Home Based Business Examples

Handmade children's clothing business?

I'd love to work from home to be closer to my children and have thought of many ways i can accomplish this. One way I have "discovered" is my love for designing, sewing, and just letting my creative juices flow. I've thought of a home-based affordable infants/toddlers/children's line of clothing. How likely is this area of "business" to be successful? Anyone know of someone who has done the same thing and has had quite a success with it? Any examples? or websites?any tips on starting an at-home business?

You might be able to start small with this with a website plus some local/regaional marketing and "word-of-mouth".

If you were willing to get out in the community some, you could also market through booths at trade shows, fairs, festivals, etc.

If I were you and serious about it, I might try marketing it also through the "home party" route and offer incentives to the hostess such as free items, discounts, etc. You could have samples and take custom orders and you could also set up these types of sales through day care centers, private schools, etc.

If you are REALLY good at it, you also might look for contracts with dance studios and such for custom sewing and alterations of performance and pageant costumes.

I'm not a seamstress, but over the years I have bought these types of clothes at trade shows, etc., and it seems like the vendors come and go. (Or maybe it's just that my kids outgrew them and I haven't been looking for them lately?)

I think the styles change so rapidly it may be hard for individuals to deal with turning over inventory and incorporating new designs, but to me some of the classic children's clothes are timeless. If I were you I would try not to get too trendy, and try to keep things as reasonable as possible to compete in the marketplace. I also think that it might tend to be a "feast or famine" type of business where you would be overwhelmed with more business than you might be able to handle at holiday and other peak times, but otherwise you might have lags of sales.

One company I really used to like was Kelly's Kids. Seems like they put out two seasons worth of designs (Fall & Spring) and did home party trunk shows with various samples and took custom orders. I even considered being a rep for them at one time. I'm thinking you could pattern your business sort of after that and design clothes to fit your kids to use as samples and then they could still wear them in the meantime and they wouldn't be wasted (as long as you could keep them in good condition for marketing opportunities as needed.)

I think Kelly's Kids may still have a website & I would definitely recommend this one to you as something to use as a model.

Good luck!

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