Product Details
How to Start a Home-Based Gift Basket Business, 4th (Home-Based Business Series)

How to Start a Home-Based Gift Basket Business, 4th (Home-Based Business Series)
By Shirley George Frazier

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Product Description

Crucial advice on how to design, promote, and sell gift baskets from a home-based operation. Tips on managing finances, beating the competition, organizing work spaces, and avoiding common pitfalls, along with helpful worksheets, will help turn an amateur into a successful entrepreneur. 

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #153352 in Books
  • Published on: 2006-11-01
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 296 pages

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Takes the novice and more experienced entrepreneur through the steps of estimating start-up costs and defining one's niche to designing beautiful, marketable baskets. The chapters on the actual gift basket design reveal ideas for making baskets that are definitely a step above the competitor's."--North Jersey Herald News (praise for a previous edition)

From the Back Cover

Have you dreamed of starting your own gift basket business? Have you been hesitant to put your plans into action? This comprehensive book contains all the necessary tools and success strategies you need to launch and grow your own business.
Author Shirley George Frazier, a successful home-based gift basket entrepreneur, shares her experience and down-to-earth advice on every aspect of setting up and running a thriving business. She will show you how to develop a business plan, estimate start-up costs, select inventory, price services, and stay profitable. From painless record keeping to helpful hints on designs and savvy marketing techniques, her step-by-step methods are realistic, innovative, and easy to understand.
Whether you want to earn your living making gift baskets for the general public or specializing in custom creations for corporate clients, this guide will put you on the path to building your own home-based business

Learn All About
What It Takes to Be a Gift Basket Professional
Setting Pricing Policies
Getting Paid
Home Office and Workspace Setup
Taking Your Business Online
Setting Up a Realistic Schedule
Appealing to the Ideal Market
Making Corporate Contacts
Use these special features and workbook pages:
Sample Business Plan
Customer Profile Form
Buying Chart for Supplies
Sample Purchase Order
Expense Analysis Worksheet
Sample Invoice Sheet
Extensive Resource Listing
Delivery Schedule Form

About the Author

Shirley George Frazier is president of Sweet Survival, gift and gourmet specialists providing a broad range of services to home-based professionals, specialty shops, and department stores, including training industry professionals and others who need guidance to start and grow their business to full potential. Shirley writes for trade publications, conducts business seminars and workshops, has appeared on numerous television and cable programs, speaks at trade shows and conferences throughout the country, and is an associate member of the Gift Basket Professional Network.

Customer Reviews

Definitive Guide for Gift Basket Business Owners5
Many aspiring gift basket designers have the creativity, but need the business startup help, design instruction and marketing strategies Shirley George Frazier so generously shares in How to Start a Home-Based Gift Basket Business. Beginning with telling business owners how to identify their target market, she moves to all the tools and considerations required for success.

More than just exposition, every chapter gives easy-to-follow samples of key documents such as a business plan, credit reference sheet, sales invoice, purchase order or forms and checklists. Even seasoned gift basket business owners will find ideas and forms they can use. The guide to creating a news release, for example, is a vital aid to promoting business.

After 16 years in the gift industry, I have fielded thousands of questions from newcomers and veterans. Amazingly, every frequently asked question is answered here: Do I need insurance? How do I price my basket? What's the best way to organize inventory? What do I need to know before setting up a website? How do I get credit? How do I pack a box for shipping? What type of accounting do I need to have in place? Can I put wine in my baskets? How do I get set up to accept credit cards?

There are three features that elevate Frazier's book above the level of her competitors.

First, the detailed step-by-step drawings showing not only how to construct a gift basket from scratch, but how to wrap the basket and make changes.

Second, the list of gift basket product ideas; contact information for associations, organizations and trade shows; and a wealth of links to websites in side bars throughout the chapters.

Third, the quotes from experienced gift basket designers sprinkled throughout giving authenticity to critical aspects of the business.

Although targeted at the home-based business owner, How to Start a Home-Based Gift Basket Business offers essential information for hobbyists, beginners, veterans, and retailers as well.



Good solid information4
This book gives a good solid overview of the gift basket industry. It is not really a gift-basket construction or design book. (If you have never made a gift basket, or aren't really sure how to construct a basket properly, I'd recommend her other book "The Gift Basket Design Book." For design ideas and alternative construction ideas, I'd recommend "Bountiful Baskets" by Sara Toliver.) This book, though, quickly addresses pretty much everything you'd need to know to get started in business. My favorite parts were where quotes from other gift-basket owners appeared. I wish there had been more of those.

Well on your way5
If you are a current or aspiring home based business owner then you need to get acquainted with this author. Shirley Frazier Jones is one of the top 10%, one of the elite that can make it happen. With home based business on the rise, many entrepreneurs do not know where to start. If you want to learn about the gift basket business then read this book. I've had the pleasure of meeting Shirley and can tell you that she is both passionate and knowledgeable. Shirley knows what it takes. Read this book, follow the authors advice and you'll be well on your way.