Wood Working for Fun and Profit

Like most folks I learned wood working in school shop. For many years I made furniture for family members. The furniture I like to handcraft is Stickley, because it's mostly right angle stuff and easy to replicate. You can search the web to find examples of his furniture designs. Most, if not all of his work was done in quarter sawn white oak. I made several reproduction pieces for my daughter and son. Each time I visit them, my kids say I'm on an "inspection tour" While it is true - that I love to see how well my pieces age and I don't realize that I am even doing an inspection.

One day while working in my shop and reading some wood working articles, I ran across an ad that read "Be Your Own Boss". In context the ad related to starting a wood working business. I've seen these kinds ads before and never took them seriously. Some of the perceived draw-backs that always ran through my mind was, how the heck was I going to package an end table. Sure I could build a great table, but as I thought more about it. I began to see how complicated this venture could be. I was in no way prepared to start! As time went on and my telecommunication career came to an end and I became a couch potato (and loving it and my remote). Well, as you may have guessed, that kind of life style is terribly boring and your spouse always has a few unkind remarks to share with you. (lol)

While watching my favorite wood working show "The New Yankee Work Shop" (I just love watching Normi do what I do in a half hour segment) it struck me that if I could find a niche market for a highly specialized wood product(s) of moderate size I could sell it on eBay. Hmmm....That's not a bad idea. But what would I sell? I quickly grabbed a pencil and paper and listed as many draw-backs and objections as I could think of. Here is a short list to consider:

Packaging and shipping
Weight and box sizes
Shipping costs
Domestic and or international customers
eBay and PayPal fees
Cost of red oak (s4s) BF

Using this list I began to search the Internet such that I could assign pricing values for each item on my list. My goal was to analyze all cost and then determine what to build (sell). I used the following criteria: I wanted the total weight not to exceed 10lb. Box size 10X16x16. Why these specs? FedEx Ground price breaks and the cost of the boxes from UULine. (These folks are real cheap and fast) Establishing a shippers' account was and still is really easy to open with FedEx. They give you all the prepaid labels. I wanted to sell a premium wood product not found in stores and be a niche player on the Internet. So off to eBay I went to search for wood products. I found many but, most did not sell well and learned that the sellers were inflating their shipping cost to help off set the low "Buy It Now" price (low price high shipping cost).

Because of custom fees and added paper work I only sell to USA customers. eBay listing fees will soon be too high to make a decent profit and PayPal is no different - while still keeping the selling price low. I priced my first listing too low and it sold in a day. My next listing was a few bucks higher and it sold in three days. Next two listing did not sell so I increased the price just under $40 and to my pleasant surprise it sold in two hours. Okay, now I have established the final selling price. But, as time went on, I got upset at eBay listing fees creep.

So I built my one page web site. A single sales page selling only one wood product. I spent a few days posting my link to search engines and learning how search engines work. I managed to get a very good page ranking. Some months are very profitable and some are not. To sum up - it is well worth your while to get off the couch and give it a go. It takes time to complete this journey and you will have some fun learning what works.