It is weird --the longer you stick around, the more you see come and go.
I've been a WAHM for over 2 years, and I've just made a decision to give it up. It's hard, because there's the whole popularity "contest", whether we know it or not. When I first started my business, there were no "diaper shops" where you could just find the material and presses and stuff. Now there are WAHM companies and diaper supply shops coming out the wazoo! LOL
So anyway --soon I'll be coming here as soely a consumer, not a WAHM. I've made the decision to go back to school, so between that and my 4 kids, big house and dh, well --I only have so many hours in the day!

 

An associate of mine once ran the numbers and came up with the conclusion that you have to sell 7 diapers a week just to break even.

That can be kinda tricky to do when you're starting out. Then you start adding free shipping, freebies in with orders, advertising.... it can definately be a struggle!
~Kira

 

I can't speak for all WAHMs, but I think you almost have to view it as a hobby. Most aren't going to get rich off of it. If you're breaking even that's not bad. To really make some money I think having a really innovative product or being very artisticly talented is a must.

 

I have thought about this over and again and back and fourth. I agree with so many points the other posters made too. I still can't decide if it is better to have a niche item like only your own homemade stuff or to have a variety shop of tried and true items that you always have to price competitively. I had no idea about what you'd need to sell to break even but 7 diapers a week for someone brand newly starting out seems almost daunting to me. I guess it truly is a labor of love. I couldn't imagine starting out and hoping to feed my family off the income! I imagine start up costs vary widely too, depending on what you already own in house and where you find the best bulk deals and how fast you can sew and how much time you can devote to creating...it just seems like a lot to me. Just in my time diapering, I've seen a lot of wahms come and go. I'm always nervous for the new ones who start up and sad when others have to stop. I'm glad to be just a consumer.

 

I was actually thinking about this today believe it or not! :LOL

I've wondered the same thing. I actually think it would be fun in a way to have an online business, but I don't think I could do it unless I was selling something not too common. KWIM?

I have an idea for a business but I worry about taking care of taxes and all that jazz.

 

yeah... these are all good points. as a wahm myself, i have been very happy with the growth of my biz. it takes real time to make the money invested back. i don't make my own diapers to sell because the point of wahm'ing is the HOME part, being with my daughter and at the rate i sew (or try to.. im awful!), i wouldn't have any time for anything else!
and i truly think there can't be too many mama businesses, devoted to an eco-friendly product. the rise of mom businesses just show that there is more of a demand of not only cloth diapers, but real, handmade, homemade goods. people respect that & seek it. many mamas go out of business, sure, but that's due to a lot of factors (a lot actually WANT to). i think if someone truly has a desire & mind to make it work, it will. and they also wouldn't be ashamed or afraid to promote another mom's business while they're at it.
btw, i carry both unique items, like birthstone rattles & handmade clothing and also tried & true useful products like grinders & bibs... they both do really well!
but... i sure as heck aint no millionaire!

my 2 cents...

peace,
joleen

 

Quote:

Originally posted by carrietorgc It's just that as I research more and more, I wonder if there are enough consumers to meet the supply!

The way I think about it, like 95% (or so, I'm just guessing here) of people with babies in diapers use 'sposies, so there's a HUGE untapped marked out there

(We have big aspirations!!) Within the cloth diapering community that currently exists, I think there are plenty of consumers. Also, babies are in diapers for a short amount of time, so the customers are constantly changing.

If you think about a wahm working at home, taking care of kids, etc., there are only so many diapers she can make/put on the web/supplies she can buy, etc. per week. (Just today my mom came to take care of dd while I went to the eye doctor & when I came back, she asked me how I ever get anything done w/dd :LOL ummm, that's why I'm working at 2am, LOL). So, there is a limited amount of product a wahm can produce, so it's an advantage to have so many out there so they don't burn out.

In term of economics for the individual wahm, it's stunning how MANY hours or work go into a business like this, and for a $10-20 item. Then when you see people say that $10-20 is expensive,

. Just recently I got a L L Bean catalog & saw the wool sweaters going for like $80. Then when a wahm sells a wool cover for $20, it's deemed expensive. It's just an interesting thing to ponder.

 

I've looked seriously into importing and selling prefolds, covers and maybe pockets. My husband came up with the brilliant idea of a rental business, where the customer can rent before buying to try to get around that fear people have of investing money in diapers. But even still, with the import duty and GST and the like, it is just impossible to price them at a level where people would buy. And I cant get tariff concession orders, because a terry square and plastic pants is considered a substitute for a pocket diaper, an AIO or a fitted and cover, be it PUL, wool or nylon.

I dont have the time anyway, but I can understand that those that do it do it for the love of it and are not getting rich. I can totally understand why they cost what they do also. The beautiful items I've bought from some of you WAHMs I've been totally thrilled with and considered money well spent.

 

hi Jachhut~ that "rental" thing might be a good idea somehow. Alot of people like to do a "Diaper service" for the 1st few months, then switch to sposies later. Well, we were gonna do that, but no diaper service in my town! Luckily we saw how much we would save, we just went on in for the investment. Of course now I'm a diaper freak, so...

 

Quote:

Originally posted by ctdoula In term of economics for the individual wahm, it's stunning how MANY hours or work go into a business like this, and for a $10-20 item. Then when you see people say that $10-20 is expensive, . Just recently I got a L L Bean catalog & saw the wool sweaters going for like $80. Then when a wahm sells a wool cover for $20, it's deemed expensive. It's just an interesting thing to ponder.

I agree w/Amy. I'm not a WAHM, but I do see people comment on the prices of beautifully sewn/knit items, and it bothers me sometimes. There's a difference between not having the money (hey, I'm a teacher -- I know what that's like), and saying something isn't WORTH the money or is too expensive.

Just thought I would throw that out there.

 

Quote:

There's a difference between not having the money (hey, I'm a teacher -- I know what that's like), and saying something isn't WORTH the money or is too expensive.

I have to agree with that. I often find myself wishing that I could afford to buy some of the beautiful diapers out there and support so many of these WAHMs but I can't justify spending $10-$15/ diaper when I can make my own for $3-$4. BUT I am not saying they are not worth it, just I can't manage it.

 

I've done the internet biz before. My DH and I recently closed our internet Kite shop. It was fun to do, and was all his idea to start with and we never really made much money with it, it more or less funded my DH unstoppable "Need" for big, expensive kites (Sounds like my "Need" for diapers..heehehehehe). He did the web site stuff, I did the CS and s/h, and most the ordering. It was fun for a while, but became too hard to do with two kids.

We found it was time consuming to list with search engines (have to do it daily or weekly, or your web site gets lower and lower in searches) and the most cost was with the merchant accounts to accept credit cards (although I think a lot of the WAHM with diaper/diaper related stores use paypal). We'd just roll any profit into more stock.

Competitive pricing was important. We offered Free shipping and I think that brought us a lot more business.

-Anyway, sorry for the book, just my thoughts and experience on the subject

Michelle
Momma to Madison (4) and Tye (4 months)

 

"I have an idea for a business but I worry about taking care of taxes and all that jazz."

That was a concern for me too. By the time you do all the "legal" stuff, there's also the manufacturer's liability insurance you have to purchase.
Sure, it takes a few bucks to make a diaper, but by the time you subtract your time, the web maintenance fees (domain and monthly service), all the little extras (labels, envelopes, etc etc), manufacturer's insurance for your product, the list is endless. I guess after doing it a few years I realized I really was just breaking even, making a few dollars here and there.
But like someone said, it's good that there are lots of WAHM's, so that items can be more readily available. I love trying other WAHM's stuff, and adding new ones to the mix makes it more fun. But I guess you can only do it for so long before you burn out.

 

Quote:

Originally posted by Jachut My husband came up with the brilliant idea of a rental business, where the customer can rent before buying to try to get around that fear people have of investing money in diapers.

OMG, that is such a GREAT idea! You (well maybe not YOU Jachut, since you aren't in the states

) could have all different kids of dipes from a bunch of WAHMs (wait, I think I already have that, LOL) and then rent them out so that people could try them. You could indicate how many times each one has been washed, too - so that people could see what the wear factor was (I have some dipes that look gorgeous at first, but not so good after a few washings, LOL).

Someone could even do that with their current (outgrown) stash on the TP (unless that is against the rules). I would LOVE to be able to try a Firefly for a week, or an RB FLAG - so I would KNOW what I liked before I waste all my $$$ or time trying to get [something that might not work for my bambino.

Quote:

Originally posted by ctdoula In term of economics for the individual wahm, it's stunning how MANY hours or work go into a business like this, and for a $10-20 item. Then when you see people say that $10-20 is expensive, . Just recently I got a L L Bean catalog & saw the wool sweaters going for like $80. Then when a wahm sells a wool cover for $20, it's deemed expensive. It's just an interesting thing to ponder.

Amy, you can charge whatever you want - I will pay ANYTHING for Angelwraps!

XOXO

 

I just wanted to throw in a few comments/observations.

First, I think some of the turnover in WAHM dipe businesses (new ones closing as others start up) is because mamas are moving into different interests. I see some businesses evolve into making childrens clothes and things for older kids as their own grow out of dipes. Since there isn't a high profit margin in making handmade products, a lot of people would naturally do what they love for rewards outside of money and their interests are naturally going to change as their kids are getting older. Plus, what might be managable with one (or two) kids around, might become a monster as your family grows and just not be worth it anymore.

As far as the cost of dipes, I think there are a lot more of us saying "I wish I could afford that dipe" than "that dipe is way too expensive". I would love to be able to afford the wonderful covers and dipes out there, but it just isn't feasable in my current financial situation, especially when I can't even afford to increase the number of prefolds I have and go coverless at home largly because I don't have many covers. I have to find other ways around it (like cheap fleece pants that can double as "normal" pants for wintertime and as a cover with legs for around home). Even those of us who can't buy the dipes because of $$ would usually agree that the prices are really too low for the amount of work that goes into them. I have only bought 3 dipes other than my prefolds, and I did a lot of research (quality and finding a WAHM I personally liked) before buying them and bought from MDC WAHMs because I wanted to support them rather than a bigger company.

Just some thoughts from a pure consumer in the dipe world.

 

Well your idea re the WAHM stuff sounds good too penny31, what we were thinking was:

prefolds and wraps and maybe a basic all in one, it would have to be mass produced stuff like proraps. Australian's in general are very much in the dark about cloth, terry squares and plastic pants are all most people know. They are also very resistant to the idea of spending money on it. People simply dont get how much they spend on disposables over 3 years, do they?

We thought, if you could offer a try it out package for say $50 a month, a lot of people would go on to buy (for which we'd charge a slightly discounted price). When they traded their package in on the next size, the old ones could go onto ebay. So that's what - three types of income for the one product? We thought that might get around the enormous cost because of shipping and exchange rate that we pay here in Australia for these products.

But I have to say, even still it wouldnt be very profitable and with 3 kids, a house and returning to full time study next year, I really cant be bothered.

So I certainly dont begrudge $A25 for a beautiful hand sewn product shipped halfway round the world to me, usually within a very short time frame.

 

I'm in Ottawa, Canada, have been selling cloth diapers for over a year and a half, and I have been implementing a loan program for about two months now. I wanted to differentiate myself from the other local WAHMs selling cloth, and I wanted to give ppl a chanced to 'test the waters' w/o making a significant investment. I'm happy to report that so far, all participants (save one, who I knew from the get-go wouldn't do cloth) have purchased diapers as a result. I think Internet biz is fine and dandy, but ppl need to see/feel cloth diapers when making a decision. It's neat to see someone else has had the same idea! There is a woman in the UK who has a loan program, she loans out dipes on an item basis, I loan out a 'stash' so ppl can try different types of dipes.

susie

 

is that we are looking at the place where WAHM's get together...there are so many more people who still think that cloth means a prefold and plastic pants...

To me, I know so many WAHM's by name, *watch* their families grow and businesses grow so that they are part of my world..but go to the library and change Josiah??? The women are AMAZED that he is wearing a simple fitted with wool cover...I mean a very VERY basic system...LOL

So it seems saturated because we are sitting in the middle of it.

That is what I think anyhow...

Amy atb

 

I've thought a lot about this too, since I love to sew and my current obsession is designing the perfect diaper for my heavy wetter. If I went into business selling my idea, it would have to be fairly unique, and I'd market it at the place like diaperware.com or Tuesday Bear rather than getting my own website and fooling around with all that.

As far as the taxes go, I do direct sales with a well-established company. I used to get my taxes done by an accountant, but now I do them myself, including researching the IRS website for publications about my specific issues. We just buy the tax software every year, and I use the codes for my particular business off of previous tax returns. I've done this business for eight years now and taxes are only a hassel if you don't track your expenses in a financial program during the year and you have to add stuff up from receipts.

As for the profitability of a business like diaper sewing, if you're making larger quantities of things, you are faster than if you're designing new things. If I had a pattern I was happy with, I could probably make a wrap in 15 minutes including the cutting (two layer fleece wrap with aplix or snaps). But if I fooled around with different fabrics (and thus thread, etc.), it would take longer. If I did it, I would figure my cost and then mark up my diapers 100%. My diapers would be more practical than artsy and I'd watch my fabric/thread selection to keep costs down. I'd also make items to fill orders and promise turnaround time based on gross number of items ordered - say a basic turnaround time of 48 hours for up to 12 items and then 24 hour additional for every six items (so order 36 diapers and I'll ship within 6 business days).

Anyway, those are just ideas. My husband keeps telling me I'm going to have to sell whatever I come up with since I can't seem to find anything out there that I'm happy with. But then if I started making the same thing all the time, I'm afraid I'd get bored. And I'm such a perfectionist, I'm afraid I'd drive myself crazy. I still think about it, though.

 

Not that I ever wanted to be a diaper shop, but diapers are what has kept us afloat for the past 4 years.

It can be profitable, but it takes time and money to get there. It took us almost 3 years to turn the corner to profit. Since then it's been fine, but how many wahms are going to put in 3 years of no profit to get to that point?
I'm willing to guess many leave long before that point arises.

Even still, I run my business as a hobby. I don't have time for it to grow into something big, so I don't advertise as much as I used to and I took a bunch of product down from the site etc.

I think there is room for more wahms if the wahms are getting their needs met by selling. I know when I started a WAHM business it was definetly to make enough money to support my hobby and pay for the materials I was already using. I bet it is the same for a lot of WAHMS

 

I don't think anyone can start a diaper biz purely for profit -- they'll be sorely disappointed if that's what they expect! For me, I enjoy showing ppl that they have a choice... it would be nice if I could contribute to our household income, but it seems hard to get ahead.

I've been at it for almost 2 years now, I would say business is steadily increasing, but I've not been able to draw any type of salary yet... any penny I earn goes right back into the business, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

I do wish DH was a little more supportive of me and my ideas... even if he could fake interest, I'd be happy, lol. But that's a whole other story...

susie

 

I agree with what you guys are saying. I am interested in being a WAHM because I COLOR=darkred]hate[/COLOR] my boss and already go to school full time. But I also noticed the wide array of CD'ing WAHM's. Do you think something unique would produce a profit? For instance I want to open a book store. But I am also thinking of sewing clothes and diapers? What do you guys think is making the momma's want to close up shop? I know someone said a popularity contest is what the real game is but if the product is good enough wouldn't word of mouth and enough advertising keep it afloat? I dunno

:

 

Quote:

What do you guys think is making the momma's want to close up shop? I know someone said a popularity contest is what the real game is but if the product is good enough wouldn't word of mouth and enough advertising keep it afloat?

I'd say it's partly from not knowing (or really getting) that it takes 2 - 3 years to show a profit. That can get really discouraging if you think you've found a great opportunity. If you are planning to build something with longevity, it takes a certain mindset. Lots of moms fall into it and don't realize what they've taken on. Sometimes the slave wages just aren't worth the work involved.

Besides that, there are lots who just don't want to take the time anymore and choose to spend more time with their families. Also, kids grow up and once you aren't using diapers yourself, it loses some luster. When my son was no longer wearing my product, I lost some velocity and it was hard to get excited about working.

 

Also, many businesses are started because the women realize that their families need the extra money and they need it *now*...not realizing that you simply dont have any extra money for at least 2 years from the business...You have to dump everything back into the biz..that is hard when you see that your PP acccount has 150.00 in it and you need shoes for the kids..It is so worth it in the long run but its also a hard road to travel.

I think that the popularity thing is a living breathing entity in the WAHM world..*but* you can not base your business on just those in a small circle of customers..even though it feels huge to us who are involved with other WAHMs, really it is just a drop in the bucket. Sooner or later you will exhaust that pool of customers and you are left with nothing.

Amy atb

 

Quote:

Originally posted by Aiyana's Mama i truly think there can't be too many mama businesses, devoted to an eco-friendly product. the rise of mom businesses just show that there is more of a demand of not only cloth diapers, but real, handmade, homemade goods. people respect that & seek it. many mamas go out of business, sure, but that's due to a lot of factors (a lot actually WANT to). i think if someone truly has a desire & mind to make it work, it will. and they also wouldn't be ashamed or afraid to promote another mom's business while they're at it. joleen

ITA

it does take time, and i read somewhere that it takes between 3-5 years (on the average)...to really see a "turn" in the tide. so when a business is started, it's smart to really see things in the long term result. i know many mamas (wahms) who see business as a hobby, and that is great for them! but for me, because of our family investment, i hope that i am here 5 years from now, and be able to see that turn...

i agree that we feel saturated because we are int he midst of it. i am on another board where the mamas there don't have a clue as to what a fitted diaper is...and i truly believe that there are going to be more converts by the day. LOL...i think if there was one celebrity who can come out to say they cloth diapered...there would be a surge!

great thread! makes ya think!!!