I've a business idea, early stages but would appreciate some input and advice!

[Hayls]

This is an idea that's still very early stages but I'd love to follow it through. It's kind of a low-end mail-order home furnishings concept...I've always made curtains, bean bags, cushiosn etc at home and think there might be a market out there for it (even if I say so myself, they're pretty good ). I'm not interested in home visits to measure up and fit etc for curtains, more the lower end of the market where people give me measurements and tell me what to do. I'm thinking of trying to do it all online or locally so I wouldn't necessarily have mush face to face contact with people, which would keep costs down. I think I would offer the option of customers being able to supply their own material or else I could get some samples of the colour they are tinking of and they could choose. (i ihaven't looked into stockists of fabrics yet, I normally buy mine from Dunelm MIll or Ikea but there would probably be cheaper options!).

So:

1. Do you think there would be a market for hand made home furnishings?
2. Would you buy without seeing a finished product (could supply photos)and either by email/internet or phone calls?
3. How much would you be prepared to pay for each product? Curtains would probably take on average 4 hours to make, cushions 1-2 hours per pair and bean bags up to 4 hours (this ia all estimated though) It would also depend on the cost of the materials used.
4. Would you be prepared/ interested in providing your own fabric to be used?

The biggest issue I'm having atm is how to source the fabric and let people choose without having to go out an buy tonnes of it to send samples out to them- any thoughts? I'm also not very technological so any advice on setting up websites, what it should include etc would be appreciated.

Finally, if you think the whole idea is totally crap please feel free to say so

Hi there! I think I would use this service tbh, partic for cushions and bean bags. As long as website had good clear pics of your products then that is OK I think.

What would your return policy be though? What is you made some curtains for someone and they didn't like them/didn't want them etc. Would you refund and if so how would you resell that item?

Now that's the kind of advice I'd need!! I'm not sure what I'd do, perhaps if they weren't happy with the workmanship or quality I'd refund but not if they just didn't like the finsihed product having chosen the desing and colour themselves...does that make sense?

Also, when it comes to bean bags I could supply them filled but it would be much cheaper for the buyer to buy just the bag and fill themselves (I'm thinking postage costs here)

Hayls
I have just had some curtains made of a mumsnetter who does this kind of thing.
They were fab. When they came they were a bit short on the width but shes taken them back with no fuss and making them bigger for me.

I paid her £75 in total. I picked the material off ebay and she bought it an made them up. She charged £25 for her services and £5 for postage.

Thanks Nbg, that's really useful.

Hayls, definitely thin this is a good idea. I know loads of people who buy cushions etc... off eBay so they have never seen them 'in the flesh' either.

With regards to websites, I set one up for my DH's company, it's not too technical and you can add products and payments online CLICK HERE FOR WEBSITE HOSTING
They have website designs set up already so all you have to do is click the style you like and upload some piccies. It is very resonably priced and you can register your own domain name. My DH's company website costs us £2.95 for two years but we don't have ecommerce or products listed but that does include hosting and the domain name.

You couls also set up an eBay shop that runs the same as eBay but hosted as your own shop here CLICK HERE FOR EBAY SHOPS

Also, you could Google fabric suppliers and once you are set up arrange trade prices and agreements, many of them may be happy to send you fabric samples beforehand.

Make sure you check out the HM Revenue and Customs bfore selling online, as you are fully tracable online and they will know if you are earning and not declaring also, businesslink is a great website for asvice with starting your own small business CLICK HERE FOR BUSINESS LINK.

HTH

FB x

Thanks flumpybumpy, I will have to look into registering a business, insurance etc at some point, just testing the water for now! Thanks for info, will check out the websites.

I'd have no problem at all supplying fabric for curtains if I were a customer. Sounds like a good idea, Hayls. Would you do custom roman blinds too ?

Roman blinds- have never tried but I think they're quite straight forward so I could offer them too, would have a bit of a practise first though! This is all quite envouraging, might actually make me get off my bum and do it, dh has been saying for aagges that I should but I just haven't had the confidence to go for it yet.

I would use a service like yours. Having curtains etc made is often so ridiculously expensive.

I think it's a good idea and would personally rather supply my own material. The other thing you could think of doing are black out blind type things - fabric on the front, black out material on the back, velcro on so you can attach it to the frame. I did this for DS's room (not particularly well !) and I have seen links on here to a company who does them.

Yes, I have just made fab black out curtains for our bedroom, it's on a rail so you still get light coming in the sides but it's fab. dd has a black out panel that I velcro to her window frame, which is much better. Fab idea to offer that, cheers.

If the customer suppiles the fabric then you are ;less likely to need ot offer returns too.

Have you trie dselling on the Etsy website?

NO, I haven't heard of that- do you use it? [off to check it out]

bump in case anyone else wants to share words of wisdom

One last daytime bump!