A Guide to Working from Home: Home Crafting
Many have been bitten by the
next wave of entrepreneurial spirit that is sweeping the nation, and are
actually leaving their jobs to start their own home based businesses.
But choosing the right home based business can be a challenge.
Are you creative? Are you good
with your hands? Have yo ever made homemade gift items for friends and
family that they have loved? Do you want a profitable and fun home based
business that is not entirely based on the Internet. Then Home
Crafting may be for you.
AT A GLANCE
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Expected Hourly
Income |
3000 -4000.00 Month
Potential |
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Start-Up Costs
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High,
Moderate, Low
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Start Up Degree of
Difficulty |
Easy,
Moderate, Difficult, Very Difficult |
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Potential Problems |
Tax and Copyright issues |
Getting Started
Selling home made crafts can be
a great home based business. Whether that is jewelry or baby and kids
product there is a large demand for hand made crafts. As a home crafter
you have opportunity to not only create and sell crafts for yourself,
but there are many companies that sell though national catalogs of
crafts that hire people to do “piece work” to create and assemble the
products sold in there catalogs. As a home crafter your primary sale
outlet will be craft fairs. Before you start it is a good idea to attend
a few local craft fairs to get an idea of what product sell and sell
well. Also following any of the guides on the links on these pages will
give you invaluable information on how to find and effectively sell at
craft fairs in your area. The nice thing about Home Crafting today is
that while Craft Fairs are still the primary outlet for sales, they are
no longer the only ones, and smart crafters are leveraging the internet
and using sale channels like eBay Auctions to sell there Home Made
Crafts. The wonderful thing about eBay is that you will be leveraging an
infrastructure that is already in place, and when used right with the
most popular selling Home Crafts you can have a very profitable
business. You can also create your own online craft catalog and sell
your products off of your own website and then you can also leverage
associate marketing programs like Adsense to run compatible ads on your
Home Crafts sales site, making Home Crafting a multi-channeled approach
to successful home based business. Yu would be surprised by what sells
well at Craft Fairs and on Craft and Gift websites. Let you friend and
family be a guide. Have yo made unique gift items f the family that
people love? Chances are there are hundreds of other people out there
who will love them too.
Start-up costs
Since starting a home based
business Selling Crafts basically makes you a retailer you need to set
yourself up as a legitimate retail business to avoid any tax or fraud
issues. This at the very least means selecting a business name and a dba
– or better yet incorporating. Since you primary sales channel will be
Craft Fairs we will also need to set yourself up as a Merchant who
accepts Credit Cards. (If you intend to run your craft business strictly
through on-line sales, you can avoid this step and expense by using
PayPal, but most successful Home Crafters do both On-line and Booth
Sales) To get started even in the simplest way possible you should
expect to lay out about $2500.00 in start up costs. This should cover
the name searches, registrations, licenses, and incorporation fees if
you choose that route, and the cost of a mail drop address and box. In
addition if you do not already have a digital camera; you should
consider purchasing one to take quality photos of the finished crafts
you will sell on-line and in your own homemade catalogs. Easy to use
high quality digital cameras can be purchased for about 300.00. Of
course you should have a computer with a high-speed Internet connection
and a website. While the total start up costs for a Home Based Business
Selling Crafts can be somewhat higher then some other simpler totally
“virtual” Home Based Businesses – they are still significantly less then
opening an actual craft or gift chops or purchasing a Candle Store
franchise. As in any Home Based Business – if you have left work to
pursue Crafting as a full time income, and do not have access to health
benefits through a spouse, you need to include the cost of health
benefits in your monthly budget. More information on Insurance for the
Self-Employed can be found at
www.insurancebudget.com or
http://www.nase.org/
Hours and Income
As we have been saying, starting
a Home Business Selling Home Made Crafts means starting a retail
business. Expect to put in full-time hours, and expect to reap fulltime
rewards. Following the suggestions made here and at the links provided
throughout this page, you can build a primary income stream selling your
own homemade crafts that can result in monthly profits of 5000.00 or
more, when following the advice given by the programs offered on the
links in these pages.
Potential Problems
The greatest pitfalls with
starting a home based Crafting Business is going down the “is it a
business or a hobby route” and looking for a “short cut” or trying to
buck the system. Do not try to defraud the state in terms of Taxes. Any
profits you make from selling Crafts must be reported as income. Also
the other problem you can run into is not copyrighting your work, or
copy work that has already been copyrighted. Find out more about
“intellectual property” by logging onto:
http://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/copyright/copyright-basics/
Other Resources
Tips for Crafting Businesses
http://artsandcrafts.about.com/od/gettingstarted/a/071404.htm
Conclusion
Selling Home Made Arts & Crafts is a great way for someone with basic
creativity and aptitude and a modest amount of start-up capital to use
new sales channels to turn talent and hobbies into a successful home
based business.
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up with the rat race?