Hey, WAHMs
I am knee deep in starting my own fabric and textile gifts business. I have a partner and quite a bit of support from family and friends but I'm nearing some issues that I could use some help with. I'm sure there are other forums for me to post this in but I thought I'd start with our WAHMs and go from there...
I have finished our profit and loss report and there are some areas where we can work to make this thing work -- but it's tight. We're looking at trying to increase our profit margin but we can't really know what that is without having firm prices and guaranteed distributors.
For the fabric - that will be easy. My partner will just buy from the few big wholesalers. But I'm in charge of textile finished goods/gifts and I'm having trouble finding a source for some things.
I guess my questions relevant to the WAHM forum are:
- How do you handle wholesale prices for your wares?
- What are your minimum orders?
- What are your ordering policies
- Do any of you do home sewing?
- Custom work for shops and etc.
- What is the payment structure for that sort of thing?
- Do any of you do resale shops?
- How did you find your wholesalers?
- Any for building a relationship with a wholesaler, especially on imported textiles?
- Have any of you approached your local artists to sell their goods?
- How have you gone about doing that?
- Have any of you employed local WAHMs to help build your inventory?
- How did that go?
- Were you able to pay them well enough and still earn a good profit?
I am open to PMs for WAHM goods and services for the following:
- Sewing services (we would provide a pattern, fabric and an order number)
- WAHM made or imported textile gifts with a modern "global" aesthetic for the home, infants, young girls, and women
- Vintage fabric, unique notions, or craft kits
Thanks for your time!!
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