It has large green leaves, it can reach a meter and a half in height, it is very showy, it takes up a lot of space and it hardly needs any care. The peculiar physiognomy of the monstera deliciosa, with leaves with recesses as if they were split, makes it commonly known by the name

of Adam's rib

. In recent times, it has become one of the objects of desire for young people between 30 and 45 years old when decorating their houses or rooms, a fashion that comes from the United States and northern European countries, where this and other

indoor plants have been positioned as if they were important pieces of design

within the interior

design

of homes.

In Spain, this practice is also increasing. In the last year, the indoor plant sector has grown by approximately 30%, according to Sergi Villaubí, founder of the digital firm

Monstera (

monstera.es

)

together with Laia Fernández, and the pandemic has helped this trend continue to rise. "Young people without a terrace or garden love to have one of these plants in their house to decorate. You only need to look at Instagram to see the number of people who share their specimens. It is a market that was already growing and the confinement gave it the push I needed. "

After seeing that, internationally, many

star-ups

were emerging

around this sector and analyzing the business opportunity, the Catalans decided to create their company at the end of 2019 to sell indoor plants online in Spain.

"We saw that the sale of bouquet of flowers at home had been exploited a lot but not of indoor plants, only some florists on the Internet," says Villaubí.

When they had everything ready to start receiving the merchandise in their warehouse, the pandemic and confinement stopped, which prevented starting the business until May 2020. Since then, Monstera has already sold more than 100,000 indoor plants and, for this year, he hopes to multiply that figure by three.

Customer at one of Monstera's pop-up stores.

The

less than 20 references

they have in

stock

are tropical plants, "whose orders we rotate according to the rhythm of cultivation or season," explains Villaubí. While some are only available in summer, like caladium, others are always in their catalog, like monstera, their best seller. "For us it is basic, it is our flagship, as well as our best-selling plant." It was very fashionable in the 80s and there was one in almost every house. Then it fell into oblivion and for a couple of years it has come back with force. "It is an easy species to care for, it grows fast (60 cm, it can grow to a meter and a half in a year), it is grateful, in the sense that a single unit can occupy a large space, and it does not need much care" .Its price is 24 euros plus shipping.

80% of the copies of the firm come from the Netherlands.

"We receive

stock at

least twice a week. We buy the plants that we think will be sold in the next five or six days and then we stock them again, because we do not want them to surpass; we do not have time to take care of them in our warehouse."

That means that the plant that the customer receives, five days before, was in cultivation in Holland.

Packaging

Monstera sells thousands of plants online a week (between 14 and 28 euros) that it has to send to customers' homes, so when they started, they were clear that the main thing in the business had to be

good packaging.

"We did a lot of tests with cardboard sheets designing prototypes, until we got one that we patented as

packaging

for indoor plants," says Villaubí. The copies arrive with maximum protection and if not, the company sends another one.

Monstera's clients, according to its founder, are people between 30 and 45 years old, "Instagram users and 100% digital", people who have different needs and demands in terms of type of plant than the rest of the public that frequents florists.

For this reason, they carry out very strong campaigns on the social network, which already has almost 200,000 followers (@selvamonstera) and from where they report their promotions.

The 'pop-up'

Despite being a 100% online business, from time to time they like to be face to face with the client and "have a good time," says Villaubí. To do this, they occasionally organize ephemeral stores (pop-up), which fill about 4,000 or 5,000 plants to sell them at a much lower price than on the web. The success of the two held in Madrid and Barcelona so far has been such that

the queues to get one of them have been up to two hours

in some cases. About 5,000 plants of 50 references are usually available, both the iconic ones of the brand and other more unique ones. Every day the store is open, the first 100 customers receive one as a gift. The firm plans to open a pop-up in Madrid before the end of the year. We will have to be attentive to his Instagram for the call.

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