I would like to go into the business of selling gumpaste flowers. I would therefore like to get guidance on marketing, target groups, suggestions on getting a clientele etc.

Since this area is different from cakes, any guidance, tips etc will be appreciated. Thank you

AI guess first of all you need to decide whether you want to be internet based or local based selling to local bakers;

If the latter what area are you in? How much are bakers/bakeries willing to pay within your catchment/delivery area? Does the time it takes you to make them account to a worthwhile "wage" based on market value? Have you any competition- if so how will you compete?

If the former you need to think about posting a few tests to work out a good way of packaging, Think about an ebay shop and a website, google sites is easy to set up and not too expensive IMO, Newspaper marketing will probably be useless with your narrow marketing so look at cake making magazines and perhaps push your flowers as cost effective time savers...

There will be lots of research to do: Target area Target customer Price vs time you spend making them

AThe first thing to look at is if you can be competitive with existing sellers, on etsy and elsewhere. If the market price is already too low for you to make a decent wage and profit then the idea is a non-starter.

Try to keep it local.  Packing gumpaste flowers for shipping would give me nightmares.

I sell gumpaste flowers on Etsy and it's not as easy as you'd think. There are so many places that make them with practically slave labor overseas for so cheap it's unusual for decorators who buy a lot of them to get them from somewhere more expensive. If you look at some of the prices on Etsy they're either ridiculously low or really high, so it's hard to figure out what to charge to hit the market you're targeting.

I'm pretty fast with gumpaste, so the flowers that I sell are ones that I can make fast and that ship well. I don't ship certain ones to certain countries because their customs take so long the flowers can sit and be ruined. I don't sell certain flowers at all because they just won't ship well. I've figured out how to pack them so that they don't break (most of the time) but each flower needs a different system.

It also took me about a year and a half to get any decent sales online. It's not something that you start and get a lot of sales overnight, and you have to market your stuff the same way that you have to market any other business. The people who are really successful at it aren't really making that much money. I would say that my shop is pretty busy, but I still do most of my income from cakes, not online sales.

Actually, I am from the Caribbean, so I was just thinking locally as international shipping may not make sense. Thanks guys, will do my research, then proceed.

Oh, yes, international shipping is a nightmare...