Mooloo's "Making my future, one stitch at a time"?

dktreesea

I think anyone who has a small business that is viable enough to employ people is pretty awesome. We work longer hours rather than employ people in our business. I suppose you could have opted for the same, taking the sewing home and sewing at night while running the shop in the day, but we regularly work 60 hours a week and more because we don't employ people. We weighed it up and decided to give up our premises, work from home so we could "be there" for the children, (note the quotes. Be there physically but along the lines of "Mummy's busy working now, sweetie pies. Please don't disturb me..."), and turn our home into (DD's words) the "biggest residential warehouse in Scotland".


I just couldn't be bothered with staff. I watch what some of my friends go through - they don't turn up, they botch jobs, they're going through this personal drama, that latest sad event in their lives. That takes more psychic energy than I have to dispense. i prefer my customers. The are time poor and are grateful for any help they get.


So people who do employ others, in spite of the cost, the intrusion on their lives, and even if that cost is in part supplemented by benefits like working tax credit/housing benefit and the like, are heroic, imho.


We've had times where we got Working Tax credits as well as Child Tax Credits, over the recession. I even had one year where we qualified (Scotland only?) for free school meals. That was a first! And sure, you do need to take a view at some point and cut costs, even if they are heavily subsidised. We gave up our premises even though it was nice to have them stock wise because the sales from the footfall didn't cover the rent.


All the same, I don't think I would like my business quite so much if it didn't earn me at least the NMW. So I was thinking about your situation.... How about doing some ironing in the shop during the down time? Ironing goes with sewing. You'ld only need to advertise, via a flyer, in the surrounding streets. No picking up or dropping off. They drop the stuff off and pick it up, so like a dry cleaning service.


Here's a link for possible rates. https://www.gumtree.com/p/domestic-cleaning-services/speedy-iron-ironing-service-free-uplift-and-return-locally/1135918827


You may only get an extra £20 a week from doing something like this, but sometimes just £20 a week extra profit can make a significant difference to a business. I know it did for us at the height of the recession.


Oh yes, and turning up trousers. When we were in manchester we went to a small place that was really just a hole in the wall, so not a full on shop. He did them for £4 a pop and was so busy (he didn't do complicated stuff) sometimes you had to go back the next day to collect the stuff. I did think £4 was a bit mad. My OH got to know hm so one day I took his menu of prices, scanned it, and put some of them up. Just to £4.80, - he said he would try it and didn't change it.


Now we are up here, the lady down below from us charges £15 to turn up trouser bottoms. We have found another guy who does it for £9. Still feels pricey compared to the hole in the wall guy, but it's the price of "can't be bothered to do it myself" (there's two sewing machines in the hallway, lol).

dktreesea

Dressmaking pattern books. Open an account on Amazon so you can sell them there at new prices as well. The postage allowance should be enough to cover first class large letter postal rates. That way, you can still stock them, but have the whole of Britain as potential customers.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Look-Size-Pattern-Multi-Colour/dp/B00N76VZM6/ref=sr_1_19?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444041705&sr=1-19&keywords=sewing+pattern


or search on something like "sewing pattern vogue" and you'll see what I mean.

duchy

Not sure most employees are seen by their employers as "an intrusion on life" but hey ! Takes all sorts.

As there is only one of Mooloo and DGD needs her time too it's a no brainer that some staffing is essential but I do think Mooloo needs a good accountant who is accustomed to the quirks of a small business - Maybe one of the other small businesses in town could recommend theirs ?

dktreesea

I have had long experience of the council regarding housing benefit for self employed people (I'm an accountant, but run a different business) and it sounds to me, Mooloo, like they added all of your stock expenditure and/or machine expenditure and possibly business interest back to your profit figure before calculating your benefits.


Say you start off with zero stock, buy £10k worth of stock during the year and then sell £3k of stock, leaving you with £7k stock on hand. The £7k stock on hand is a balance sheet item, i.e. doesn't go against your profit and loss account until it is sold.


This works the other way too. If you started off with £7k of stock, bought an extra £5k throughout the year but only had £2k stock on hand at the end of the year, then your stock expense in your accounts would be £10k, i.e. the stock you had sold, not just the £5k you had bought during the year.


So if the council have added back your entire stock expenditure, then it would be up to you to appeal and prove how much of the stock had been sold/consumed during the year.


Business interest is specifically allowed for housing benefit purposes in the housing benefit legislation. They may try to add it back though, if they say it is to fund the set up rather than the ongoing running of your business. If it's interst on a business overdraft then it's working capital and they can't add it back. Likewise interest on a commercial card (like a credit card but for businesses, and usually cheaper interest rates than a credit card).


Expenditure on machines is allowed in full if under the annual investment allowed for income tax purposes, but may not be for housing benefit purposes, because it would be seen as a set up cost of the business.


The only other thing I can think of with a bricks and mortar shop is to apply for business rates relief.
This isn't from your council but is a good explanation of the rates relief you could get in England.
http://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/200012/business_rates/2042/relief_and_exemptions/4

Savvy_sewing

I have business rates relief this year.
I am waiting for a reply, and the workings out of their figures, so I can see why they stopped the part of benefits they did for my home.
I didn't get a chance to source a new accountant today, I was doing my normal books and then this afternoon I was seeing.
I have never been without sewing so far, so ironing wouldn't be possible.

Selling on Amazon I had never thought of.
I will take a look into it.
If I could sell one more thermal bag a week that would help me considerably.
I sold 8 tape measures to one of the schools today. If I had more they would have bought them, and someone else bought 5 packs of hat elastic.
People are beginning to come in for these things more and more.
Let's hope they will keep coming.
My part time girl was quite understanding about things, and she has a full weeks work in Leicester next week so that will be good for her.

dktreesea

Mooloo wrote: »

I have business rates relief this year.
I am waiting for a reply, and the workings out of their figures, so I can see why they stopped the part of benefits they did for my home.
I didn't get a chance to source a new accountant today, I was doing my normal books and then this afternoon I was seeing.
I have never been without sewing so far, so ironing wouldn't be possible.

Selling on Amazon I had never thought of.
I will take a look into it.
If I could sell one more thermal bag a week that would help me considerably.
I sold 8 tape measures to one of the schools today. If I had more they would have bought them, and someone else bought 5 packs of hat elastic.
People are beginning to come in for these things more and more.
Let's hope they will keep coming.
My part time girl was quite understanding about things, and she has a full weeks work in Leicester next week so that will be good for her.

If you look at Amazon and decide it isn't for you, there is another site that is good for handcrafted items.
https://www.etsy.com/uk/

dktreesea

I was in the market for a sewing box a few months back and went on this site:
http://www.sewingbox.org.uk/
only because Google coughed it up near the top of it's pile of choices. I was amazed to find such a big variety and that for nearly all of them the platform of choice to sell their items was Amazon.


Every time someone says they bought something that wasn't a book on Amazon I want to laugh. They really have become a marketplace for all kinds of "non-Amazon" (as I think of Amazon) goods.

elona

I get all sorts of things from amazon. Solar lights, candles, plastic food boxes that go from freezer to microwave and a gorgeous sewing box that I treated myself to for my birthday.

I even had a look this morning and found my dd's favourite perfume with 50 mls perfume and a body lotion as well as a make up bag - all for £10 less than the perfume on its own so very pleased.

Savvy_sewing

I will definitely take a look at the terms and conditions for Amazon.

On the plus side the council sent me a reply to my email and have apologised for the poorly worded letter, which should not have been sent and that it had been generated in the morning before they had scanned in my accounts in the afternoon, but now that they have looked into it they have reinstated my claim, and I will get part payments again.
But I am still going to be working on changing the business and trying to make it more profitable and to try to cut unnecessary expense etc while trying to get trade back in on an even keel.
Still not much work came in today but sales of habadashery and fabric scraps.
So I will consider making up scrap bags to sell as that is just fabrics that I already have and are lurking in every corner of my workshop at home and I the shop.
The button boxes also have been emptied and searched through today. But only one new alterations in, which is not good but having said that the weather was awful so the town was dead.

dktreesea

Are scrap bags handbags? One off designer handbags might go well on a site like Ebay or Etsy.


Amazon tends to do better for more branded mass market stuff, especially if not widely available in a nearby town. Sewing supplies and sewing patterns do sometimes fit that bill.


Sometimes I see sale flyers posted on supermarket notice boards. Not sure if they all allow this, but some of them are for things like clothing exchange shops, coffee shops running cofee mornings to support one cause or another, sewing classes, knitting classes, sewing and knitting circles, so where people come together to sew their own projects as opposed to a formal class.


Maybe if you advertised your classes like this it would make people aware of the shop? If I were looking for a sewing (or yoga; kind of the same) class I'd check gumtree or the supermarket notice boards.