What Does a Teenage Seed Salesman do?

A teenage seed salesman makes money selling seeds to friends, family members, and neighbors. This is a great job to have if you live in an area where people love to garden. Even if you don’t, as long as you know some people who do, you can easily make money every year selling seeds.

If you yourself are a gardener, then this is an excellent way to make money from your garden without having to do a lot of extra work. Even if you don’t have a garden, you can still become a seed salesman by buying seeds from a store to resell to people. Either way, you’ll follow the same steps to become a teenage seed salesman!

How Much Does a Teenage Seed Salesman Get Paid?

How much money you can make as a teenage seed salesman will depend on a few things: how much the seeds cost you, how much you sell the seeds for, how many seeds you sell. Some of this will depend on where you live and who you’re selling to, and how big their gardens are.

If you are saving all of your own seeds, you can expect to make $1 per package of seeds, so selling 100 packages will earn you about $100 in one spring. If you have to buy seeds to resell, you will probably make less than $1 per package, so you might only end up making $50 if you sell 100 packages.

How Can I Get Started as a Seed Salesman?

1. Get your parents’ permission. This is especially important if you are planning on selling in your neighborhood and to other people you may not know very well.
2. Decide what seeds to sell. There are literally thousands of plant varieties to choose from, so this may be a bit overwhelming. We recommend that during your first year as a seed salesman, you start with just 10 types of popular seeds such as tomatoes, carrots, sunflowers, corn, cabbage, squash, and beans. Then, if you want to add more in future years, you can.
3. Find a source for seeds. Before you start selling seeds, you need to know exactly where you are going to be getting them from.  If you’re going to save seeds from your own garden, then you need to plan at least one year in advance. You should only plan on selling seeds from your garden if you plant organic or non-hybrid seeds. This is important because hybrid plants do not always produce the same type of fruit as it came from. You also have to be careful with flowering plants like tomatoes, corn, and squash. If you have two varieties in your garden, they can cross-breed and you won’t know exactly what the resulting seeds will produce.  If you’re going to buy seeds to resell, then you need to find a way to buy high-quality seeds for a low price. Sometimes, you can get cheap seeds from gardening stores in the fall and save them for the next year, but keep in mind that these are usually older seeds which means they might not sprout as well. Another option is buying seeds online in bulk, but you have to be able to sell everything you buy or you’ll find yourself with a lot of extra seeds and might not make your money back.
4. Save seeds. This is for those who are using seeds from their own garden. Different types of plants may require different methods of saving seeds, so make sure you know how to save each type of seed. You’ll also need to label seeds when you store them so you know exactly what they are.
5. Package your seeds. If you’re buying pre-packaged seeds, then go ahead and skip this step. If you’re saving your own or buying in bulk, you’ll now want to take all the seeds you have and put them into smaller individual packages that you can sell. How many seeds you put in each package is up to you, and will usually depend on the type of seed, so looking on Amazon to see how other seeds of that type are packaged will help you know how many you need. Don’t forget to label each of the smaller packages with the type of seed, how many seeds there are, the date you collected or bought them, and your name and contact information.
6. Make a catalog. This is especially important if you have a lot of types of seeds to sell. Your seed catalog doesn’t have to be anything fancy. It could just be a flyer that has a list of the types of seeds you have and their prices along with a couple pictures that you can hand to people or leave on their door if they’re not home. The benefit of having this is that you don’t have to remember what you have, and if people aren’t sure what they want at that moment, you can leave a flyer with them and they can call you later to order.
7. Start selling! Let friends and family members know what you’re doing and offer them seeds to buy. Go door-to-door in your neighborhood with your seeds and catalog and offer your seeds to them. You can also search on Facebook for local gardening groups that you can join and sell to, or try placing an ad on Craigslist. Always remember to be careful when selling to people online and keep your parents informed about who you’re talking to.
8. Take orders. If you do really well your first year and you sell out of certain types of seeds, consider going around at the end of summer or early in the spring to take orders from people so you can be prepared to have the right number of the right types of seeds. This is especially great for if you’re saving seeds from your garden so you know how many you need to save.

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Helpful Resources

• Craigslist.com:  This is a website where you can place an ad that explains you’re selling seeds to those who need it.
• Amazon.com:  This is where you can buy seeds in bulk to resell to customers.