Introduction
I am a big fan of working in a niche. It is one of the best strategies for being successful at whatever you do. Niche is another word for specialisation or being selective. For a woodworking business that means choosing a wood craft carefully and basing your business around making and selling that craft.
How to choose a woodworking niche?
Choose a wood craft or the kind of woodwork you like. Also, base your choice on research for the demand for the product. The idea is to be known for doing a particular kind of work or making a particular woodcraft. It is easier to build a great brand around something specific. You will be known as the woodworker up to go to when anyone wants garden furniture or wind-chimes or any other wood craft of your choosing.
Branding is one of the most important steps that many small businesses miss out. Without branding you will probably never get the due price for your product, no matter what it is.
Working in a niche is both a very powerful marketing technique as well as a powerful working method.
You will find it easier to focus on what ever you are building, without indulging in constant guesswork about which craft to make that is likely to make you more money. This point is even more important for a one-person woodworking business. There is only so much you can do and should not have to waste time and money, doing hundreds of different things, and trying to figure out what works. With some clever research and testing you can hone down on a profitable craft or category and direct all your focus in that direction.
Making niche crafts will allow you to target the right customers with more ease. Instead of finding vaguely interested people, you can reach out to customers who want to buy the exact wood craft you are making.
Mentioned below are some categories of woodworking that are popular niches. The number of wood crafts you can make are limitless. So the idea is not to limit the ideas for a working business but to inspire you to look at new things.
For example, one of the concepts mentioned below is no turning. Now would turning itself can be your niche but that would be a very broad niche. Generally speaking, the narrower you go The better it is from a business perspective. So within a wood turning, making spoons and ladles is a narrower niche. The more specific the better.
Wood-turnings Business
Fruit bowls, candlesticks, stair spindles or baseball bats, there are literally hundreds of different products which can be manufactured by purchasing a wood-turning lathe and mastering the art of wood turning.
While the finished products can be sold directly to consumers, a better choice in terms of merchandising the wood-turning products is to arrange accounts with retailers, such as gift shops, to stock and sell the products. Some quick math will tell you that just a dozen or so accounts with retailers like this can generate a very comfortable living manufacturing and wholesaling wooden bowls.
Wooden Signs Manufacturing
All types of businesses and professional services can utilize wooden signs. Traditionally, wooden signs are extremely popular with bed and breakfast lodgings, lawyers, accountants, doctors, antique shops, cafés, and gift shops. Currently, high-quality wooden signs are selling at prices starting at $500 each and up depending on size, complexity, and the type of wood used for the sign.
There are a few methods of manufacturing highly attractive and functional wood signs. The first is to use a router to remove wood and leave the message or words raised, or concave.
The second method requires a design stencil and sandblasting equipment to remove the wood around the message or words. This manufacturing method can also produce a raised or concave appearance to the sign. Initially, a novice wood sign-maker might prefer to have the wooden blanks for the signs produced by an outside firm.
Wine Rack Manufacturing
Are you searching for an inexpensive business startup that can be operated part-time from home? If so you may want to consider activating a business that focuses on manufacturing and wholesaling custom-made wine racks.
The business is easy to establish and only requires basic woodworking skills and woodworking equipment. In addition to constructing the wine racks from wood, you could also build the racks from a metal, or even better, all recycled material, such as scrap metal and used building material that can usually be acquired for free with a little bit of detective work.
Once you have designed and constructed a few wine racks, they can be wholesaled or consigned to wine stores, furniture stores, liquor stores, u-brew-it wine shops and even restaurants. The key to success in wine rack manufacturing is to have a unique product that consumers are compelled to purchase for themselves or as a gift for others.
Wood Wind Chimes
Wind chimes can be manufactured from almost any kind of material, including wood. Starting a business that manufactures wind chimes can be a great way to turn spare time into extra income. The wind chimes can be sold to retail stores, garden centers and gift shops on a wholesale basis. Or, the wind chimes can be sold directly to the end consumers via a booth at a busy flea market, mall kiosk or an online mall.
While there may not seem to be a lot of potential for profit in this type of manufacturing business, consider the following: 50 retail accounts that sold only four wind chimes each month would produce total unit sales of 200 wind chimes. A $10 gross profit on each wind chime sold would produce gross profits of $2,000 each month for the business venture.
Now imagine if there were 500 retail accounts established across North America that achieved the same sales volumes, this simple manufacturing and wholesaling business would then be generating gross profits of $20,000 per month.
There is a lot of emphasis on selling online. With the smaller wood crafts you can sell and ship easily to millions of potential customers. So do not discount the smaller, simpler crafts.They are often also popular and in high demand. What also matters is the profit margin. It is often possible to sell lower priced items for very high profit margins.
Theme Toy Boxes
Manufacturing theme toy boxes is a wonderful home based business venture, and best of all the business can be kicked into high gear for less than a $1,000 initial investment. The key to successfully manufacturing and selling the toy boxes is to ensure that the designs are original, the material used in the construction of the toy boxes is unique, and the finished product is colorful and depicts an elaborate children’s theme such as horses, cowboys or dinosaurs.
The toy boxes can be sold to retailers on a wholesale basis or directly to consumers via the internet, trade shows, a mall sales kiosk or mail order. As an additional source of revenue and as a marketing tool, also consider making wooden toys and including one wooden toy with each toy box as a surprise bonus gift.
Wooden Jewelry Boxes
Jewelry boxes can retail for as much as 10 to 20 times of what it costs to build them, making this a potentially very profitable homebased manufacturing venture. This is the type of manufacturing business that will let you be very creative in design and in the materials selected for the construction process. Or in other words, ‘think outside the jewelry box.’
Consider using materials that normally would not be used for building this product, like recycled items, seashells, glass, or plastic. You can market the boxes by renting table space at crafts sales and flea markets, sell them to retailers on a wholesale basis, and even get the jewelry boxes featured for sale on numerous Web sites. The sky’s the limit.
Jewellery boxes are a good item to sell online for numerous reasons. They are in demand and many people search for this item online. We think you can do particularly well with this item by creating an online shop on Etsy. Just make sure to take the time and trouble to go through the initial steps like creating a brand name, logo and taking great pictures.
If you want to know everything about ‘starting a craft business in 14 days” download the “Craft Income Secrets”. It’s a comprehensive guide with special guides to making money on Etsy and Pinterest.
Bookends
Manufacturing bookends? Why not? They fall into the category of a great gift for someone who has everything. And best of all, the business can be set in motion for less than $500 and operated right from home. One of the key elements for this manufacturing venture to take off and fly will be your ability to design and create very unique and different bookends.
One idea may be to capitalize on the ever-increasing environmentally friendly theme and manufacture all the bookends out of recycled materials. If this route is chosen, be sure to include the fact that your products are manufactured from recycled materials in all packaging and promotional material, as this can be utilized as a fantastic marketing tool. The finished product can be sold through retail stores, such as gift shops, bookstores and the internet.
