Seth cultivates growing business

A BUDDING entrepreneur is eyeing a prosperous career in the plant trade – and he’s only nine.

Aspendale boy Seth Murran started his own retail business over the school holidays. Growing succulents in pots he sold them to passersby at the front gate before making the commercial decision to relocate to the footpath outside the shops in Station St.

The Parkdale Primary School pupil charges customers $3-$5 for each plant and then reinvests his earnings back into buying more plants.

He displays his stock on a purpose-built stand and has “sold quite a few plants” over the past four weeks, proud mum Claire Venter said.

“He sold seven yesterday and 10 the day before and, to keep stock levels high he buys 10 news plants every day.”

The novice businessman has a strategy behind his sale pitch.

“He says he likes to approach the grumpy ones because he thinks they need a few plants to cheer themselves up,” Mrs Venter said.

“I tell him that’s what it’s like to be a salesman.”

Mrs Venter said Seth was “constantly talking about his business and thinking up ways to expand”.

“I’m not one of those parents who says ‘yes’ to everything he asks for and he wasn’t making enough money to buy things through doing chores around the house, so the plant-selling business is his means-to-an-end.”

The entrepreneurial spirit must run in the family.

Little brother Noah, 7, has started making crunchie biscuits to sell for $2 a bag alongside Seth’s plants.

This could be the start of a growing retail empire.

First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 18 January 2017