Glitter is not only a sparkly substance that you sprinkled all over yourself in your younger years. It is found in nail polish, makeup, crafts, tumblers, and more!
The crafts industry has really increased in popularity, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic, and glitter has gone along for the ride. Therefore, now is the best time to start up your own glitter business.
Whether it's making your own products with glitter, making the actual glitter yourself, or using a wholesaler, you can make some good money by selling glitter, or glitter products, and it’s a business that you can conduct entirely from the comfort of your own home.
This article will be providing you with a guide on how you can start your own glitter business.
1. Familiarize Yourself With The Industry
Your first step should be to familiarize yourself with the glitter industry. Here you need to think about the initial cost of starting this kind of business, and whether it is profitable or not.
Here, you must look at the arts and crafts market. This market was said to have reached sales of around $1.2 billion in 2021. This was around 11% higher than the year prior.
The initial costs of starting a glitter business can vary. You could start it up with around $500 to $1000, but if you’d like to start off your business big, you may need around $3000 to $5000, depending on your marketing and the volume of glitter production you have.
If you operate your business well, then this kind of business is very profitable. Making glitter yourself, or sourcing it only costs around $15 to $20 per pound, and each pound is able to be sold for around $8!
Challenges
When familiarizing yourself with the industry, you also need to consider the challenges of the product (see also 'Financing A New Product [What You Need To Know]').
For example, there have been some concerns about glitter causing plastic pollution in the sea. It can also cause severe health issues to children or pets if it is ingested.
However, you may be able to look at these challenges and identify a selling point that solves these issues.
2. Find Your Idea
Once you’ve familiarized yourself with the arts and crafts, and glitter industry, it’s time to narrow down your idea.
In order to do this, a good starting point would be to research any local glitter businesses in your area, and see if there’s a market gap you can fill. For example, maybe all the glitter businesses around you aren’t exactly affordable, or maybe there aren’t any eco-friendly businesses around.
Your business should solve a problem, so finding a solution to an issue is the way forward when it comes to narrowing down your idea.
Once you’ve found your idea, you can also decide how you are going to source your glitter. Will you make it yourself? Or, will you look for a wholesaler?
3. Business Plan
Once you’ve figured out exactly what it is you’re going to sell, you need to create a business plan. This plan will serve you well as a guide and will help you focus on your main goals.
This plan is also something physical you can show to potential partners and investors, so they can understand the ins and outs of your business.
A business plan should include an overview of the business, such as your mission, vision, ownership, and goals. It should describe your products or services in detail, have an assessment of market trends to do with your industry, and have a competitive analysis.
Aside from the above, this plan should also include an overview of your management team, an operations plan, and a financial plan.
4. Register And Make It Public
The next step is to register your business, and once this is done, your business will be official! You’ll need to decide what location you want your business to be registered, as there are different laws depending on where you live.
Once registered, you can then make it public, which means creating a website. Nowadays, all businesses need a website, especially if they are operating online.
You can create your own website online for a very small fee, and there are many online platforms that will allow you to do this easily. Here you can list all of your products and services, and even create a blog with some SEO-related copy to attract traffic to your website.
5. Promote Your Business
Once your business is up and running, it is time to promote it to your heart’s content. You can begin this by using word of mouth. Give different samples to your friends and family, and ask for detailed feedback on the product.
Make a list of what went well, and what went wrong, and use that to grow your business further.
Digital marketing is also a great way to promote your business. You can make social media accounts on all different platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, share these profiles with your followers, and ask them to share your profile with their followers.
You should also post regularly, engage with your followers to stay relevant and follow your competitors and other pages that fall within the arts and crafts industry.
If your business grows enough, you may even consider hiring a marketing executive, who is experienced and knowledgeable in all aspects of marketing when it comes to a business like yours.
Final Thoughts
To conclude, as the arts and crafts industry is booming, now is the best time to start your own glitter business. The first step is to familiarize yourself with the industry, and once you have, you can try and find a gap in the market to base your business on.
From that point, you can then start to think about where you are going to source your glitter, create a business plan, register and launch your business, and then promote it.
We hope this article has provided you with a good amount of information on starting a glitter business.