02.01.09
Posted in Business of Gift Baskets, Marketing Gift Baskets at 3:19 am by Administrator
It takes very little to start a Gift Basket Business. If you have the desire to start on your own, hunger for success and passion to get it, you can possibly start Gift Basket Business from your home for as little as $ 500. However there are few legal requirements you must comply with before you get going. Get all the necessary trade permission from your local city/county offices and a retail sales tax wherever needed. There are few start up investments you will need to make. A rough list is as follows: 1. letterheads and Business cards: You want your prospective customers to take you seriously, so better get a professional look. More over when you visit any prospective client, individual or corporate, you want them to remember you and call you back with their orders. So get some nice letterheads and business cards printed with your business name and a logo if possible. 2. Email and Voice mail: In today’s business world, it is almost mandatory to have an email address. Get one today if you don’t have one already. They don’t cost any money. You can use your existing home phone line for your home based business as well but have a voice mail facility installed from your service provider and have a nice business greetings in your voice mail. 3. Web Site: We cannot emphasize enough the importance of having a web site. Not only it will serve as your catalogue, it will give you the opportunity to connect with customers from far and wide. More and more customers will move their business online and unless you have a web presence, you will loose those customers. As we have told you before, you can start making a web page almost free. Search for Geo cities or Google site and see what they have to offer. 4. Develop a marketing plan: It is important to write down a marketing plan, however scary it may sound. Actually it is not really difficult. Free plans are available online and you just follow the templates. A marketing plan helps you to identify your target market, selling propositions and sales target and keeps you focus. We will continue with our discussion of marketing your Gift Basket Business. In the mean time please visit us at www.ABasketSupply.com to see the great assortment of gourmet foods. Over 3300 gourmet foods from all over the world is at your fingertips to make the most exotic and high end gourmet gift baskets.
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Posted in Business of Gift Baskets, Marketing Gift Baskets at 3:18 am by Administrator
The best part of a gift basket business is that everyone is a potential customer. But you have to get the words out. If people don’t know that you are making and selling gift baskets, how they will order from you. Let us divide the market in two segments: Personal and Corporate. As a start up your initial target will be personal consumption market. When one wants to give or send a gift basket for anniversary, birthday, get well wishes, house warming part etc. The most important first step is the word of mouth and customer satisfaction. Like building a house, a successful business is built up one brick at a time or more appropriately, one customer at a time. Therefore selection of the highest quality product, nice, professional design and finishing and highest customer service is very essential. It is also important to have a sense of pride in your business and baskets that you design. Ask yourself, if you will be happy to receive the basket yourself what you are trying to sell to others. There is no better critique than you yourself. These days most houses have a computer or lap top and digital cameras. If possible take some nice pictures of your baskets against a white background, edit the pictures in Photoshop or similar software and take the pictures in a disk to your local business depot or Staples and print a one or two page brochure. Make inexpensive color copies and give it to your friends and family for more business. Net working is so vary important for the gift basket business. Join the local chamber of commerce and attend the networking meetings. You do not have to spend lots of money on advertising to start the business. Try some local businesses and give them the brochures and ask for their business. Everybody knows some one working in some office. So why not use that contact to push for your business. Networking efforts like this will give you better results than advertising in yellow pages or newspaper advertising. You should seriously consider the avenue of internet. There are ways you can build a web site relatively inexpensive. Search Yahoo! or Google sites and you might be able to do it free yourself. (Google sites are free and have just been launched by Google). Once you have set up a web site, it will work as your catalogue and help you grow your business. We shall continue with our discussion on marketing in future. In the mean time, if you already have a web site, you can comment on this article and your comments will get posted on face book and other blogs on the net, giving you valuable links. We look forward to hear from you and how we can make this space more interactive and help grow your gift basket business www.ABasketSupply.com
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