How to Start an Online Gift Personalizing Business
At this moment in time, you have a great opportunity to be creative and to start that business you have been dreaming of. Perhaps you already design gorgeous creative personalized gifts for your family and friends for the holidays. Maybe you create cute his-and-her gifts for friends' weddings and anniversaries, and everyone adores your talent. So, of course, you are thinking about expanding into a real structured business! This is how many businesses get started.
Gift personalizing is a great business idea, and there are many people who are successful in that business model. The key to being successful is to start smart. Here are some great tips to get you started:
Decide what to sell
There is a wide range of products you can personalize and sell. Obviously, you don't have time to personalize and sell them all. Focus on your current skill set. If you specialize in photo products, you can keep it simple with photo gifts like mugs, t-shirts, phone cases, or jigsaw puzzles. You can also commit to more complex projects like photo books and photo calendars. Suggestion: Do some market research on what’s trending right now and what your competition has in their ranges.
Invest in proper equipment or find a printing partner
Creating personalized products for family and friends is different than creating custom products for paying customers in several ways. Little flaws or inconsistent quality gets noticed more when people are paying for their products vs. when receiving a very thoughtful gift. Invest in high-quality tools. This will also save you time as well. Suggestion: Research and read reviews of equipment before purchasing. If you can't afford to buy these tools yet, partner with a company that has these tools and works out a deal with them.
Determine how to manage your business
Managing all areas of your new online business can be time-consuming IF you don't have the right structure in the beginning. You will have to manage sales, products, jobs, customers, invoices, online store, and shipping. Post it notes will get lost, emails get cluttered, and whiteboards are usually not readable and can't possibly hold all the information. Suggestion: Find a solution that will manage all of this in one spot, like shopVOX.
Create a marketing plan
Marketing works. We constantly see the big companies advertise their businesses all over social media, print, and TV - because it works. For an online business, you don't need print nor TV at this point. Social media and online marketing can bring in customers. Learn about AdWords, Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and other forms of social media marketing. Suggestion: Start by creating a Facebook page for your new business. Ask friends to follow it and ask them to share the page. Share posts daily to keep followers interested.
Starting a new business doing what you are passionate about is exciting. But preparing is the key to your success. Check out our new eBook that offers suggestions on how to kickstart your business for more awesome tips: