Selling Flowers All Day: A Polish Florist Takes Her Shop Outdoors

Marta Kowalska runs a flower shop in Wroclaw. Her best customers walked past after closing time, when the door was locked. So she moved the business onto the pavement.

In October 2025 she installed a Winnsen refrigerated flower vending machine under a steel canopy that also covers her entrance. It holds 12 bouquets behind glass and runs on R290 with separate temperature and humidity control, holding 2 to 8C in any weather. The canopy keeps rain and snow off the glass and terminal, and blends the unit into the shop front.

Winter was the test. Through the coldest weeks of January the flowers stayed at 4C and 85 percent humidity. The insulated body and low temperature heater kit kept the electronics and terminal in their working range, and a defrost cycle cleared condensation before it reached the bouquets. Roses held 8 days instead of 5.

The cabinet is CE marked, which is what her landlord needed before approving the pavement site. Payment is card, phone or BLIK.

Five months in, 31 percent of revenue arrives while the shop is closed, on an average ticket of 39 PLN. Waste fell from 12 to 4 percent.

"In January I sold bouquets at two in the morning to people walking home," she says. "I was asleep."

If you sell flowers where winters bite, the question is not whether the machine survives. It is whether your shop keeps selling while you sleep.