though: if orders come through a marketplace, the shop pays for the software and 30% of each order as well.
We built the Doch Sadovnika system with the same set of functions. The owner’s dashboard has eight sections: summary, bouquets, flowers and contents, customers, requests, money, access and a how-to. Summary, money and access are visible only to the owner; a florist does not even have them in the menu. The software sits on the studio’s server, the data goes nowhere, and there is no subscription fee.
How your own site and bot win back those 30%
An order that arrives through the shop’s own website or bot pays nothing to the marketplace, so those 30% stay with the shop. The task follows from that: move as many buyers as possible to your own channels. That is why together with the site we offer search and content work: articles, pages for local search queries such as peonies near Kutuzovsky Prospekt, Telegram posts. Every customer who arrives this way saves the studio at least 30% of the order.
Nobody switches the marketplace off. It stays as one sales channel among several. To show what it really costs, the “Money” section tracks marketplace payouts and commissions separately. If a marketplace pays a rouble less than it owes, the row is flagged as a mismatch. In the evening the summary shows revenue, what went on flowers and labour, what the marketplaces took and what is left. A separate line shows what marketplaces still owe.
Bouquet cost price with a wilting allowance
A 30% commission hurts most when cost price is guessed. Doch Sadovnika did guess, and trimming and wilting were never counted.
The purchase list now holds flowers, greenery, wrapping, decor and the florist’s time. Items are counted in pieces, stems, metres or hours. Each item has a percentage for trimming and wilting, usually about 8%. Without it the cost price is understated by roughly a tenth, and on paper the shop earns more than it really does.
When a morning delivery arrives and roses go up from 190 to 210 roubles a stem, the owner changes one number in the purchase list. The cost of every bouquet with roses is recalculated by itself.
A few more details we added after talking to the owner:
- Selling price. The dashboard shows a bouquet’s cost, its price and the margin in roubles and percent, and suggests a typical price for an author’s bouquet at that cost.
- Empty contents. If a bouquet’s contents are not set, its cost stays empty rather than zero, because zero would show a 100% profit that does not exist.
- Past sales. The cost is frozen at the moment of sale, so past profit does not change when purchase prices rise.
A bouquet posted from the phone in a minute
A bouquet lives about three days. The studio used to photograph it on a phone, move the photo to a computer and type a listing into someone else’s dashboard, which took half an hour.
Now it goes like this: “Post a bouquet”, the phone camera, the name “Peonies with eucalyptus”, contents, price 8,900, the “one of a kind” tick, “Publish”. About a minute later the bouquet is on the site and in Telegram.
Florists post their own bouquets, but they cannot set prices and never see purchase prices. Their bouquet goes to drafts marked with who made it; the owner types the price right in the row, and it goes live. When it sells, the row gets “Sold out”: the bouquet leaves the storefront but stays in the dashboard. Made another one like it: “Back on display”. Nothing is deleted for good.
The storefront has three independent filters: recipient, occasion and flower. The number on each filter matches the results, sold bouquets are not counted, and a bouquet without a price never reaches the storefront. Moscow delivery is free from 10,000 roubles.
The studio’s bot understands ordinary phrases like “for mum’s birthday” or “peonies under 20 thousand” and offers real bouquets with catalogue prices. If nothing fits, it says so and asks for a budget. The storefront opens right inside Telegram, without switching to a browser, through Telegram Mini Apps, which launch inside the messenger. The same bot books people into the “Living Painting” workshop, and lets staff into the dashboard through a one-time link with no password.
When your own system beats a subscription and a marketplace
Your own system costs money to build and a server to run on, so it is not for everyone. We would suggest it when several of these are true:
- A large share of sales goes through a marketplace. Work out how much commission you paid it over the last year: at least 30% of everything that went through it. Compare that with the cost of development.
- Your own customer base matters. A marketplace never gives you one; in your own system every buyer goes into the base with a note on mailing consent, and their next order can come in without commission. The note matters: under Article 18 of the Russian law on advertising, advertising over communication networks may be sent only to people who agreed to receive it in advance.
- You need honest money tracking. Cost price with a wilting allowance, expenses by category, wages (monthly, per shift, a share of each bouquet or hourly) and a check of marketplace payouts, all in one dashboard.
- You do not want to pay per user. Your own system has no subscription fee, however many people work in it.
If the shop has just opened, sales are small and a marketplace plays little part, subscription software may be simpler and cheaper. That is a reasonable choice at the start.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a flower marketplace take?
The marketplace Doch Sadovnika worked through kept about 30% of every order. A repeat order from the same buyer through the marketplace pays the commission again, so 30% is the lower bound of the loss.
Can I keep the flower marketplace if I build my own site?
Yes. At Doch Sadovnika the marketplace stayed as one sales channel. Marketplace commissions and payouts are tracked in “Money”, and mismatches are flagged.
Where is the data kept in your own system?
On the shop’s own server. Catalogue, customers, cost price, money and staff all run there, and the data does not go to someone else’s cloud.
Can a florist see purchase prices?
No. Florists post their bouquets as drafts, and the owner sets the price. Summary, money and access are not in a florist’s menu.
Who this fits
Flower shops and studios, as well as confectioners, bakeries and jewellery makers: anywhere the goods are one-off, the range changes daily, the owner stands behind the counter, and sales go through a marketplace with a commission or through subscription software. You can see how it works on dochsadovnika.ru and in the project description. Our other work is grouped by direction. If you want to estimate how much your shop gives to a marketplace and whether your own system would pay off, describe the task in the form below.
