One of the most interesting homes businesses is arts and crafts. This type of business is particularly good for creative people who have the business expertise and know how to sell their products. A home studio can be a joy.
Arts and crafts businesses are best suited to experienced professionals. Training in crafts production is required to produce viable amounts of saleable products. It's also advisable to get formal training in business management. Training in both these areas is available from community colleges, and business management training is also available online.
Example: Dani's Home crafts
Dani is a arts and crafts teacher, who decided to go into business for herself. She runs arts and crafts classes from her home, and makes her own goods for sale in a converted garage with a special kiln for her pottery.
She decided to go into business after getting a lot of interest from local shops in her products. As part of her art classes, her students are taught how to present their work for sale at the local markets. Dani also had her materials on show at the markets, and that was how the local retailers got interested.
She also got encouragement from her students, many of whom signed up for her classes because they loved her work. Being an artistic person, Dani took a bit of persuasion, but business was soon coming in. The only real problem was getting enough hours in the day, because of all the orders.
Dani structured her orders so retailers would order a month in advance. That allowed her to plan her classes and her production, and do some realistic time management. It also allowed her to set up a website and advertise her work online. Thanks to the local grapevine and the local arts community, where her reputation alone was a point of interest, she was soon getting orders from around the world.
To set up her business she required:
A local business license.
Approval from the local government authority for use of the premises as a place of business. (In Dani's case she'd needed prior approval for the arts and crafts classes, and the kiln and other materials required some conditions on approval.
Arts and crafts materials, power, internet and phone are deductible in various percentages. Overheads in a functional arts and crafts business with good cashflow are pretty easy to manage.
Production and meeting orders has to be managed properly. Dani, whose work is quite advanced, can't produce huge quantities of pieces, so retailers have to work on the basis of availability and her schedule. Her works sell very well, so everybody's happy with the arrangement.
