Feedback on a business Idea (Home decor)

[Monique]

Hi

I am planning to start this business for quite some time.
But there are already so many people doing the same thing makes me question if this is a good idea at all
Although I plan to create a unique line of hand embroidered pillows and bedding.
I have no previous business experience so I am looking for inputs ... ....

what should be the first steps.
I plan to do local level marketing at trade shows,expos and social media to begin with .
I plan to get my stuff made in India ....I am also in the process of finalizing a partner/vendor there.
What else should I keep in mind.....and when to add more products to the line or keeping focused on few products is a good idea??

Thanks all for reading !

[Harold Mansfield]

Hi

I am planning to start this business for quite some time.
But there are already so many people doing the same thing makes me question if this is a good idea at all
There are very few completely original ideas. The difference is in how you do it to set yourself apart and how dedicated you are to seeing it's success.



Although I plan to create a unique line of hand embroidered pillows and bedding.
I have no previous business experience so I am looking for inputs ... ....

what should be the first steps.


Do you need help with licensing? Web Design and Internet Marketing? Import laws? Incorporation?
There are a lot of "first steps", but I'd say you should get together a plan which will force you to answer all of those questions, or at least know what to ask.



What else should I keep in mind.....and when to add more products to the line or keeping focused on few products is a good idea??


That's going to be up to you. I'd get if off the ground first and start making sales with a core group of products that make up the best that company has to offer. That way you can see what is popular, where you need to make adjustments and what kind of feedback you are getting. That will probably guide you into the direction of how large your product line should be.

[Wozcreative]

I'd suggest figuring out how you will be different from your competitor. Will it be price, will it be materials used, will it be the style? Why would someone buy your stuff over others? Will the packaging be communicating a unique story to them? As a home owner I would probably only buy outside of the regular warlmart, ikeas is if there was some type of uniqueness to the product.

As a side note, these were my favourite of pillows when I saw them at a hand-made tradeshow: Search results for: 'pillow' Boutique Onze (http://www.onzeshop.com/en/catalogsearch/result/?q=pillow) —If I hadn't already had too many pillows, I would have no problem paying the $70-$80 for the quality work they put in. I also like that they are made in Canada.

[chad38]

Okay, so you already know there is a market for custom embroidered pillows. The most cost effective way to start reaching out to potential customers is through internet marketing strategies. If you have no experience, I would look into hiring a professional seo expert to help you determine what keyphrases your market is using to find your product. You can start a small, low budget adwords campaign. You can start creating Youtube videos to promote your service or product as well. Youtube gets a ton of traffic and often ranks very well in the search engines. Keep us posted on how your doing:)

[huggytree]

the best way to guarantee success is to be different

different in a good way

you need an original/different idea...something that will make you stand out and put your products in instant demand

id focus on this before going further

[Daniel Arbizu]

I would suggest that you have a solid business plan and use a break-even analysis to see how many pillows you would have to sell to start making money.

Break-Even Analysis ---

You may want to use a break-even analysis. This will tell you how much you have to sell at a potential price to start making a profit. Take your fixed costs (payments that have to be made whether you produce anything or not) and divide that by the difference of the revenue (price you may want to set) minus your variable costs (cost that vary through number of units produced, like cost for material and labor may change based on production).

Let's say it takes you $70,000 to produce 7,000 units a year.

And it takes you $10 to make a unit including material, and labor.

And you plan on selling it for $15.

Using the formula (15-10=5) then 70,000/5=14,000.

You would have to sell 14,000 units at $15 if you produced 70,000 units before you started making a profit.

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