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Starting an in-home crafts business.

When thinking of starting an in-home craft business, you must first determine if your craft is marketable. Have people given you some indication that they want to buy your item? Don't rely only on the advice of your relatives. They might be a bit biased. First, make up a few items and take them to local gift shops and ask for an assessment of the marketability of your creations.

If you get a green light, then it might be time to get serious about setting up your in-home business. Here are the steps to go through in setting up a craft business:

1. Set aside a portion of your home for your business. Clean out an area and set up whatever furnishings and storage you need to accommodate your craft supplies. Begin making your crafts.

2. Once you have enough of an inventory to begin selling, it's time to set up the business end of your in-home crafts business. You'll want a way to track your business from the first day. Consult with a lawyer or an adviser to determine what business entity is best for what you are about to do and what permits and licenses you may need in order to do it. Once all that is straight, set up your accounting system.

3. Determine the prices for your craft items and make a price list.

4. Produce your marketing materials. At the very least, you'll need business cards, brochures to show what you are doing, and probably a website to gain attention for your craft items on line.

5. Determine how you are going to go about selling your items. The basic choices are to sell by word of mouth, to sell through a gift shop or art gallery, to sell by travelling the arts and craft fair circuit, and selling on line. You may want to sell through all or only a couple of these methods. Many gift shops will take craft items on consignment. You may want to investigate this. Whatever method you choose, know that the marketing of your item will probably take up as much time as you'll spend making the items.

6. To be successful, try to carve out a niche market for yourself. You can do this by determining a twist to selling your item. For example, a friend of mine who lives near the beaches in Florida makes greeting cards with palm trees on them. The tourists buy them like crazy. She has carved out a much more lucrative niche doing that than she would have by selling cards with a variety of topics.

When setting up an in-home crafts business, be sure to start small and ease into it. If you invest too much in it to start with, you may feel pressured when it takes a while for things to catch on. Build your business one step at a time to ensure your success.

Learn more about this author, Lou Belcher.
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