This holiday season, if you are one of many home-based professionals who expects his or her work load to decrease, you may wonder whether there any short-term things that you can do to make a little extra money. Of course, you may relish the reduction in work because it frees you up to spend more time with family or do holiday projects, household projects, and all of those other things that you have wanted to do but have not been able to fit into your schedule. The great thing about choosing to offer a seasonal service such as baking (which I discussed yesterday), wrapping gifts, or shopping is that you can decide how much or how little time you wish to dedicate to your venture before you begin.
Today I would like to talk about an idea that many of us have probably seen in action while we have been out shopping. In many stores and malls, holiday shoppers can stop by a table and get their gifts wrapped for a fee. During the holiday season, there are people who would be more than willing to pay money to delegate their gift wrapping to someone else so that they can do other things.
Before you begin offering gift wrapping services, check your local rules and regulations to see whether there are any forms or fees that you must take care of before you begin. Also, see whether there are others offering the same service and whether there are a lot of stores in the area that offer gift wrapping. Check out the prices, and what they offer. You may see that the gift wrapping market in your community is saturated, or you may see that there is still a need for more gift wrappers.
Next comes the fun part of deciding what supplies you want to use to wrap your customers’ gifts. You may want to ask a few potential customers what they would like to see and then price out the supplies for what you want to do. You may wish to offer an assortment of solid color papers in addition to merry holiday designs. You could use cloth ribbons for a unique touch, or tie a handcrafted ornament onto each package. Use your imagination and come up with a list of products and prices. Then, wrap some gifts or boxes and take some nice pictures. Use the pictures and your price list to create a one page flyer that you can place on community bulletin boards. Make sure your flyer explains where and when the gift wrapping takes place (your place or theirs) and include your contact information. You can also post on Facebook to let your friends know what you are up to. As calls come in to book your services, mark your plans on your calendar. Be careful to only take on as many clients as you can comfortably handle without having to rush or cut corners. Above all, have fun – the work that you are doing is earning you money while helping someone else with a chore that they would rather not do.
Photo by cohdra on morguefile.com.