Do-it-yourself greenhouse production: how to open a business from scratch

In central Russia you cannot do without greenhouses. They are used by both amateur summer residents and professional farmers. Their quality and functionality, of course, are different. There are many models on the market today in different shapes and from a variety of materials. Thanks to the constant demand for these designs, you can open a profitable business. To do this, you will need the necessary equipment and production space for the production of greenhouses.

What equipment to choose for making greenhouses?

To produce polycarbonate greenhouses you will need a fairly spacious room. The technology consists of two stages:

• manufacturing a frame (for this, profile pipes with dimensions of 20x20 or 25x25 are used);
• laying polycarbonate sheets on the base.

To work you need the following equipment:

Of the special equipment, the last position can be highlighted. A pipe bender is also called a profile bender or profile pipe bender. This equipment is classified as a roller device due to the workpiece feeding system for bending. For industrial purposes, three-roller machines are most often used. They allow workpieces to be bent to large radii. The standard configuration allows you to do this in one plane. There are additional devices that make it possible to bend profiled pipes even in a spiral.

There is also a manual version of this equipment. It is suitable only for very small workshops. In mass production, its use is unprofitable. However, small production also has its reasons. This makes it easier to make custom-made structures according to the client’s sizes and preferences. For example, you can install a small greenhouse, which is not produced at large enterprises.

Equipment from CML and Ercolina is most in demand on the market. They are characterized by reliability, durability and economical energy consumption. There are models that are equipped with microprocessor control. They quite accurately repeat the specified dimensions of the workpieces. The time for manufacturing the structure is significantly reduced.

Among the domestic equipment, the automatic cold profiling line LA 157 is worthy of attention. Its productivity is 350 parts per hour, which are three meters long. The thickness of the tape is from 0.5 to 2 mm, and the width is from 50 to 210 mm. You can change the type of profile produced by changing the tooling on the line. It can have a different cross-section, be closed or open, profiled.

Domestic manufacturers often assemble lines according to customer specifications. Taking into account the characteristics of the future product, they complete the equipment with the necessary components and assemblies. Profiling is achieved by adding punching or piercing devices to the line. Cold-formed profiles have hooks and stiffeners. Using such a line, it is possible to produce arched and tunnel greenhouses for various purposes.

Search for clients

You can make the highest quality and budget greenhouses in the world, but no one will buy them without proper advertising. It is important to understand where your product will be most in demand. You can sell metal structures in dacha villages, dacha cooperatives, surrounding villages, and gardening cooperatives. To popularize your product, use the following recommendations:

1. Place advertisements in the media. These could be local newspapers, radio, TV channels. It is advisable to start an advertising campaign in February and not stop until the end of the season. The period of greatest demand for metal structures is in spring and autumn.
2. Post several advertisements on the Internet for the sale of greenhouses and greenhouses. Today there are a lot of different sites and platforms where you can do this for free or for a minimal fee.
3. Don't forget about message boards. The design of the leaflet itself should be concise, with a description of all the advantages of the products offered, and approximate prices. Indicate on paper contact phone numbers, address, and email. You can design a flyer yourself in any editor or contact an advertising agency for help.
4. Agricultural stores. People shopping will definitely pay attention to your leaflets and flyers.

So, to quickly find clients, decide on the competitive advantages you can offer. This can include convenient logistics, installation of a greenhouse or hotbed at any time convenient for the customer, a flexible approach to setting prices for all products, willingness to produce structures of non-standard shapes and sizes, and work in the garden. In winter, when there is practically no demand for greenhouses, you can offer services for the design of winter gardens and greenhouses.

A good prospect for further business development is the production of not only greenhouses, but also the production of balcony canopies and open verandas. Offer your customer a wide range of different services that will be in demand all year round. With this approach, you will increase the flow of customers, and the profitability of the production of greenhouses and other structures will increase significantly.

How to accept an order for the production of greenhouses

To provide a quality product to the client, it is necessary to understand what the person ultimately wants to receive. It’s easy to understand the client; just ask him a few guiding questions:

1. What size should the structure be?
2. What crops are you planning to use the greenhouse to grow?
3. Will the greenhouse be used during the cold season?
4. Where should the metal structure be placed and what are the ways to supply water to it?
5. Is there a need to install a heating system and automatic watering of plants?
6. What is the budget for purchasing a greenhouse?

After receiving answers from the customer, you can offer him several optimal options. Especially regarding the shape of the greenhouse and the material. Immediately discuss with the client the timing of the production of metal structures, discuss the optimal time of day or evening for installation work on the site.

Greenhouse manufacturing technology

The two main components of any greenhouse are the frame and the cover. Previously, the base was made of wood, and the entire structure was covered with film or glass. Today there are modern materials that can make the conditions in the greenhouse more acceptable for plants. The design itself is quite light and mobile. An example of such a material is polycarbonate.

The parts are connected using a welding machine. They are customized and painted. The installation of polycarbonate most often occurs in the area where the greenhouse is installed. In the workshop, you need to provide all the small details: fasteners, fittings, slots for vents, and more.

An important factor in the manufacture of greenhouses is its design. It must be taken into account that the distance between the arcs and the number of horizontal guides determines what snow load the finished product can withstand. The time and quality of installation of the structure on site depends on how accurately all the details are completed in the workshop.

Polycarbonate production

Polycarbonate can be purchased ready-made from the manufacturer, or you can organize your own production. Then it will be possible to expand the range of your products and even make industrial hydroponic greenhouses. A polycarbonate production line is complex equipment. It consists of the following units:

The cost of such a line starts from 650 thousand rubles. The price depends on the power of the extruder, the speed of drawing the workpieces and the performance of the pulling device. Modern lines make it possible to produce high-strength plastic, which is in demand in the production of greenhouses.

Staff

At first, most entrepreneurs from the field of greenhouse production themselves are directly involved in the construction and erection of structures. In this case, it will be enough to get by with one or two auxiliary workers.

As the number of orders grows, it will be possible to increase the number of personnel involved by creating several teams, each of which will deal with its own orders. As a rule, construction workers receive piecework wages depending on the amount of work completed. Ancillary workers are paid an average of 1,000-1,500 rubles per day, and craftsmen who have already become proficient in their business, up to 3,000 rubles per shift.

How much can you earn making greenhouses?

A greenhouse as a business is a fairly profitable product. The cost of manufacturing a structure with an area of ​​18 square meters. m. - 11 thousand rubles . At retail they sell for 27-30 thousand rubles. Profit is easy to calculate. In a small production, two people can handle it quite well. Once installed, it will take about two days to make one greenhouse.

Another feature of the business is its seasonality. Demand for products increases in the spring. At this time, production may not have time to produce products. To optimize the production process, frames are prepared in the winter, and in the spring they mainly assemble structures at customer sites.

Marketing and Sales

To sell greenhouses among potential buyers, it is best to use both online and offline promotion in a comprehensive manner.

• Online bulletin boards.

  Bulletin boards such as “Avito” and “Yula” are well suited for sales to private summer residents and small entrepreneurs. It is best to use paid promotion of services offered by such sites - at relatively low costs, your ad will always appear at the top of the search results and will not get lost among other similar offers.

• Social media.

  Recently, it has been good to use social networks, including Instagram, as a sales channel. On your business account page, it would be useful not only to post photographs of completed projects, but also positive reviews from “live” clients - which will increase the level of trust in your company. For your online budget, it is better to plan to spend about 15,000 rubles per month - a constantly promoted account in social media will allow you to consistently generate new leads for your business.

• Advertisements near holiday villages.

  However, you shouldn’t get carried away with just online advertising - let’s not forget that most of the potential buyers of greenhouses are still a rather conservative audience. Therefore, it would be a good idea to place offline advertising near holiday villages - these could be, for example, banners near busy transport junctions.

• Participation in tenders.

  As for corporate sales to large businesses like the agro-industrial complex, it would be useful to regularly monitor tender trading platforms of nearby agricultural complexes. Not always in large agro-industrial complexes, all procurement issues are resolved through “connections” - many modern companies hold transparent tenders for the purchase of greenhouses, in which you can participate and quite possibly win competitions for large deliveries.

It is likely that at first, an entrepreneur engaged in the production and installation of greenhouses will simply not have free time to engage in sales management, so outsourcing sales seems like a logical solution in this case. Now there are quite a few companies with remote call centers with which you can enter into sales contracts and pay a certain percentage of sales. In this case, you can take off all the worries about selling to corporate customers and pay professional managers for results. As your business grows, you will be able to think about hiring your own “sales person” on staff.

What documents are needed to open

We choose individual entrepreneur as the legal form. It allows you to register in a maximum of 5 days and does not require the preparation of a package of documents. It is enough to provide the registration authority with an application, a photocopy of your passport, and a receipt for payment of the state fee. Next, you need to open a current account in one of the banks and register with government agencies.

As for legal entities, the list of documents for them is somewhat expanded. Additionally, you will need to provide the Charter and information about the director, chief accountant, indicate the legal address, etc. As a legal entity, it is best to register a limited liability company.

Premises and logistics

Many aspiring entrepreneurs set up their business in the yard of their own home. If there is no territory suitable for the production of greenhouses, it will be necessary to attend to the issue of finding suitable premises.

Any small hangar or warehouse in an industrial zone will be suitable for production - yes, you will have to pay a certain amount for rent (from 5,000 to 20,000 rubles on average), but you will not have to depend on weather conditions when working. The room will also be useful for storing tools and materials - it will be cheaper to immediately purchase a large batch of polycarbonate from wholesalers and then store it at home.

To solve the transportation issue, a light-duty truck like a GAZelle is best suited - it will be used to purchase materials and deliver ready-to-assemble structures to end customers. For unassuming buyers who do not want to invest a lot of money in a vehicle at first, an old device within 150,000 rubles is suitable.

Organizational issues for the production of greenhouses

Any commercial activity must be taxed, do not forget about it. To produce greenhouses at home, a novice businessman will need to register the status of an individual entrepreneur with the Tax Service.

To open an individual entrepreneur, you need to bring the following documents:

• Application on form No. P21001.
• Passport and TIN code.
• Pay the state fee - 800 rubles.
• Draw up an application for the transition to a simplified tax payment system.

After 5 working days you will receive a certificate of registration of individual entrepreneurs and an extract from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs.

As a rule, summer residents begin to collect greenhouses, so production is usually located on the territory of the household yard. You can create such a simple design yourself. If time is tight due to a large number of orders, consider hiring 1-2 workers. It would be most beneficial to involve one of your family members.

Advantages of the presented business

First of all, let's determine how productive this idea is. Organizing such a business has some advantages:

— low cost of materials;

— high production speed;

— good profitability of the business, since there is always demand for greenhouses and greenhouses;

— quick installation and additional profit due to the installation of the structure.

The cost of production of the presented structures directly depends on the materials used.

Financial indicators

The retail cost of selling a standard greenhouse with an area of ​​18 square meters will be about 28,000 - 30,000 rubles. Thus, earnings on one design are about 10,000 – 12,000 rubles. However, let's first calculate how much you will need to invest in the business at the start.

• Costs for purchasing the necessary tools: 70,000 rubles;
• Costs for purchasing material: 18,000 rubles.

Thus, you can start a business for the production and installation of greenhouses with even less than a hundred thousand rubles: the required minimum at the start is only 88,000 rubles!

However, let's make a reservation right away. This option is suitable if you already have a place to build a structure, you are ready to do all the work yourself, and you have a ready client to buy a greenhouse. Therefore, if financial capabilities allow, it is better to add the following costs in the amount of 200,000 rubles for renting premises, purchasing transport and advertising. Total starting costs will look like this.

Capital investments

As you can see, even taking into account additional investments, the initial investment will be a very modest 288,000 rubles by business standards.

• Volume of work.
  Installation of a greenhouse usually does not take more than two days, and even at a relatively leisurely pace of work, it is quite possible to manufacture and install 2-3 greenhouses per week.
• Monthly costs,
  taking into account the rental of premises, online advertising and finance for 1-2 auxiliary workers, will be about 65,000 rubles.
• Monthly revenue
  from the sale of 3 greenhouses per week (12 units per month) will be 144,000 rubles. Taking into account monthly expenses and the indicated sales indicators, the business of producing and installing greenhouses will bring in about 80,000 rubles.
• The payback period
  (even with maximum investment at the start) is very short and amounts to 4-5 months.

At the same time, as we already mentioned at the beginning of the article, the greenhouse market in Russia is now on the rise and - which is extremely important in 2022 - does not depend much on the pandemic. Therefore, these indicators can be safely increased over time, scaling the business due to an increase in the number of orders via the Internet and sales to large corporate customers from the agro-industrial sector. In any case, when working in greenhouses, you need to be ready to work with both your hands and your head - and then, if you manage the business competently, you have every chance of succeeding.

Denis Maleev

, expert of the portal openbusiness.ru Contact the author (c) www.openbusiness.ru - portal of business plans and guides for starting a small business
10/26/2020
All materials by tag: greenhouse production

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Characteristics of popular crops

What is profitable to grow in a greenhouse all year round? Flowers, tomatoes, cucumbers and other vegetables, herbs or strawberries are most often grown in a greenhouse. Let's look at this in more detail.

1. Flowers. The most popular option for farmers is hybrid roses. They are in stable demand and are not too demanding on living conditions. High-quality planting material, timely watering and fertilizers are required. You can cut up to 250 flowers from one rose bush per year. Chrysanthemums, various potted crops, hanging arrangements of annuals and flower seedlings are successfully grown in greenhouses.
2. Greenery. It is possible to grow green onions, parsley, dill, lettuce, cilantro, and a variety of aromatic herbs. The most cost-effective option is to grow greens in peat pots, in which they are sold. Such greens are stored longer, the markup on them is higher, and consumer demand is stable at any time of the year.
3. Tomatoes and cucumbers. Profitability is average, very dependent on the season. It is more profitable to grow vegetables using hydroponic technology in containers with a nutrient solution. The method shortens the growing season, but worsens the taste and the tomatoes turn out watery. Ground vegetables are much tastier, but keeping them in a greenhouse is more expensive. Tomatoes and cucumbers are demanding on soil composition and watering.
4. Other vegetables. Heat-loving crops are often grown in greenhouses: eggplants, zucchini, sweet and hot peppers. To shorten the growing season, it is recommended to plant seedlings in a greenhouse. Vegetables require frequent replacement of soil and fertilizers and are well stored and transported.
5. Strawberry. In demand throughout the year. It is more profitable to grow berries using the hanging Dutch technology, which saves space in the greenhouse. Strawberries do not tolerate transportation well.

IMPORTANT! You need to choose varieties cultivated for indoor soil, characterized by a rich taste and the correct shape of the berries, as well as their density and moderate juiciness.

Plastic structures

Polycarbonate greenhouses are considered the most common type, which is in great demand. This material is a great alternative to film and glass. There are a lot of advantages to such greenhouses:

1. The quality of the material ensures their long service life (about 30 years or more).
2. Conducts light well.
3. Protect from ultraviolet radiation.
4. Good thermal insulation.
5. Materials for production are inexpensive.

Polycarbonate is a practical material that is lightweight, ductile and durable. Structures made from it are stable.