Start A Home Decor Business - Business Ideas
Are you a talented interior designer? Do you know you can turn your hobby into a side income opportunity? Home décor as a side hustle is a great opportunity to build a brand as you earn extra income. You first need to work on your portfolio to launch a successful home décor side hustle.
The portfolio communicates to your potential customers your potential when it comes to home décor. You may use your home as an example or request a friend for an opportunity to do their home décor as a sample for your portfolio. Once you have a portfolio, market your business, and remember to include photos from your previous gigs to increase the chances of closing a sale.
Starting a home decor business requires a great deal of effort, dedication, and most importantly passion.
If you're interested in how to sell home decor, or selling home decor online, you can use this page as a guide for everything you'll need to know.
Want to learn more? You can check out our full guide on how to start a home decor business ➜
Key Stats
Startup Costs
| Min Startup Costs | Max Startup Costs | |
|---|---|---|
|
Office Space Expenses |
$0 |
$7,000 |
|
Employee & Freelancer Expenses |
$151 |
$352 |
|
Website Costs |
$223 |
$7,215 |
|
Business Formation Fees |
$5,600 |
$20,400 |
|
Retail Business Expenses |
$1,250 |
$11,650 |
|
Inventory Expenses |
$350 |
$14,750 |
|
Software Expenses |
$162 |
$3,094 |
|
Advertising & Marketing Costs |
$75 |
$4,636 |
|
Total Startup Costs |
$7,811 |
$69,097 |
Case Studies
•
$8K/mo
•
$8.5K/mo
•
$415K/mo
•
$5K/mo
Successful Businesses
| Business | URL | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
French Italian LLC |
instagram.com/frenchitalianhomedecor |
25 |
|
|
Crate and Barrel |
crateandbarrel.com |
3,811 |
|
|
AllModern |
allmodern.com |
6,566 |
|
|
Furniture, Home Decor, Rugs, Unique Gifts |
worldmarket.com |
8,094 |
|
|
CB2 |
cb2.com |
8,391 |
|
|
Article |
article.com |
9,481 |
|
|
Oriental Trading |
orientaltrading.com |
12,079 |
|
|
Temple & Webster |
templeandwebster.com.au |
14,193 |
|
|
Birch Lane |
birchlane.com |
15,636 |
|
|
Floor & Decor: High Quality Flooring and Tile |
flooranddecor.com |
16,538 |
|
|
ELLE Decor |
elledecor.com |
18,640 |
Pros & Cons
| Pros | Description |
|---|---|
|
Ability to start your business from home |
It's not necessary to have a physical storefront or office space to get your business started. You can do everything from the comfort of your own home, at least in the beginning! |
|
Rewarding work |
Starting a home decor business can be really rewarding work. After all, you are solving an immediate issue for your customer and you're working on something you truly care about. |
|
Quick build time |
The average time it takes to build your product is quick - typically around 9 months. This will allow you to bring your product to market faster. |
|
Amazing perks and discounts |
Working in the home decor business comes with its perks! As a seller for these products/services, you typically also get to enjoy industry perks and discounts. |
|
You are your own boss! |
With starting a home decor business, you are the one to make decisions for almost all of the operations. Calling the shots can be empowering and liberating! |
|
Location is everything! |
When operating a physical storefront, the location often speaks for itself and serves as it's very own marketing tool! It's important to choose a location in a high traffic area so you can spark curiosity and get people through your door! |
| Cons | Description |
|---|---|
|
Crowded Space |
Competition is high when it comes to your home decor business, so it's important that you spend a good amount of time analyzing the market and understanding where the demand lies. |
|
Finding The Right Supplier |
Most businesses in this space go the supplier/manufacturer route, which isn't a bad thing! However, finding the right supplier can take a lot of time, energy and trial/error. If done properly, this process can save you months (if not years) of time and energy. More on this below in the "finding a supplier" section. |
|
Niche Market |
A niche business is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact, it can be the key to your success. However, it can be more challenging and time consuming to find the perfect niche market and target audience. |
|
High overhead expenses |
With starting a home decor business, there are overhead expenses that come with selling a physical product. You will want to make sure you strategically budget for these overhead costs. We discuss this more in the startup costs section below. |
|
Work can be repetitive |
You may find creating the same product over and over repetitive and tiresome. One way of avoiding this is to diversify product lines and revenue streams - this will keep things interesting! |
|
Time commitment |
With starting a home decor business, all responsibilities and decisions are in your hands. Although this is not necessarily a negative thing, work life can take over at times. This can place a strain on friends and family and add to the pressure of launching a new business. |
Marketing Ideas
-
1
Affiliate Program
Affiliate marketing is a great way to bring in a new revenue stream, especially when you don't sell products or services.
Simply put, an affiliate program is an agreement where a business pays another business or influencer ("the affiliate") a commission for sending traffic and/or sales their way.
The affiliate typically gets a unique link where clicks and conversions can be tracked.
-
2
Word of mouth
Word of mouth is when a consumers reflects their interest in a company’s product or service in their daily dialogues.
Therefore, word of mouth advertising is essentially a free advertising triggered by the customers experience.
According to Nielsen, 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family.
Therefore, in today’s hyper-connected world, a single recommendation through a word of mouth can have a huge impact to your business.
-
3
Social Media Advertising
Social media advertising is the use of social media platforms to connect with your audience with the objective to build your brand, increase sales, and drive website traffic.
According to Oberlo, approximately 48% of the global population use social media, and the number is ever-growing.
Therefore, social media allows brands access to cost-effective advertising by enabling them to interact with a large audience.
Hey! 👋 I'm Pat Walls, the founder of Starter Story.
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