How to Start a Gift Basket Business

Have you been thinking about starting a gift basket business? Not sure how to start? This article will show what you need to know to make good money selling gift baskets.

A Growing Market

Gift baskets are the gift of choice for Corporate America. In this day and age, a gift basket is the perfect way to reward an employee or impress a client without coming off as too intimate. On the other hand, with a little work a gift basket can also express goodwill or love. The public likes gift baskets because they can say “I need something for an anniversary” and leave it at that. It’s the gift basket expert that takes the time to arrange something appropriate. Like greeting cards, gift baskets are the easy way for someone to say, ‘I thought of you.’

How to Start Your Gift Basket Business

Now that you know why gift baskets are so popular, it’s time to start your own business. Here are the steps you need to follow to start your gift basket business:

Find a Market

You aren’t in business until you sell something. Before you do anything else, you need to decide who you will market your gift baskets to. Don’t say ‘everyone who wants one.’ That’s the wrong answer. You do not have enough money to target ‘everyone’ all at once—not unless you’re Donald Trump.

The five main groups that buy gift baskets are:

• Individuals
• Private Practice businesses (Lawyers, Doctors, etc.)
• Institutions (Hospitals, hotels, etc.)
• Non-profit groups, charitable organizations
• Corporations

Choose one to focus on for now. Add more groups as your money starts rolling in. Can’t figure out how to choose which group to focus on first? Take a walk in your neighborhood. Go to shopping centers and look around. Page through your local telephone directory. If you live in a suburban or rural area with few businesses, then focusing on individuals makes more sense. If there are hotels and businesses around you, then you may choose to sell gift baskets to business clients.

Build Samples of Your Product

Go out and collect enough materials to build five different gift baskets. Use prepackaged foods such as salsas, pretzels, and cookies. This is a good test. If you can’t afford to make five baskets at retail process, then you can’t afford to start this business quite yet.

Build each basket around a different theme. Then have good quality pictures taken of your baskets. See if you can trade some work with a local photographer. This will help you in the next step.

Create Marketing Materials

There are two main ways to sell your gift baskets: direct mail and the Yellow Pages. Start with direct mail first. You will want to develop post cards, flyers, and maybe even a newsletter to send directly to your clients. If you don’t know how to do this, you can hire a writer to do it for you at such sites as Elance.com, Guru.com, and iFreelance.

Most new businesses make the mistake of only sending one mailing. Your average client needs to see something four times before they act on an advertisement. That’s why you want more than one type of direct mailing material. Send the postcard, follow that up with a flyer, then a newsletter. For even more response, start your business in the weeks before one of these holidays (when gift basket demand is high): Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Easter.

Get a Business License

Once orders start coming in, go get a business license. Besides making your gift basket business legal, a business license entitles you to buying from distributors and manufacturers. You will get better prices this way. That means your profit margin will be higher.

You may be thinking that this should be the first step. But why should you spend $100-$120 until you know that your gift basket business will have customers? A business license is quick and easy to get. If you download the business license from the web, you can have your license in about two hours. Spend the money once you have clients. Remember, if you don’t have clients, you don’t have a business.

Starting your own gift basket business is quick and easy to do. It requires low overhead, and can be done on a full or part-time business. Be patient, read up on your industry, and never give up. Soon you will have a business that helps people and puts money in your wallet.