Keith,
In real life I work for a large New York syndication as their project
executive building a $200,000,000 hotel in Fort Lauderdale. It pays good.
But, without this job I could not keep my business selling orchids-in-flasks
open for long. You almost have to get into selling orchids for love of the
hobby, because you won't get rich on the business. No one can compete with
the Chinese and Koreans who are buying up huge tracts of land outside
Orlando Florida to take over this industry on a huge scale. I personally
watch Krull Smith
http://www.krullsmith.com/
in Apopka near Orlando as my barometer... if they ever close shop then all
the smaller guys (left in America at least) selling orchids in outlet or
third-party centers better sell off their orchid stock and run for the
hills. I also watch Al's Orchid Greenhouse as my second barometer
http://www.orchidexchange.com/
Al Pickrel could write the book on growing a hobby into a real business.
You could learn a lot from him and Ray Barkalow above.
Land close to high population areas holding high sales potential is too
expensive to buy to justify growing just orchids. Orchid greenhouses need
to be out in the boonies with good ground water onsite that can be pumped up
and cheap electricity. When you are in that area then the cost of
transporting your orchid goods to market will eat your shorts after you
factor in additional driver/handling labor, insurance, workman's
compensation, and normal screw-ups killing your plants in transit. Growing
the orchids might be easy for you... but getting them into the actual
consumers hands (ie retail stores) along with the high costs of constant
marketing is a problem seriously impacting your profit amount.
Mick
www.OrchidFlask.com
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"Keith Kent" wrote in message
...
I know there are some growers/sellers here ,those of you that have turned
your hobby into a bussinnes i have a personel Q! Do you make enough
money(profit after running costs) from selling orchids for it to be the
only income?
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