If you are one of those people and are looking for a home business that doesn’t demand a lot of start-up capital, one that doesn’t require years of education and one that you can start right away and make money right away, then you need to think about starting your very own gift basket home based business!
Gift basket business is what you would call an evergreen business. There is always a market for gift baskets just as there is always a market for restaurants, clothing stores, gas stations and etc.
Gift baskets make a great gift on many occasions. You can offer a gift basket on almost any occasion including birthdays, anniversaries, annual festivals and holidays. And that is why I think making and selling gift baskets make a great home business.
A very helpful feature of this business of making gift baskets is that you can design baskets depending not only on the occasion but also on various themes. This enables you to offer baskets over a wide price range from being just affordable to extravagant. That helps you to have more customers.
Once you have taken care of this part of your business, you need to understand your competitors and their business strategy. You need to get a fairly good idea of their prices to work out your prices. It’s not all that difficult if you are willing to spend sometime on the Internet and check what others are offering and at what prices.
For getting started in your business it will be good to match your prices with those of your competitors or you may even keep them marginally lower to get a breakthrough in market.
Procuring Your Materials
Next on your agenda should be procurement of items for your baskets. You can definitely get items at very competitive prices if you buy those from wholesalers. Most suppliers should be willing to offer you discounted prices if you confirm your bulk requirements on them. That way you save money during the initial phase of your business.
Getting Design Ideas
You would appreciate that designing your baskets plays a very vital role in this business as people are not paying only for the items but also for the ideas that go into making of your baskets.
Apart from conducting online research, it will be a smart idea to refer to specific magazines available at the local library. You can check with bakeries and some stores in your area if they would be interested to contribute their items for your gift baskets and share profit.
That way you can trade your baskets through local shops by keeping some items from such shops. You may like to explore the possibility of having long-term business with local bakeries and shops and thus have some regular buyers.
Sell Creativity
Here you have an opportunity to demonstrate your creativity and get paid! Put some unconventional ideas to practice to create your own gift baskets.
Why not have a low-priced tool box and fill it up with beef jerky and sunflower seeds for making Father’s day baskets. For Mother’s day think on the lines of having a big pitcher with a towel, book and perhaps a packet of tea bags!
Getting the Word Out
You can prepare baskets at home and promote your sales by inserting ads in local newspapers and in case you are looking for larger audience online advertising would be worthwhile.
You can even build a simple website filled with gift basket pictures and pricing. Use social media to build relationship with potential customers (which can be anyone, since gift giving is a universal idea).
Twitter and Facebook are perfect examples of social networking that can bring loads of customers to your site.
A Lasting Business
As I mentioned in the beginning, gift basket is an ever green idea. It’s not a seasonal business. You could run it all year around and make money nonstop. However, there are times you could double or triple you business income, Holidays!
Holidays present an excellent opportunity for your business. Making gift baskets for holidays no matter big or small enables you to make even more money with your gift basket business. And not only that, it’s a great opportunity for you to find and build relationship with long-term costumers.
For example, make an impression by designing a great gift basket for a birthday and transform your first time customer to a repeat customers that reruns every year. Not only that, you may even get more orders from those who attended the birthday party and liked your gift basket.
Lots of people may think this is one of those “home business ideas for women” kind of thing, but the truth is, with a little creativity and commitment anyone can run a successful and profitable gift basket business from home.
You just need to be creative and keep your mind open to new ideas. Don’t be afraid to experiment. Let your creativity flow and this business can fulfill your creative and financial needs.
There is an incredible new opportunity that is growing in popularity online.
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