Friday, August 17, 2012

Woodworking Business Opportunities

Woodworking offers a wide variety of different business opportunities. Whether it is doing custom woodworking for a client or creating simple wooden crafts and furniture to sell online there are many different ways of putting your woodworking skills to good effect and earn either a comfortable part time income or create a six figure woodworking business.

Below are some of the woodworking business opportunities that exist today in the crafts and furniture end of the market. These are all high selling products that are easy to make. Some of these products such as the walking sticks are being driven by demographic trends which will only make these products more popular in the future.

When you are designing your own woodworking products it is important to stand out from the crowd. While these items might appear generic the key to commanding higher profit margins is to provide a unique selling proposition. For example if you use a particular type of timber you should explain its qualities in the sales literature. If you use a unique design make sure that you take a photograph of this and explain where the inspiration came from. However often the best unique selling proposition is you. Explain your own story and values and why you decided to become a woodworker.

One of the first woodworking business opportunities we will look at it is in garden furniture. Whether it is picnic tables, benches or ornamental bridges there is a lot of room in this market to get creative. The garden market is huge and growing. As baby boomers retire they will be spending even more time in the garden. Their thoughts will of course turn to how to decorate their garden. You can help to fill this need with your own range of unique wooden garden products.

Another market being driven by the greying of the population is walking sticks. This is an often overlooked opportunity but is in fact a huge market. It is also one that is growing as people become older. Walking sticks are relatively easy to construct and do not use up a lot of material. However a good walking stick can command easily over a hundred dollars giving it excellent profit margins.

Next look to cash in on the next great woodworking opportunity which is the green market. This market is huge and it will only get bigger in the future. Examples of products in this market include composters and untreated planter boxes. The important thing with this market is to play up the ecological element of your product. Stress the fact that no chemicals have been used and construct the products from recycled timber.