Do you currently knit sweaters, jackets and more? If so, perhaps you should consider turning your hobby into a profitable business enterprise. The business is about creating beautiful and unique hand-knitted products, from sweaters to any other clothing material. The opportunities are endless; all you need is a creative spirit, knitting needles, some yarn and you're in business.
There are few names we will mention in the knitting business, Laura Zander started her yarn shop in a small town in California. She was hoping to make 30,000 dollars a year, 'that would be great', she thought back in 2002. A little more than a decade later, Laura has parlayed her passion for knitting into an online retail business with sales forecasted at 7 million dollars this year. Lauren Howden also started her knitting career as a hobby but now she is listed among 40 hot young entrepreneurs. You too can make a success in turning your knitting hobby to a business.
Thinking about starting a business in knitting? Your primary objective is to make sure you can make a profit while turning your love of knitting into a craft business.
You can make money knitting, particularly if you are quick and professional. Even if you are an amateur you can learn the basics. Learn how to cast on the knit stitch, the purl stitch, and how to cast off. With these basic skills, you’ll be able to start knitting loads of things, and then you can sell them for a profit.
This article discusses various methods you can use to balance time and the art of knitting to build your knitting inventory.
You can't do any knitting without yarn. Find out how to find wholesale suppliers of yarn, textiles and related accessories you will need for your knitting craft business.
Making profit in knitting, you need to put the following into consideration:
- What is involved in knitting for money?
- How do you start knitting from home?
- What are you to knit?
- Knit to sell
- Putting a price on your pieces
- Where you can sell your work
- Offer knitting training.
Knitting For Profit
Knitting is generally a craft that needs creativity. Lots of people know how to knit, but they may not be creative enough while doing it. They may also be ignorant of how to make a profit from it.
There are a range of easy items you can produce through knitting. The easiest, and the one that most people begin with when they first start to knit is the scarf. There are also the big thick woolen garments and the stylish thin acrylic scarves that are worn as fashion accessories.
Once you’ve mastered the scarf, you can move onto bags, cushion covers and blankets, with just a few rectangles stitched together and a button here and there, they’re very easy and convenient to make.
Knitting From Home
Since you are creating a business from your hobby, you start your hobby from home. You can also start your knitting business from your home.
What to Knit
To build a career in knitting, you need to be creative. Create designs for yourself you can even look into other peoples' designs add two or more creativity into it and that makes it your own style.
Fixing a Price on Your Pieces
It’s a good idea to try and cut the cost of your materials as much as possible, so any profit made will not be part of the running cost.
Even if you’re just a beginner, you don’t have to spend a fortune on the tools and materials you’ll need.
Selling Your Pieces
First of all, decide what hourly rate you believe your time is worth to produce your items. Then think about how many items you can make in a week and how long this will take you.
For example, four hours in front of the TV, seven days a week is 28 hours. At an hourly rate of N2,500, your weekly cost of production is N70,000
Then look at your material costs – how much it would cost to make one item, and how many you could make in a week. Remember that investing in good needles should be a one off payment so take good care of them, and if you’ve followed the suggestions above, the cost of your wool should not be very high at all.
For example, if you can knit five scarfs in a week – out of three N1,300 scarfs worth of wool – that would be a material cost of N750 each. Once you increase production to ten scarfs a week, your total material cost would be N7,500 a week.
Add this number to your production costs (a total of N77,500) and then divide this number by how many items you can make in a week. For example, if you can make ten scarfs, then your total production cost per scarf would be N7,750
Compare this price to that charged in craft markets for similar goods. If you’re charging much less than others, you could consider increasing your price.
Your Market
Try out displaying your pieces at a mini shop – it will only cost you between N500 to N2,000 to rent a space in some one else's' shop. Once you’re more established, you could consider going to set up a standard shop, you’ll probably know the good markets in your area you can apply for a shop in a good location in your area. If you specialize cardigans you can advertise them at different schools.
Teach Others
Knitting is a great skill to have, and many people are envious of those who can sit to do clean knitting and produce a beautiful creation.
So, rather than knitting your friends and relatives' scarfs and other knitting stuffs that will take you forever, why not offer to teach them how to knit at a cost so they can do it themselves?
You’ll need to have a certain level of understanding when you’re teaching others to knit. For example, if they make a mistake you need to know how to pick up where they went wrong, sort the problem out and guide them in the right direction. We believe you will share a success story if you practically follow the tips above, wish you good luck in your business.
We will like to hear your success story soon, please feel free to leave a comment.
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