If you want to sell dried flowers you've made yourself, you may be unsure how to choose where to sell them or what to prepare.
Individuals can sell dried flowers, but to keep selling over time, the key is to get shipping, inventory, and gift options in order, and to choose a sales channel that fits your goals.
This article explains the challenges of selling as an individual and how to address them, along with how to choose a sales channel that fits your goals.
Three Challenges to Watch for When Selling Dried Flowers as an Individual, and How to Address Them
When selling dried flowers, shipping, inventory, and gift options all affect buyer satisfaction and your profit. Before you start selling, check each challenge and how to address it.
Breakage and petal/leaf loss are common during shipping
Because dried flowers are dry, they're fragile against impact, and stems can break or flowers and leaves can fall off during shipping. Three-dimensional items like swags and wreaths need large boxes and cushioning material, which tends to increase packaging costs and shipping fees.
From the product-planning stage, anticipate the size at shipping time, and decide your price after confirming the outer dimensions and weight once packaged.
Don't set your selling price based on flower material cost alone—factor in production time, packaging cost, and shipping as well. If you pass shipping cost on to the buyer, you still need to reflect your packaging material cost in the product price.
On your product page, note that natural materials vary individually, change over time, and that some petal or leaf loss may occur. Also stating how to contact you and what you'll do in the case of obvious damage helps prevent misunderstandings.
Demand shifts with the season and trends
The flower materials and designs that sell well for dried flowers change with the season and events—for example, mimosa in early spring, Mother's Day gifts, wedding bouquets, and Christmas wreaths.
Dried flowers are also often purchased based on a design seen on social media, so popular flower materials and styling change over short periods. There are also times when a particular shape, like swags or botanical candles, suddenly becomes popular.
If you run short of stock during a period of high demand, you risk missing sales opportunities. On the other hand, holding pre-made stock past an event takes up storage space and can become harder to sell as it fades or loses its shape.
There are three main ways to manage inventory.
- For products sensitive to trends, make a small batch at a time and add more as you gauge the response
- Adopt made-to-order production, making items only after receiving an order
- For seasonal products, take pre-orders to get a sense of expected order volume
With made-to-order production, lead time can extend when orders are concentrated. Display your production capacity and the number of days until shipping on your product page.
Gift options are compared too
Dried flowers are also chosen as gifts for birthdays, weddings, store openings, and similar occasions. Gift buyers check not just the design of the piece but also whether you offer wrapping, message cards, appropriate lead time, and direct shipping to the recipient.
Accommodating every request adds a heavy burden to production and shipping, so decide in advance which parts you'll offer for free and which you'll charge for as paid options. For example, you might offer a standard message for free while charging for a custom-written card or special wrapping.
On your product page, clearly state the types of wrapping available and their cost, how to submit a message card, and the number of days until shipping. Also decide in advance how to handle a packing slip when the buyer and recipient differ, and what happens if you can't deliver by the requested date.
Grouping products by occasion—such as "for birthdays" or "for store openings"—also makes it easier for buyers to find something suited to the occasion they're shopping for.
Choosing a Sales Channel That Fits Your Goals
Sales channels for dried flowers include handmade marketplaces and your own store. Since each differs in how easy it is to attract customers and in cost structure, choose based on your current level of customer reach and how you want to operate going forward.
| Criteria | Handmade marketplace | Own store |
|---|---|---|
| Customer reach | Easy to reach people already browsing for creative work within the service | You drive traffic yourself via social media, search, etc. |
| Cost | minne (non-PLUS member): 10.659% (tax included) per order, ¥220 transfer fee Creema: 10.67% (tax included) on total payment, ¥200 transfer fee (for transfers under ¥30,000) to ¥275 (¥30,000 and above) |
BASE Standard plan: 6.6% + ¥40/order, ¥250 transfer fee, ¥500 administrative fee (for transfers under ¥20,000) Shopify Basic plan: ¥4,850/month + 3.55% card fee |
| Gift options | Set wrapping, etc. as a purchase option | Can design occasion-specific pages, gift sets, message input fields, etc. |
| Shipping design | Available delivery methods and conditions follow the service's own features | Easy to set different shipping rates by product group, such as small bouquets versus large wreaths |
*The fees listed reflect information as of July 26, 2026. They are subject to change, so check each company's official site before signing up.
Choose a handmade marketplace to leverage its built-in customer reach
Image source: minne
Handmade marketplaces like minne and Creema attract users looking for handmade work. It's easier to be discovered than driving traffic entirely on your own, and you can still convey the care behind your work.
Another benefit is that it's easy to gauge the response to pieces suited to seasons and occasions like Mother's Day, weddings, or store openings. On the other hand, you need to clearly convey, through photos and product descriptions, the individual variation in color and shape unique to natural materials, the possibility of petal loss, and the size of the piece.
Selling fees on minne and Creema apply to the total amount including not just the piece's price but also purchase options like wrapping and shipping. Products with high shipping costs, like three-dimensional swags and wreaths, and products with many gift-wrapping orders, carry a heavier fee burden.
You can check buyer information within the service, but note that it's hard to accumulate this as your own customer data and use it for ongoing marketing.
Also, if you sell one-of-a-kind pieces across multiple channels, you need inventory-update rules to prevent the same piece from receiving simultaneous orders.
Choose your own store to grow your brand
Image source: BASE
With your own store on BASE, Shopify, or similar platforms, you decide the structure of your homepage, product listing, and occasion-specific pages yourself. Unlike presenting each piece within a handmade marketplace's shared layout, you can group products by occasion—"wedding," "store opening," and so on—and convey your brand's background, size comparisons between pieces, and the natural variation and aging of your flower materials all in one flow. This suits cases where you want buyers to choose based not just on an individual piece's price, but on your proposal and brand as a whole.
On the other hand, you need to drive traffic to your own store yourself. To be ready in time for periods of high demand, promote your products early through social media, search, and shop cards distributed at events. If you're already active on social media, or want to sell as a brand from the start, starting with your own store is an option too. You can also combine it with other channels.
Why Shopify Is a Great Choice for Selling Dried Flowers
Image source: Shopify
For dried flower sales, occasion-based gift suggestions, building relationships after purchase, and adjusting shipping fees by product size all affect your revenue. Shopify is a service that lets you design all three within a single store.
Build a purchase flow suited to gift-giving
On Shopify, you can group and display products by occasion—wedding, store opening, birthday, and so on. This makes it easier for buyers to find products suited to their purpose, and lets you make occasion-specific suggestions as the seller.
Color and size can be set as product variants. For wrapping and message cards, you can turn options into product variants, add them as separate products, customize your theme, or use a third-party app. Keep in mind that the implementation needed differs depending on the purchase experience you want, such as a free-text message field.
Put customer and order history to use in your sales
On Shopify, a customer profile is created when someone makes a purchase or signs up for your newsletter, and it's linked to their order history. You can segment customers by the products they've purchased and send targeted emails or discounts accordingly.
For example, you could notify customers who bought a Mother's Day product when next year's pre-orders open, or suggest an anniversary gift to customers who bought a wedding-related product. That said, sending emails requires attention to customer consent and how you handle personal information.
Reference: Shopify Help Center, "Managing Customers" (Japanese)
Set shipping rates based on the product
A mini bouquet and a large wreath differ in size once packaged. A flat nationwide shipping rate can place a heavier burden on either you or the buyer depending on the product.
On Shopify, in addition to a flat rate, you can set shipping rates based on order amount or weight. You can also apply different shipping rules to specific products—for example, setting an appropriate shipping rate for small items and a different one for large items.
You can also set a "delivery description" for each shipping option, which displays at checkout. Showing information like "with tracking" or "for large pieces only" makes it easier for buyers to choose the right shipping method.
Reference: Shopify Help Center, "Setting Up Shipping Zones and Rates" (Japanese)
When building your own store on Shopify, the build cost varies depending on the features you need and how much you outsource. For details on Shopify build costs and how to choose who to work with, see the following article.
What Does It Cost to Build a Shopify Store? Comparing Agencies, Freelancers, and DIY
Start Selling Dried Flowers Through a Channel That Fits Your Goals
When selling dried flowers as an individual, you need to design your sales approach around shipping damage, shifting seasonal and trend-driven demand, and gift options. Reflect not just flower material cost but also packaging and shipping in your price, and decide on an operation you can sustain without overreaching, such as adopting made-to-order production or pre-orders.
If you want to make the most of existing customer reach, handmade marketplaces like minne and Creema are a good candidate. If you want to convey your product's aesthetic and put customer data to use for ongoing sales, your own store using BASE, Shopify, or similar platforms is a better fit.
Shopify, in particular, lets you bring together occasion-based gift suggestions, customer and order history management, and product-specific shipping rates within a single store. If you want to sell dried flowers as an ongoing brand, consider using your own store.
