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Starting an online embroidery and vinyl business
Posted on 10/1/16 at 12:44 am
Posted on 10/1/16 at 12:44 am
My wife and one of her friends are starting a little business to generate some play money, any advice? Any of your wives do this or tried it before? Any advice on generating sells, building a clientele, or maximizing profits would be greatly appreciated.
6
Posted on 10/1/16 at 6:00 am to AU4real35
Etsy?
Posted on 10/1/16 at 7:34 am to AU4real35
We had looked into doing the vinyl on etsy before and there were some items that generated more cash than others. Like just a vinyl monogram didn't make any profit after factoring in the etsy costs, materials and time. I think with the vinyl selling quantity is the best way to maximize profit, which etsy seems like the best shot for that. I've never looked into monogram before. It seems it would have higher profit margins though and less people own the equipment.
Posted on 10/1/16 at 8:31 pm to AU4real35
Find your local sales guys. They frequently get company hats, shirts, etc yearly for customers, employees and other random parafanellia. Nice clients with expense accounts.
Posted on 10/1/16 at 10:22 pm to AU4real35
My fiancé does this on the side... She gets most of her business from Facebook friends, word of mouth, and occasionally gets a small business wanting some hats or shirts.
They can make a little play money, but don't expect a lot out of it, unless there's just no competition around.
It also can be time consuming.
Personally, I'm ready for my fiancé to finish her degree and get a better job so she can spend her free time doing what she wants.
They can make a little play money, but don't expect a lot out of it, unless there's just no competition around.
It also can be time consuming.
Personally, I'm ready for my fiancé to finish her degree and get a better job so she can spend her free time doing what she wants.
Posted on 10/2/16 at 9:45 pm to prostyleoffensetime
I don't mean to rain on your parade, but in the day of the internet its not easy to find easy money for 5 hours a week these days. In other words, yeah they can make "play money" but it is not going to be easy work.
My roommate freshmen year almost 15 years ago made some car vinyl things for Nissan 250Z's that he sold on Ebay and a couple other places. He sold them for like $50-60 and it cost him like $10 to make, he had a friends dad make like 500 at a time in some kind of shop. But he also didn't pay taxes or doing anything official business wise. He'd sell 10-20 of these a month, and really didn't do much work at all.
My point of that, is that if you truly want to make money with little work you need to find some small niche and fill it. With the internet and 300 million Americans, thats the way to go. Personalized stuff is going to become a job, a lot of work for some kind of realized hourly wage over time. Frankly, most people that do this kind of thing would be better off finding a $10/ hour job for 10-20 hours a week.
My roommate freshmen year almost 15 years ago made some car vinyl things for Nissan 250Z's that he sold on Ebay and a couple other places. He sold them for like $50-60 and it cost him like $10 to make, he had a friends dad make like 500 at a time in some kind of shop. But he also didn't pay taxes or doing anything official business wise. He'd sell 10-20 of these a month, and really didn't do much work at all.
My point of that, is that if you truly want to make money with little work you need to find some small niche and fill it. With the internet and 300 million Americans, thats the way to go. Personalized stuff is going to become a job, a lot of work for some kind of realized hourly wage over time. Frankly, most people that do this kind of thing would be better off finding a $10/ hour job for 10-20 hours a week.
Posted on 10/3/16 at 8:44 am to baldona
Any business, no matter how big or small, is going to take marketing. Some people are good it, some arent. It normally helps if you or your wife are pretty active in the community. Make business cards, hand them out everywhere. Go to businesses and drop off some placards/brochures/business cards, or even make an item or two with their branding on it as a gift. Talk to sorority/fraternity presidents. Send emails, you can find all of their contact info on whatever university is in your area's website. Contact IFC (interfranternity council, male fraternities), panhellinic (sorostitutes), and NPHC (AA greek life). Drop off stuff at your local state and US congressman/senators office. Do PPC advertising on facebook and google. Make sure your website is professional and clean, this will not be cheap, but it is also your "storefront" so its worth the investment. Insurance agencies are always buying stuff like that. One big corporate account will give you plenty of "play" money if you can bag one.
A buddy of mine designs websites from scratch, he's cheap, and the lowest he will go is like 2500. For this reason, she'd probably be better off starting off with one of those template websites that comes with the hosting. Dont go with godaddy. Market yourself everywhere to drive traffic to your website. Amazon, etsy, ebay, etc. Anywhere that has a marketplace. Make a Facebook page for the business and add everyone from your local community. Post articles, even if you didn't write them, about monogramming/vinyl etc. Make sure it's good content. There are actually programs that will do this automatically for you. After she get's the ball rolling, pay for some search engine optimization. You can outsource it overseas at first, but the job probably wont get done as well, on any of the big freelance websites. The good workers will have a great portfolio LINK There's some examples.
This is the long way of saying: Always be selling.
A buddy of mine designs websites from scratch, he's cheap, and the lowest he will go is like 2500. For this reason, she'd probably be better off starting off with one of those template websites that comes with the hosting. Dont go with godaddy. Market yourself everywhere to drive traffic to your website. Amazon, etsy, ebay, etc. Anywhere that has a marketplace. Make a Facebook page for the business and add everyone from your local community. Post articles, even if you didn't write them, about monogramming/vinyl etc. Make sure it's good content. There are actually programs that will do this automatically for you. After she get's the ball rolling, pay for some search engine optimization. You can outsource it overseas at first, but the job probably wont get done as well, on any of the big freelance websites. The good workers will have a great portfolio LINK There's some examples.
This is the long way of saying: Always be selling.
Posted on 10/3/16 at 9:26 am to AU4real35
my wife does something similar with Vinyl work. Its nothing big and shes probably made about $1500 since the summer but its all facebook and instagram based with some local customers. To get her name out she did a bunch of give away type things where people had to like her page and share with 3 friends it worked pretty well to get her name out there
Posted on 10/3/16 at 9:45 pm to AU4real35
this could be a good business. I placed a $500 order with banner buzz and selected three day shipping. I get my tracking number. Origin is in India. These guys drop ship everything. So basically you order from them, they order from a place in India, ships from India to you on a DHL plane in three days. Not bad. I was thinking "damn I could beat the prices of most of these vinyl guys doing this"
It was much cheaper than the locals wanted for the lettering and the banners and such.
It was much cheaper than the locals wanted for the lettering and the banners and such.
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