Gone are the days when the pillows were used on the beds. Today, we can see them everywhere in the homes and the offices, giving a face-lift to the rooms. These are in great demand from other reason also as people with neck problems are searching for the right pillow which can give them relief from the neck pain. If you are a crafty person who has interest in pillow designing then decorative cushions/pillow making business is for you. You can either make an inventory of different styles of cushions/pillows or you can even design on demand, providing the customized solution. It depends on how much you can invest initially.
However, being crafty and deft is one part, making and selling the products is another aspect of the business. You need to create a market place of your product to make your cushions selling to the new drawing rooms. The MarketAccording to the survey by Research and Markets, the world’s largest market research store
The global handicraft has a huge market and the entrepreneurs can have their pie from this large chunk. Now I’m coming to the micro-level where you have to do certain things before officially launching your business. Business outline
Don’t take debt which is beyond your paying capability, the ideal debt: equity ratio should be <= 1 For example, you are investing USD 100 in your venture then USD 50 should be from your pocket and the remaining amount can be borrowings from your friends, relatives or banks. The concept behind making debt: equity ratio <=1 is that you can run your venture with a free mind and take decisions without much worrying about repaying of borrowing as you have enough equity to re-pay all your debt if required.
Whether it will be your full-time venture or part-time or you will be doing it as a hobby will decide the growth trajectory of your start-up? The growth of the start-up is directly proportional to the effort-hours you put in. If you are starting part-time or as a hobby then I would recommend to invest small and in phases as you can invest more anytime once you decide to devote full time in your start-up.
For the first few months, you may be able to handle the task single-handedly but you will soon be needing a team to handle the routine task. Therefore, start finding one or two good seamstress who can help you in completing the orders. If someone in your family knows to stitch and crafting, don’t hesitate to take her/his help.
The number of cushions/pillows produced will decide your marketing strategy. First, sell to your friends and relatives and ask them for genuine feedback. This will help you in designing a better product for real customers.
Understand the Market
You can get it from any magazine stand or a stationery shop. Scrutinize the designs and understand the market trend. ake any latest design from the magazine and try to re-define it with your creativity and then show the sample to your friends and relatives. If they react something like “wow”, I can bet your new design is going to rock in the market.
After completing the above steps, now you are ready to take on the next step to decide the presence of your business. Best places to go onlineYou can either go for a physical store and can have an online presence. As this business can easily be started from home, I will discuss the 2 best online strategies to launch your decorative cushions making business: Launch your business on Etsy: Etsy is an online market place where millions of people around the world buy and sell hand-made and vintage goods. "Around 33 million buyers around the world shop for unique items on Etsy they love" You can easily sell handmade goods; craft supplies and the vintage goods like 20 years or older. Please go through the seller policy of the Etsy before listing any of your product on this platform. It is free and setup an online shop on Etsy, so it is a very good starting place for those entrepreneurs who are short of funds for any xyz reasons. But there are three selling fees for the sellers:
It will cost you the US $ 0.2 for each listing on the Etsy market place for the next 4 months until it is sold. Once sold, the 5% transaction fee is levied on the sale price of the product. To send the amount to your PayPal account, the nominal payment processing fee is charged. It is quite easy to setup a shop on Etsy for that you need to open an account with Etsy and do the following things:
ETSY success stories So Etsy has everything which you want to launch your online business. Another route of starting the decorative cushions business is having your online shop on Weebly "Weebly is currently powering more than 50 million sites around the world" Although it will require a little investment you will have more control over your online store in designing and giving it an overall shape. The first step to start your store is signup with Weebly
You can use the built-in marketing tools to promote your online store and can drive the sales with the customizable e-mail templates like abandoned cart to connect with your audiences.
Read success stories of the entrepreneurs and can seek inspiration from their online journey. Weebly comes with three plans for setting online stores:
Site features
E-commerce
Marketing
Support You can either start from ETSY or Weebly, the choice is yours, as both are very good platforms for launching your online business. Conclusion
What are you waiting for?
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