Woodworking Business Ideas - What To Build To Make Profits

I take it that you are into starting your own woodworking craft business. Perhaps you are stuck for woodworking business ideas?  If you plan on selling your woodworking from your own garage or yard then this article may help you start some creative thinking as to what you are going to produce for your woodworking business.  This is a critical step.  If you know what you are going to be making then you will know what tools you will need and the plans you will need to secure.

1. Toy making

Does the figure $19,595,000,000 mean anything to you?  No?  Well that's the estimated annual sales just from the top 9 toy makers in the world (source: TheRichest.com)!  So with that in mind don't you think that toys sell very well?  They are not even that hard to make but they have a high perceived value which means that it will be easy to get parents to part with their cash to make their kids happy.  Out of curiosity, I did a Google image search for the keyword "simple wooden toys" just for some inspiration on what toys could easily be made. Take a look!  Now if you have any woodworking experience then you will know that these are very easy to make and I would say that any of them would easily fetch $10 on the market. The added bonus with making wooden toys is that they are a lot of fun to make and are going to make some kid happy.  Obviously just make sure that any toy you give a kid is sanded smooth and protect with a non toxic wood finish.

Collection of Wooden Toys

2. Furniture building

Beautiful and practical is what all furniture in the home should be and the furniture market is enormous. If you keep up to date with latest fashion trends then you will have more of an easy time selling your furniture. You can sell your home made furniture online on sites like ebay.com, craigslist.org, backpage.com.   Just have a search and you will see that wooden furniture is being sold all the time all over the world by woodworkers.  If you can reverse engineer and see what furniture is being sold time and time again then you incorporate this into your furniture building efforts. And on the same theme as the toy making above don't forget children's furniture which can be made from children's furniture plans.

Simple & Stylish Wooden Breakfast Table

3. Fence building & repairs

Every home needs a perimeter fence.  And all fences need replacing at some stage.  So there will always be a need to either build new fences or be in the fence repair business. Luckily for you fences can be made inexpensively by stripping pallets for their wood and nailing them to lengths of 4 by 2 planks. Like in this picture below. A 3.5 ft by 8 ft fence panel sells for up to $25 if you check online stores like Lowes.

Basic Wooden Fence Panel

Thank you for reading this blog post.  I hope that it has been useful and maybe sparked some creative ideas for your woodworking business startup.  This is obviously not a fully comprehensive list of wooden articles that could be made but they prove to be very profitable.

Homework:

It's not going to be hard!

It may be best to study your local wooden furniture shop.  Take note of all the types of things that get sold regularly.  Also take note of all the items that could easily be made with simple woodworking tools.  Another exercise would be to take note of what sells on ebay and for how much and come with ways you could out-value each piece and devise ways in which you could make it cheaply.

How to Start a Woodworking Business

If you have ever wondered how to start a woodworking business, then this is article is going to help you do that. Woodworking is a craft that can see you earn a decent second income. Wood is abundant, readily available and a very versatile material that is very often used to make items of furniture. The thing is that you often know a lot more than the average folks when it comes to woodworking. There is probably a lot of information and know-how that you take for granted. What seems easy for you may seem very difficult for other people and here lies a serious money making opportunity. There are people who love woodworking, but just do it as a hobby and that's fine. The good news is that if you have interest & even a basic basic ability in woodworking, then transforming it from a hobby to business is quite effortless and this article is just going to give you an outline into how this may be done.

As you will see the barrier of entry is very low into this business. It is very easy to start a small woodworking business and there are many woodworking ideas to make money with.

What you will need:

                                                                                                                      

1. Tools

A good set of tools is essential. You can borrow or buy these but you may want to shop around and check the classified newspapers or the online classifieds e.g. craigslist.org. I am sure that there are lots of people advertising their tools for pennies on the dollar. The kind of tools that you will need for your projects will depend on the nature of your business. If you want to start selling small items e.g. tables, chairs and/or toys, then having simple hand tools may prove to be adequate. Larger projects may need bigger tools.

You will at least need the following tools:

1. Carpenter's pencil
2. Tape measure
3. Stanley knife
4. Saw
5. Hammer
6. An assortment of nails/screws.
7. Tri-square
8. Sandpaper
9. Small plane
10. Assortment of screw drivers (phillips & flat)

Craigslist.org, as I have mentioned before, is one of the biggest websites of its kind and there's plenty of people offering their tools for sale and sometimes for free.  It is most popular in the USA where there are sections for every state.  If you live in America this will be a very useful resource if you need to find tools & even wood for your woodworking business.

You need to have clearly marked out your niche. Woodworking is a broad subject that can see you produce anything from a simple birdhouse all the way to production of office and home furniture. You need to copyright your products to avoid cases where people can steal your ideas for their own benefit.

Make sure you advertise. Again the classifieds can be a huge source of revenue for you that is if you don't want to make your own website. Ebay has been around for about 15 years and is still going strong. Which just proves that people buy stuff from one another over the internet and are completely comfortable doing so. There are many ways that you can advertise your products. You can use the internet. Using the internet will need you to put up a website. You can have a variety of sample pictures on the website. You also need to know all the ways of putting up a good website if you want to get enough traffic. You need to use the internet to not only advertise, but also to sell. With the website you will be able to tap into potential markets that cuts across country boundaries.

2. Woodworking Plans

The amount of money you make from your woodworking will be directly proportional to the ease and speed at which you build your projects.  This being said the fastest way to get building your projects will be if you have the plans already.  Plans have been carefully thought out and I do recommend that you purchase a good set of plans.  Trying to design your own projects is only going to cost you lots of time and there is no point in reinventing the wheel.

4. Wood

Wood can be sourced from numerous places.  Even scrap wood can be cleaned up and turned into beautiful woodworking project.  Stripping down old pallets can be a useful source of wood and nearly every business in town will have some that they were going to throw out anyway. Again check Craigslist.org!

3. A Workshop

It would be great if you could have the use of a big workshop full of the latest machinery and tonnes of wood.  This may not be a realistic option for you but all really need is a workbench and an empty room in your house.  If you live in a dry region then you may even prefer to build your woodworking projects outdoors.  You will probably need a clamp on your bench.

4. An Advertising Stream

This can be as easy as telling your friends that you have stuff for sale.  Other methods will include posting adverts on classifieds (online and offline).  Below is a list of classified type websites that will help get you started on making decent income from your woodworking.

Posting an advert on any of these sites is free.

ebay.com (International)

vendanything.com (USA)

craigslist.org (International)

gumtree.com (USA)

gumtree.co.uk (UK)

gumtree.com.au (AU)
gumtree.ie (IE)
gumtree.co.za (ZA)

backpage.com (International)

kijiji.com (CA)
cdncc.com (CA)

donedeal.ie (IE)

ukclassifieds.co.uk (UK)
trademe.co.nz (NZ)
nzherald.co.nz/classifieds (NZ)
global-free-classified-ads.com
getyardsale.com

Of course at the end of the day word of mouth is very powerful and advertising a yard sale may end up being a terrific income stream especially if you live in a built up area.

Making your own website
If you plan on making a catalogue of items and let your customers browse your website for items to buy then you may easily do this.  There are many great resources out there to help you start your own ecommerce store.  To start a website you basically need a domain name and some hosting.  The domain name is basically the .com or the .dot org name.  Your website will need hosting to store all the files that your website contains, for example the pictures of your woodworking projects and the text of your site.  As long as the woodworking business owner can commit to delivering the goods everything else is easily done even if you don't have good web technology skills.  Tip: if you sign up with bluehost for your website hosting then you get a free domain.

Woodworking ideas
There is no end to the range and scope of woodworking business opportunities.  There are literally thousands of items you could build and sell.  So the name of the game here is to build quickly and cheaply any woodworking item that has a high value.  The more valuable people see the item the more you can charge.  I will go into more detail with this later on in this series of woodworking business startup blog posts.

Thanks for reading my blog post.  I hope that you have gained value from this post.  I will be updating this blog with many different articles and tutorials.  I hope that you take the plunge and make a good income with your woodworking business startup.

Best Regards,
Ryan Riley