*~*Thurs Aug 6th*~* Daily Natter-All Welcome!

sammy115

Don't forget to keep all receipts and record mileage and stuff before you even sell anything. Even if you make a loss as a sole trader in the beginning you can set losses off against other income

sallyx

Blimey Sammy now I am scared as I haven't even thought about all that kind of stuff!

(Land_of)_Maz

Sal - did you watch Kirsty Alsopps home crafty doo dah programme when it was on C4?

sammy115

sallyx wrote: »

Blimey Sammy now I am scared as I haven't even thought about all that kind of stuff!

Now don't be scared...not scary at all but its all to your advantage...:D just anything you spend money on in the pursuit of making money keep a receipt for and keep in a box. You never know when it may come in useful.

Burlesque_Babe

how about starting off with a stall at a craft fair? Do a few small bits you can take along to sell and promote yourself generally? You'd be starting off small, gaining publicity about who you are and what you do and earning some money without a huge outlay.

http://www.dorsetartandcraftshow.co.uk/

sallyx

(Land_of)_Maz wrote: »

Sal - did you watch Kirsty Alsopps home crafty doo dah programme when it was on C4?

I sure did...was in my eliment

Ames

I think it's a great idea, there's always stuff on freecycle that needs a bit of t&c. And stuff that's had a bit of a personal touch is always so much nicer, even if it's based on mass produced stuff.

postingalwaysposting

Sally it sounds great, but a word of warning... so did my 'card' business. The problem is everyone are doing the same, take that forum for instance and tv programes giving instuctions to do the same . Yours may be fabby but if the market is saturated already or people arnt willing to pay the extra for handcrafted it wont work. I suppose if you market your creations to a specific market who buy rather than diy then it will be fab. But after 2 years I folded my busniess after selling £50 and making a huge loss, it was not worth it for me but I hope you have better success :T

sallyx

sammy115 wrote: »

Now don't be scared...not scary at all but its all to your advantage...:D just anything you spend money on in the pursuit of making money keep a receipt for and keep in a box. You never know when it may come in useful.

Thanks Sammy...my accountant (hopes she's not charging me an hourly rate already!)

(Land_of)_Maz

Offer to personalise any existing furniture they may have in line with their spec...avoiding the initial outlay for you and them... and just charge a fee for the service... environmentally friendly, avoiding landfilll as using existing stuff and so on....

besides selling the stuff you do make as well.... but keep the "makes" small and less like a considered purchase........