Starting a personalized gifts business in 2020 is a great idea and the right time to start.
It’s a lucrative segment of the gifts business and one of the best you can deal with with ease of success.
Nevertheless, it requires patience, focus, and persistence. If you’re interested in establishing a personalized gifts business, get set. The ride’s about to begin!
In a period where gift shop owners are fleeing this market even as more customers need it, you’re in for making some serious revenue with your personalized gifts business.
That is, if you do everything just right.
But you most probably can’t do it. You can’t if you’re not a visionary gifts business owner who wants to do more than just make a decent income for a living.
You can’t if you don’t want to go that one step higher and reach a larger audience, and in the process step up your revenue significantly.
You can’t unless you’re never satisfied with the results of the day and want more revenue, more happy customers, more business every day.
But if you go to bed thinking what you’re doing is not good enough, if you think you have much more potential that you’re using, if you’re looking to truly expand your gifts business and your revenue, this post is for you.
Welcome to Kaivalya.me. Today, let’s learn how to start a personalized gifts business that makes you money. Let’s go!
How To Start A Personalized Gifts Business
Why Personalized Gifts?
One of the best ways to celebrate success, religious festivities, important dates, anniversaries, national festivities, cultural fests, and the enjoyable occasions is through the exchange of personalized gifts.
A regular gift… yes, they’re special. But a personalized gift, that goes a long way in delivering the message of love, friendship, kindness, and warmth.
A mug with a heart on it would never be able to share your love like a mug with the giftee’s face on it! (Just FVI, a giftee is the recipient of the gift 😜).
And gifters have realized this trend on the crack of the 21st century. More and more customers are seeking to make their giftees feel that much more special by gifting them personalized gifts such as a cushion with their name on it, or mugs with photos, amongst many other ideas.
That means you’re established with a set customer base who will surely pay a visit to your gift shop.
What’s more? The personalized gifts business is a very accessible business if you have the right skill set.
There are a wide variety of personalized gift combinations possible and once you’ve got a decent list of personalized gifts ideas. This post from fnp has some great ideas.
Pick Your Focus
Every gifts business has a target audience and a focus segment in the gifts market.
For your personalized gifts business, your focus could be Christmas, birthdays, etc. Ensure that your focus has a decent customer traffic and relatively limited competition.
In case you need help finding the right niche, we can help with our Free Audit and Consultation service.
Finding a focus or niche area of the market will define an outlook, a brand, an image for your gifts business and refine your customer base.
Most gifts business owners find this step counterproductive. They’re All Wrong!
Most successful companies started off with a very specific focus in the market. Amazon sold books for over a decade.
Having a focus will clear out many critical gift shop decisions and direct your choices. You’ll know who you’re selling to, how you should manage your inventory, etc.
Draft A Business Model
Not a long, 4000 word slop of text, but a short, concise plan of action.
It should include a step-by-step process of what you’ll do, when you’ll do it, how much it will cost, how you’ll do.
If you want, you could also mention why you’re doing it, so it’s clear to others and in hindsight, you’ll know why you did those steps when you started off your successful personalized gifts business that’s making you come up with serious cash.
Create A Gifts Business Profile
A gifts business is only as good as people think of it as being good. Your business profile includes the name of your business, the logo, the color pallete that will follow your business everywhere, among other factors that affect your outlook.
Ensure that the business profile that you create is appealing for your niche and your target customers.
However, your personalized gifts business profile will not remain limited to the outlook of your physical shop and the logo. You must create a solid business profile on the internet.
The modern customer doesn’t look out for gift shops by roaming on the streets. It’s most likely that they’ll Google or Bing you out. You want to ensure that you get listed on the maps and that your name, photos, logo, and customer reviews are good enough for them to visit you!
We’ve worked with a multitude of gifts business owners and we know how to create just the right business profile for you. In case you want assistance, reach out to us at our Free Audit and Consultation Service.
Choose The Right Location
One of the key factors to success is the right location.
That’s not to say you need to pick the prime location. We know, those are expensive and often they don’t have the best ROI.
Instead, you should get not the prime location but a decent location, which comes are a relatively cheaper cost yet has a decent footfall.
That way, you’ll have some extra money left which you can spend on advertising. In fact, having the prime location with no advertising will yield far lower results than having a decent location with great advertising!
It’s a tried and tested method, we know it and soon you will too!
Websites such as Quickr and MagicBricks will get you at pace in no time!
Watch this short video to get briefed up on location for businesses:
Suppliers And Partners
Sourcing right could help you buy in bulk and save a lot of money and time. You could either directly buy from a manufacturer or go through wholesales. Either way, your aim should be to buy more in less.
This would allow you to significantly increase your profit margin and bring you that much closer to the revenue you could only dream of!
Sourcing aside, you might consider partnering with another personalized gifts business.
On a commission basis or fixed payment, you could hire another gift personalizer who can customize gifts on demand at your store!
This will save you the process of buying material and training your staff. However, it is most likely that your margin will be much less through this method. Weigh your options and decide what’s the right choice for you!
Advertising and Promotion
You’re nearly there! You’ve got your gifts business profile ready, the business model ready, the location ready, the suppliers and partners in place.
Now that you’ve past all the major hurdles, what’s left is to tell people you’re here!
Advertise and promote your personalized gifts business! Show people why you’re better than the others. Tell them where you are and how to contact you. Give them offers and persuade them to choose you over your competition!
Consider paid promotion such as on Google Ads, YouTube Ads, Microsoft Ads, Facebook Ads, amongst others. These work on a cost-per-click basis and you can set an upper limit. This way, you’ll never spend more than you can afford, and you’ll get visitors!
Read this post from WikiHow to explore some ways you could advertise for free!
Bottom Line
And you’re through! Indeed, you’ve just learned a secret formula to earn money in the gifts business!
If you want to step up the revenue of your gift shop, read each of those pointers in detail, and go through all the sources provided! You’ll have plenty in your head, a lot more than your competition will!
Speaking of competition, another critical factor in setting up a successful personalized gifts business is great market research, competition analysis, consumer behavior and demand in your city and locality.
This research will help you choose your niche, know what your competition is up to, what your next move should be, what you should do, what you shouldn’t do, and a myriad of other factors.
In case you’re looking for help with this step (and this is indeed the most important step of the process), we can deliver quality results with our FREE Audit and Consultation Services. Check them out now!
If you’ve liked this post or if you were able to successfully start your own personalized gifts business by following our tip, let us know in the comments below! Share this post with your fellow gifts business owners and gift shop managers!
See you in the next one.
