Opening a Home Based Upholstery Shop
Profit with a Small Business Start-Up Interior or Car Trim Shop
Sep 18, 2009
There are a lot of important things to consider before opening any kind of business. Small business owners often put everything they have into getting a business started only to see it fail due to poor planning. The more planning an entrepreneur outs into the business before starting it the more likely it will be to succeed.
Creating an Industry Specific Upholstery Business Plan
While all businesses have certain things in common, a home-based upholstery business faces a handful of unique challenges. Understanding and addressing these points of interest will increase the chances a small upholstery business has for success. Creating a business plan will help with ferreting out details and addressing potential problems.
A good starting point for the planning process is the Small Business Administration website. There is a wealth of information on the site to help start up businesses. Helpful articles and links regarding getting a business license, handling business taxes, and business types are prominently posted on the SBA website.
When Choosing Between Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, and LLC
Business type refers to whether the business will be a sole proprietorship, a partnership, or a limited liability corporation. This is an especially important consideration for an upholstery shop. First, most of the items that need to be upholstered are heavy and require more than one person to manipulate. One might consider if it is easier and cheaper to have an employee or a partner. Second the business type decision affects the handling of accounting records. Third, liability and insurance issues need to be considered because of both the potential for injury and the high cost of many custom vehicles that might come through the shop.
Know How to Reupholster: How to Learn Upholstery Skills
To successfully operate an upholstery shop there has to be at least one person involved in the operation who knows how to reupholster things. Hands-on training is the easiest and fastest way to learn upholstery. There are, however, "learn at home" courses available that are also very effective as long as all of the exercises are carried out and practiced.
Auto upholstery and furniture repairs are two profitable types of reupholstery offered by most interior shops. There are some types of upholstery that might not immediately come to mind: canvas work, making draperies, sports seats, commercial seating, and marine upholstery are also lucrative. The skills needed for all of these upholstery craft skills are similar.
Finding a Fabric Supplier and Building Upholstery Shop Inventory
A reupholstery business owner will need to find a good wholesale equipment and fabric supplier. The profit margin on making seat covers, car interiors, or any type of upholstery work will be much higher if the fabric is purchased at wholesale prices compared to retail.
Finding a tool supplier with good prices is important too. It is worth getting quality tools for upholstery work. Cutting corners and trying to get a job done without the right tools might seem smart in the short term, but it makes a business lose money in the long run. Cheap tools break quickly and it trying to disassemble something with the wrong tool wastes time. It is time consuming and wasteful to attempt an upholstery job without the proper tools.
Opening an upholstery shop is not like one of those "get rich quick" schemes that are doomed to fail. Upholstery is a small business that involves a lot of hard work, but it is worthwhile for a home based business owner. An upholstery business offers a real, and lucrative, income stream to anyone who honestly wants to work from home.
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