boodie

SCORE is a nonprofit association dedicated to helping small businesses get off the ground, grow and achieve their goals through education and mentorship. They have been doing this for nearly fifty years. www.score.org Writing a business plan is essential to starting a business and they will help you do this. Best of luck!

rjwilder

I would start with etsy. The competition will be online retailers like 5 Bucks a yard and other discount sites. The biggest drawback I see is shipping costs. There are good deals online but after adding shipping it's not that great of a deal. I can use coupons and buy new fabric locally for less money than online.

KalamaQuilts

It would have to be a place you physically visit in order to exchange fabric, not online, but there is a shop in Colorado called Wooden Spools that does this. I think it is a wonderful idea and wish fabric merchants would implement it here.
There is no consignment involved (think of the paperwork!) but the fabric is inspected, the offer is made, the payment is paid. It is possible the payment is in credit, I don't know

MaggieLou

Not to throw water on your dreams but having been there, done that I wouldn't do it again. We had our own business and were pretty much in the same boat you're in. We didn't have the capital needed and getting a local was almost impossible unless you already had substantial funds to invest yourself. SBA was no help unless you really didn't need the loan to begin with. We had a nitch business, not quilt related but it was specialized. Needless to say, after three years we called it quits. It wasn't worth the hassle and we lost everything in the process.

Sorry to be so unhelpful but most startup businesses don't last more than about five years unless they have good financial backing.

RipStitcher

I'm cheering you on.... (because I'm chronically self-employed, myself! lol) BUT....

Beware of "businesses" that basically equate to a "job that needed an investment".

Website costs are overwhelming... as well as the amount of work they take to keep updated, etc.

I will discourage you from eBay - their fees are outrageous (9-10% that is also charged on your shipping amounts!)

I think Etsy isn't bad... They take about 3% plus another 3% or so for PayPal (and if you're going to work online, PayPal is just a "must" because so many buyers are comfortable with it). I sell a few patterns on Etsy, but most of my email list is coming in through Craftsy.

You need to create an email list of your interested people, too. The "build it and they will come" doesn't work so hot on the internet.

But here's another idea: Go check out Instagram. I have recently bought some mighty interesting fabrics from a few sellers on there. The cool thing is that you can snap a picture of the fabric, say your price, and send PayPal invoices to those that say that they want to order. Caveat: You need to build up a following there (but you would, anyway, for any online thing) ... and you should keep one account for your "destashing" or "special offerings" so you aren't *just* sending out offers for product. Keep a second account so people can see what you're personally into. The glory of this is: that interested people will see your new offerings fly by on their feed. They don't have to make the effort to go to your site, etc. Also, they will share stuff they get excited about with other people.

Best part: Costs nothing. Love that. (just your PayPal fees)

Last thing... I think you'll do better if you can possibly price your product to include free shipping. I think a lot of sales are lost when someone sees that extra $6 get added. I know it's tough... but try to find a way... maybe free shipping for $20+ orders or something.

Personally, the shipping fees don't freak me out because I can't drive my beast of an SUV very darn far without burning up $15 in fuel.

Neesie

I have to agree with the ones who are encouraging you to try Etsy, before investing any serious money into this.

About the website, I've designed several (personal) websites and they are NOT HARD to do. You don't need to be an expert, to do your own. There are programs available, which help a lot!

Also, beware of companies that claim they'll help 'get your site to the top of the listings' because some of those are nothing but scams. I used to have a relative, who worked for one (he may still work there but is no longer a relative, so I don't keep up with him). I won't mention the name of the company but it's starting to receive more and more complaints, from customers who've been scammed.

Twisted Quilter

I agree with everyone suggesting to try Esty or Ebay first, to see if this is really something you want to do. I'm not sure about Esty, but Ebay fee's can eat up a lot of your profit.

Good luck!

madamekelly

I will be watching and cheering for you. May I make a suggestion? The biggest businesses all start with a gimmick of somekind. (Such as A bunch of kids wanted to keep mom busy, and MSQC was born. Her gimmick was to put videos on youtube about quick and easy methods for getting quilts done and having fun doing it.) I would not only have a featured supply, (your repro. fabrics) but a wonderful gimmick like a guaranty that all precuts are actually the stated size. (Too many online shops sell whatever they can get their hands on for cheap.)
Good luck! As I said, I will be cheering for you.

sandyfullmer

I do shop on Etsy for fabrics via their search engine, and I find a lot of etsy shops thru blogs. It seems that having a blog that is almost a daily feed must be a big help in getting traffic to an Etsy shop. I too would try selling there before launching a website. Good luck in your venture!

Bree123

I agree with the others that have said you need to build a following before you can hope to have a successful on-line business. You can always set up a basic website for free with DrupalGardens. Anyone with just a little bit of computer savvy can do it. Once you have your site set-up, buy your domain name from GoDaddy ($0.99 for first year, no commitment) and switch to the Basic service with Drupal Gardens (approx $12/month). They have a super easy option where you can do a re-direct. A re-direct means that someone would type in something like "59Quilts.com" and it would bring them to the low-cost, WYSIWYG designed website you set-up that might be called something like "59quilts.drupalgardens.com". DrupalGardens hosts your site & has all the software you need online and if you can add bold, underline, color & photos on this site, you can design a website with DrupalGardens. On that site, you can either link up with etsy or post a phone number for clients to call you directly.

Then, once you have made some profits from etsy & built up a reputation that is driving at least 20x the number of customers you need (be sure to select Google Analytics when picking what to include on your site so you can get daily/weekly/monthly counts of visitors), go talk to that fancy web designer. Before that, I would say it's not really worth it. There's only so much a web designer can do & anyone that focuses their spiel on "SEO maximization", "driving customers to your site", or the like probably isn't worth a dime. YouTube can teach you basic tricks to get you listed and after that, it's all about how many people are actually linking to your site, clicking through to your site, etc. So PROMOTE, PROMOTE, PROMOTE. Get yourself a FaceBook page, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn that is for your business (you can connect to your personal page if you'd like, but have one set of accounts that focuses on your business, not vacations, pets & grandkids) and send invites to every person you know. Have business cards or mini-flyers ready to hand out to every person you meet & get your 1-minute elevator spiel memorized until you feel confident telling it to complete strangers. Post links to other people's blogs & consider starting a blog about out-of-print fabrics yourself (what to look for in older fabrics, how to find a reputable seller, how to care for the fabrics, etc). If I recall correctly, DrupalGardens has a WordPress app for adding a blog to your site. One bit of advice on that: make sure you update it regularly or your site will develop tons of issues (learned that one the hard way!).

Keep in mind that most businesses don't turn a profit their first year, so it's wise to sell what you can to build up some savings now that will carry you through to when you need to hire a lawyer, accountant, web manager, and other professionals. Best wishes with everything!