When decorating your home becomes more than a passion, you become an interior decorator. And when antique hunting on the weekends suddenly is taking up most of your time, then it is a sign that you might want to do business out of that.
The reduction, reuse, and recycle ethos is burgeoning, and more people are starting to understand that buying old furniture is eco friendly, which makes it an ideal time to begin your own refinishing business. You can either sell the refurbished furniture or offer a service for others who have bought furniture under the weather.
In this article, I will give you some ideas on how to take your hobby to the next level and start a furniture refinishing business.
Find A Niche
One of the best ways to find your market is to find a niche and become an expert in it. For example, you could be a general furniture restorer and take on all jobs. Or, you can find a certain type of furniture to specialize in and become known for being the best at that.
If you know what people are looking for and have an interest in a certain kind of antique, then you can get out and start restoring them to give people an idea of what your work is before you take on some customers. Just use these tips for selling antiques that you have found while hunting for deals, and you will create a name for yourself in that field.
You may feel like the area where you live may have some limits on how many people are interested in the type of antique that you specialize in, but don’t forget that the internet is worldwide, which leads to the next idea.
Make An Online Store
Don’t limit yourself to your local market. There are people all over the country that are looking for exactly what you do. So, make sure that you have a website that can handle purchases so you can then sell your creations to anybody, anywhere at any time.
There are a lot of e-commerce platforms that you can set up quite easily that can handle the product pages and purchases when you sign up for a payment processor.
You’ll need to have your shipping system figured out to do this, however, so make sure that you talk to a local shipping company like UPS or DHL. They will let you know how much it will cost for them to come and pick up your orders for shipping and how you have to package it. Of course, these services will cost money, so you’ll need to pass that on to your customer unless they want to come to pick up the item themselves.
Get Your Marketing On Point
Have a solid social media presence and also a blog on your website. This will help create a brand for you and attract people to what you are doing. If you also have a way to sign up for an email list, then this marketing can continue even further.
Not everybody is ready to spend money right away, especially just from some pictures they see on social media. But, when you have an email list that you can market to, then you can find people that are ready to spend and give them the opportunity to buy from you or use your services.