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There are so many ways to create a small business for you, your friends or family. This post will concentrate on quick and easy ways that relate to the Print Geek Group, which include E-Commerce and Printing.
The two styles of business that we will concentrate on are “Import and Sell” and “Print and Send”.
Be aware why you are doing this, it can be for fun, financial gain, achieve a personal goal like help you community or for and interest/hobby.
Import and Sell
This is a great way to create a business, but can be slow to progress with limited funds, in no way impossible though!
Dependant on the motivation for this business should determine what product you look to import. Do you have specialist knowledge/ interest in a particular field? If its for fun, make sure its something that you love and can enjoy being involved with. If it’s for profit, look for items that are not exciting, plenty of people have made a lot of money selling paperclips, or cardboard boxes. If its for social status, pay particular attention to the quality and knowing the correct components and specifications.
Firstly do your research into your items, know thew product, ask questions and consume your spare time with gaining knowledge on the product and specifications, available variant on the market and their strengths and weaknesses.
Start small my bringing in samples from different suppliers, after you physically see the items, it will create more questions, think about packaging, shipping and marketing.
Narrow down on your supplier and order via sea, this will increase profits which will lead to the ability to stock more in the future and grow your business.
Create a launch campaign and preferably a website to market and promote your product. Start small and test the results of campaigns, find what works for you and then increase the spend once the results have been tested.
Re-Invest the sales that have been made into increasing your product range and gaining more of the market.
Print and Send
Print and send is huge all over the world, often referred to as drop-shipping, this is where a supplier sends the product finished (printed) in your behalf to the and user (your customer). You can print and send the items yourself, which leads to quicker dispatch times and more control, but it is at a higher capital investment.
The one thing that will be required is a good knowledge of graphic design, print methods and logistics, this can quite quickly be picked up through classes or YouTube tutorials. You can also pre-purchase designs through places like Etsy marketplace.
Stay away from copyright items as it is not profitable if you are in a legal battle early in your business life.
An easy way to start is to join forums and partner with a print specialist that has already spent the money on equipment and is happy to produce and send your items for you.
The fantastic thing about print and send is that you can create a website with items listed from Mock-Ups (A realistic graphic representation of the finished product) (Google it) that represent the item that they will receive without actually producing the item, many stores have thousand of items online that are mock ups and only ever produced upon ordering.
Other Business Ideas
There are many ways to start a small business, but these are the two main ways that we are involved with and love the mediums and lifestyle that they provide. Print and send, you can effectively do anywhere in the world from your laptop with the right Print and Send provider/Partner. Import and sell once you have yourself established can also be done anywhere if you partner with a fulfilment provider.
