How to make money sewing toys. Creative Business: Making Handmade Toys

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The social network Instagram allows not only to share photos, but also to make sales. Galina Protsenko from Moscow started developing this network a year ago for family business. Her account @obgonay was originally conceived to help her mother make money on toys - her mother had three stores. Today, the account has almost 87 thousand subscribers, foreign suppliers seek to cooperate with it, and offline stores of the project were closed due to their unprofitability. About how to sell toys on the Internet and establish smooth operation through Instagram, Galina Protsenko told the site to the portal.

26 years old, entrepreneur, sells through an account in Instagram baby educational toys. She graduated from the College of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, after which she worked for 5 years at the Russian Embassy in Chile. Graduated in parallel with work Financial University under the Government of Russia with a degree in innovation management. He has been selling toys through his Instagram account since February 2016. Today in her project “Overtake!” five employees (managers and courier).

Internet to help sales

Initially, my mother built a business selling children's toys in our family; she opened 3 retail toy stores in Moscow in 2015. At that time I lived and worked in Chile. Mom really needed help, but how could I help from a distance? Decided to create a website to support her retail stores.

I was pregnant at that time and I understood that soon I would have to leave work and do something else. Therefore, I took up the site with pleasure. We have invested about 10 thousand dollars (approximately 600 thousand rubles) in it for half a year. The site itself cost about 120 thousand rubles. Plus photos of toys about 60 thousand, investments in advertising - 230 thousand rubles. We bought the goods so that there was a commodity balance. But for six months, this money has not been repulsed.

I began to wonder why this is happening. In an offline store, you are limited to the region or district where it is located. There you, as a business owner, can only rely on people living in your area. And your site can be seen by any resident of Russia if you pay for its promotion. But how to sell toys in an online store: the client comes and is left to himself. Many people leave the site simply because there is no one to advise them.

These 2 opposites led me gradually to the idea of ​​Instagram. Your account replaces the sales assistant and makes the buying process more enjoyable. Here and on social media in general, you need to show your face so that people know who they are buying from.

Explore a new channel

Instagram "Overtake!" I started teaching in February 2016. I believe that in order to do something, you need to have some understanding about this area. I went to study at Instaschool Arpin, my husband and daughter Ksyusha were already in Moscow. The training cost me 12 thousand rubles. And it was the most successful investment in our business for the whole of 2016, no kidding.

I am a marketer by education. Therefore, I have an understanding of the market and the mechanics of sales. But the specifics of Instagram were not. I needed a good specialist with experience who would help me figure it out. I probably would have reached everything myself, but I would have made a lot of mistakes.

Arpine, the founder of the Instagram school, is more of a psychologist. She said one thing, which I basically go by. Social networks in general and Instagram in particular are not a sales channel, but an entertainment channel. If you want to buy something, you go to the store, not to Instagram. Therefore, the task of an Instagrammer who sells is, first of all, to entertain.

You should have not just a showcase with a product, but something that will hook subscribers and make them stay: dialogues, tips, games, contests. In social networks, mostly impulsive purchases, and people make them on trust in you - specific person who has an account and who sells something.

Arpine taught us to speak in her Instagram in Russian - just like we speak in ordinary life. It is important that the language is simple and colloquial. If I speak the language that I use in everyday life, then people who look like me come to me. Therefore, my clients are on my wave, and I feel very comfortable with them.

stepbystep

I had and have my own personal Instagram, but for business I created a new account - @obgonay. It had 0 subscribers. He could gain followers on his own, but it would take a long time. You have to pay for promotion. I promoted my account wisely - not because I'm so smart, but because I had no money.

On Instagram, advertising can be aimed at attracting followers or attracting orders. I can call to action - "Buy from me!" or "Follow me!". People who subscribe to me do not instantly place orders. They sit with me, imbue me with love and trust, and only then come for a purchase.

When I first started selling toys over the Internet, and I had no money, I could not afford such subscribers. I needed them to order from me right away. It was necessary to work in such a way that my advertising fought back that same evening. Therefore, I did not advertise myself as a store, but specific products. I said: “This pyramid is so wonderful, it costs so much, you can buy it here.” And people bought, conditionally, a pyramid. During the evening, the ad fought back, I could go further and launch a new ad with the money I received.

But all this time, they didn’t subscribe to me very willingly, because advertising was tailored to orders. I recruited my first subscribers for two months. Then in September-October, 15-20 thousand subscribers per month began to be added. When I recruited them, I was aware that they would not place an order with me now. And so it happened - they came with orders before the New Year: in November-December.

How to manage an account about children's toys

I try to post in the morning and evening. Selling I do at least every other day, because if there are continuous selling posts, then it looks like spam: the person seems to have subscribed to advertising. Selling posts contain a description of the toy, price, call to action. I try to write as if you came to visit me, and I would tell you about my toys.

One post takes an average of half an hour. First you need to think about what I want to say. Then think about how I want to say it - the thought in my head is different from the one that appears in the account.

It happens that you write selling posts, but there are few responses. In August, this happened several times. From objective reasons, this is due to the fact that everyone is on vacation. And because in July we had an excellent offer: people have basically bought everything for themselves. Guilt on my part - I didn't have time to make normal posts. I wrote about good toys 2-3 lines max. Plus - about the toys that we already had on sale, not new items.

I periodically post my personal photos - of myself with a child, so that people know me. Some are already addressing me as "you", the relationship is friendly. Daughter Ksyu (she is 2 years and 3 months old) helps me a lot to run Instagram. She loves to take pictures and play with all the new toys. And I use these photos in my account.

Since the task of Instagram is to entertain, I must have beautiful and pleasing to the eye photos. I have a photographer whom I invite once a month. We select new products for the next month, take many, many photos, which I then gradually expose.

But unglazed home photos are a necessary ingredient when it comes to toys. When people see the toy as it is - in a normal bathroom like this or on the street with all the street trappings - then there is much more trust in me and my account. A person sees that this is not a photograph “combed” by the manufacturers, but how the toy looks live. For shopping, this is a very effective tool.

I am still following my account. I do and see what effect. “Hmm, it turns out interesting,” I sometimes think.

How sales work

I have an LLC registered, I run a completely white business: official supplies of toys, contracts with suppliers, even an online cash desk under the new law. There has always been a legal entity, but at first it was my mother's. And now I have LLC "Obgonyay!". I like this name. Since we have educational toys, our slogan is: “Overtake in development, play, discovery!”. When you go to the tax office, some government agencies or a bank, to a notary, everyone immediately asks what I do.

I am a supporter of making it as easy as possible for clients to work with me. The classic scheme on Instagram - write to WhatsApp to such and such a number to place an order. To do this, you need to write down the phone in the phone book, but it is not copied - it must be written down somewhere and then transferred to the phone or memorized in parts and entered. Then save the number and only after that write to WhatsApp. With us, in order to place an order, you need to leave the word “I want” or something else in the comments (I announce in the post what you need to write). And then my work begins. I am the seller, and it is in my interests to reach out to the client, and not vice versa.

I have a team to process orders. We are 5 people (together with me), all work from home. After a comment about the purchase, someone from the team contacts the client, specifies the address and phone number. We have a table in the "cloud" where we enter all this information. Our own courier service can take delivery details from there. We work on a prepaid basis - the client first pays for the order.

I do not have a warehouse like some kind of large room, but there is some kind of stock of toys. I have such contracts with suppliers that they serve me promptly. We cooperate only with official suppliers - so you can sleep more peacefully.

Seasonality of demand

There is a classic decline with toys - in January and during three summer months. Everyone makes orders before the New Year in December. But in January, customers come in who make purchases that exceed the average order size by 5 times. I understand that these are those who New Year donated money. I have mats that develop, which are the most expensive of the new range. I sell no more than 10 of them a month, and in January I can sell 20, but only them.

In July, we managed to come out with a very good offer to subscribers - with Canadian sandbox toys. And we beat December sales. And at the same time, we had a classic recession month in June. If you make good offers, you can avoid seasonality.

Supplier selection

In stores, my mother had toys in a different price segment than I have now. I'm not chasing the lowest price, I think that other parameters (quality, usefulness) are more important. And my model found a response, found its clients. And we eventually closed retail stores, my mother became part of my team.

In the first place for me the quality of toys. In my opinion, this is a concept that is not even worth discussing when it comes to children's toys. We work with Swiss, Belgian, Canadian, Israeli and French companies. AT recent times three Russian suppliers appeared - these are start-ups with unique toys.

I am very picky when it comes to choosing partners. Suppliers call us and ask how to sell their toys through our account. I very rarely agree. I have a list of requirements, so our toys are really very carefully selected. As a result, many clients say that they trust my taste. Many write that the day after tomorrow I need a toy for my nephew of this age, the budget is your choice. And I pick up a toy for them.

When a supplier comes up with an offer, I immediately have a question - what happens if the toy breaks? I, by virtue of my philosophy, will return the money. Out of pocket or will the supplier take responsibility for this? If he is ready to answer, then such cooperation is interesting to me.

We have water toys on a motor that periodically burns out due to water. We have a supplier special conditions that they change all burned-out motors. There is nothing like it, we have it. Or somewhere there is, but I do not know about it.

There was such a case. In October, we sold Swiss crocodiles very well under the promotion. Now they have arrived again. I made a post about it. And a client writes to me: “Our crocodile broke after 2 days, it lies idle.” In general, Swiss crocodiles do not break, this is an out of the ordinary case. I asked why they didn't write right away? The client said that she was used to it when all the sellers refuse and say that it was the people who broke the toy themselves. We agreed with the supplier and exchanged this crocodile. They even took him away to study - because this is an extremely rare case when their toy breaks.

I have 150-170 items in my assortment. This is enough for normal operation. Each person buys a maximum of 10-15 toys per year for their child. Why do I need a bloated assortment, it only hurts my head?

How to make money withInstagram

In principle, the monetization of my account is the same as in retail stores. I make a markup on the goods, which, among other things, includes courier services, payment for the services of assistants and packaging of toys. The price difference is my income.

Sometimes we receive an additional premium from the supplier. I'll tell a story. We have French brand Janod. He sells wooden magnetic puzzles - maps of Russia, in which each piece is a separate region. Such a card costs 4,000 rubles, and by the day of Russia, the supplier made a discount - 2,000 rubles for such a puzzle. For retailers, the supplier has introduced an additional premium for the sale of a certain number of cards. I don't remember this number. But we exceeded it 10 times. And they sold more than anyone in Russia, despite the fact that we are not even a store, but just an Instagram account.

Last February, when we started Instagram, the turnover was 50 thousand rubles a month. Now about a million rubles.

When it all started, I did not get out of my phone, with a child in my arms, and worked until night. From the side of relatives, it looked strange. Imagine that you are all sitting at the table together, and one person constantly does not get out of the phone. But you can't explain what you're doing right now. No one understood this, it annoyed everyone. It took a long time for everyone to get used to it. And elderly relatives were surprised: “Do you get money for this? Alive and real? Can you spend it?"

Business costs

We have already burned ourselves in retail stores: you want it or you don’t want it, but you have to pay rent, salary, sales fees every month. I tried to avoid mandatory payments as much as possible. I am the kind of employer who pays his managers a percentage of sales. If there are no sales, then at least I am not at a loss. But if we have exorbitant sales, then managers have a high salary. I don't care about this money.

Every month I spend 3-5 thousand rubles on a photographer. Payment depends on the size of the photos. I can go to a popular studio and pay 10 thousand rubles for shooting. Or you can turn to a girl who shoots well, but is just starting - she needs to develop a portfolio, so the prices are lower. I don't lose anything in quality, but I pay less money.

Delivery

We have our own couriers who deliver orders in Moscow. The customer pays for delivery - 300 rubles, in Moscow with an order amount of 3000 rubles or more it becomes free.

We also send orders to St. Petersburg courier service KTS, and in Russia - "Russian Post". We cooperate with the post office as a legal entity, which is much more convenient than as a private trader. We don't stand in lines. I have mine Personal Area on the website of the Russian Post, I know in advance the track number of the parcel, even before sending - at the stage of its registration. And then I can track its movement online. When a client asks me where my package is, I don't even need to enter a track number. I go to my personal account, there the statuses of shipments change online.

The worst thing is when something is lost. If you are a private person, you need to come to the post office and attach a copy of the receipt. Those. you need to keep it. And imagine when you have 200 parcels, what does it mean to find the right check. Then you need to write a statement by hand to the department and wait about a month for a response. And I have a Russian Post manager, to whom I write an email about the loss. She replies in the evening that the package is there, they sent it there.

Promotion

There are three methods I use to promote on Instagram: advertising on other large Instagram accounts, follower contests, and collaborating with bloggers. I love advertising in other accounts: for the price it's an average between bloggers and contests, but they bring you a quality target audience.

I choose other people's large accounts by topic, so that there is the audience I need. Before placing ads, I look at the subscription, audience, reviews for each account. I choose those that are dedicated to children - as a rule, they give advice on care, upbringing, there is a discussion on various hot questions for mothers, and so on. These can be recipe channels where the main audience is women. And women tend to have children. I collaborate with decor accounts, because they are read by women who have moved with their families to a new apartment. They probably have a child too.

From the contests that you hold, people come who want to win something, they don’t need your toys in the first place. But this is one of the ways to gain subscribers.

Bloggers are much more expensive than advertising in other people's accounts or contests. And at the same time, you need to be able to negotiate with bloggers, because this industry is poorly regulated. Sometimes you send goods to bloggers, pay money. But you have no guarantee that they will make the post you need, post it when you need it, and keep it as long as you want. By the way, you don’t always pay them: the terms of cooperation depend on the size of the blogger’s audience.

At the very beginning of my Instagram, I managed to negotiate very successfully with a blogger. I was lucky because she is a nice girl and honest. I sent toys to five of her children. She liked my product so much that in addition to a blog post, she made a video on YouTube. And she and I came up with an offer, not just an advertisement: her subscribers were given a discount on my toys. And it worked. My new account, which had 200 followers, received 78 orders overnight. And this result for me turned out only for the price of toys and payment for courier services.

Service above all else

One of the rules of my work is service, and it concerns everything. Our couriers call customers and ask if it is possible to call the intercom, if the child will be sleeping at this time. They come to the park, beauty salon, anywhere. When you are waiting for an order, you do not have to be tied to the house. Our couriers move by car, they do not make a tragedy of the fact that they need to drive somewhere to a different address - for example, to a park or a beauty salon.

We pack all toys in branded packaging and holiday packaging if it is a gift. We do this on our own initiative and free of charge. Inside each order we put gifts and, if necessary, batteries.

We never leave our customers after the purchase if something happened to the product or there were doubts about its quality. Some are embarrassed to contact me on such matters. I have to write in posts such a phrase - "You are our customers and after the purchase, you are our customers all the time."

Unfortunately, not always a rich assortment on store shelves meets all these requirements at the same time. You can try something like this - make your own toys, for mothers - this is a very interesting activity that will allow you to show all your imagination, for children - a toy made by mother's hands has a special energy. But it may happen that this fascinating needlework - sewing educational toys - will become a very profitable business.

What you need for sewing toys at home:

2. Minimum set tools (needles, scissors), fabrics of different textures and various accessories. How more species fabrics will be used, the more useful the toy will be for the baby - this is how tactile sensations develop. In fabric stores there are plenty to choose from, it is better to focus on natural fabrics that can withstand repeated washing - chintz, calico, linen, wool, flannel, felt are suitable, some even use ordinary napkins for cleaning. For training, you can use old things from different fabrics.

For tailor-made fabrics, you can buy fabrics in online stores, on joint purchasing sites and on forums. Some craftswomen, by the way, admit that it is cheaper to buy leftover fabrics - shops, as a rule, make them big discounts, or arrange with the atelier to pick up pieces after cutting clothes that are simply thrown away.
Accessories are suitable both purchased and at hand. You can use plastic covers, foil, fasteners from worn-out shoes - everything that fantasy tells. You will need to buy buttons, beads, laces, various fasteners, applications, braid, lace, fur, etc.

3. Ability to sew or at least passionate desire to master this skill. Sewing educational toys does not require very deep skills, it is enough to be able to make basic seams, sew applications and embroider small details.

4. Ultimate accuracy, because most parts are very small, and using the product for small child excludes any marriage or error in the seam.

5. indefatigable fantasy, because each toy must be exclusive, and the ability to work with customers. You need to be a little psychologist in order to fully satisfy the wishes of customers (meaning both the mother-customer and the child for whom the toy is intended). A boy who is keen on sea adventures will like the "Seabed" or "Ship in the Sea" rug, and the little princess will like the "Princess's Castle" rug or a folding house-bag for dolls. In order to learn pets, you can sew a cube with animals on each side, etc.

What educational toys can be sewn for sale:

Where to sell toys:

Active customers who are not indifferent to the issue of children's development are on local forums - this is convenient in terms of delivery of goods and preliminary agreements. You can also search for them in kindergarten, on the site - wherever you intersect with moms.

You can organize a sale on a page in in social networks, on your own blog or website.

Many ideas for sewing such educational toys are on the Internet, so you can safely use the material already invented by other mothers first. But author's products are valued more (and more expensive), in addition, you can also make toys, conduct trainings, joint sewing lessons, arrange your experience in the form e-books- This is another option for making money on tailoring educational toys.

• Choice of direction
• Checking demand
• Registration of activity
• Technology
• materials
• Product cost
• Sale

Women who constantly sit at home often think about opening own business on toys self made. This is especially true for girls who want earn money on maternity leave with your favorite hobby. This type of income can indeed be very profitable, since hand made is always sold more expensive than factory goods. The only thing is that before you get down to business, you need to carefully consider all the nuances of the business. In order not to miss anything, we recommend that you read this article.

Choice of direction

To open successful business on children's toys, it is necessary to clearly define the direction of activity. You must choose what you can do better than others. These can be designer dolls, cute toy animals (bunnies, bears, kittens, etc.) or bouquets of plush animals. For lovers of knitting the best choice there will be a popular trend of amigurumi (knitted dolls). By the way, handmade toys can be made from a variety of materials:

• fabrics;
• tree;
• felt;
• felt;
• colors;
• wool.

It all depends on your skill and desire. In any case, you can learn almost everything. Moreover, on the Internet there are many detailed master classes, specialized forums where people share their reviews and exclusive patterns. Of course, if you want to make big money on homemade toys, you should try and come up with something of your own and clearly define the direction for business development.

Checking demand

So, you have chosen a direction for the children's toys business, but you don't know if you can make enough money on it? Here again, the Internet comes to the rescue. Using the free Yandex Wordstat service, you can check how relevant the option you have chosen is in given time. Everything is extremely simple: enter the direction you are interested in in the selection line and see how many people are interested in it per month. An example of such an analysis can be seen in the photo:

Do not be afraid to spend a few days on the selection. So you will know for sure which toys are most relevant now.

Registration of activity

1. Select the legal form. The simplest and most common option would be to register an IP (Individual Entrepreneur).
2. Check out the OKVED codes. Experts always advise choosing several codes that at least indirectly relate to your activities. It could be 52.61.1. "Retail postal (mailing) trade", 52.12 "Other retail in non-specialized stores.
3. Choose a form of taxation (simplified is best) and register with a pension fund.
4. Ask the relevant authorities for information on statistics codes.

Time does not stand still, and now many young mothers do not want to sit idly by on parental leave. And I think it's right! Someone just wants to make good use of free time and some want to earn extra royalties. We, mothers, know how much our children need and that's all, it costs a lot of money. But you really want everything to be the best and most beautiful for them. Therefore, all of us, sitting at home with a baby, sooner or later begin to think: “How can a young mother earn money?”

Likewise, I, after a short time after the birth of my child, and this is somewhere close to a month, began to think about how to make a profit. After thinking through a lot of ideas, I settled on one. How it was, I will tell further ...

My name is, Antonova Svetlana, young and modern mother. I have a wonderful daughter, she is already one and a half years old. I'm actually 24 years old. My business is the idea is to make children's educational mats and books with their own hands. It was this type of my activity that I decided to do after I saw on the shelves of children's stores, great amount just this product. And, frankly, the price for them was quite high. I was very interested in them, so when I got home I decided to try to make a small play rug for my baby.

How to start your own business sewing and selling educational rugs with your own hands

I found material for my first work - it was old, unnecessary things and a few small soft toys. I was satisfied with the result. I think then my one and a half month old baby too. It's been over a year now this species activity to bring me quite a good profit.

At first, I did not think that my products would be so successful. Somehow, walking with a child and talking with mothers in the yard, I invited them to look at my play mat, and at that moment, I also made a book. She said, if they want, they can place an order at their discretion, the color of the product, the details that should be there, women can choose for themselves and I will do it according to their wishes, or if you like, let them look from what is.

I set the price for my products rather low compared to those branded toys that are sold in most stores and many can not afford. Then everything worked out, I earned my first fee and received a couple more orders. Then, having written ads on the Internet that I sell this type of children's goods and, having thrown off a few photos of my work, I successfully continued to do my job and waited for orders. Of course, at first there was great excitement, whether someone would be interested in my products. And to my surprise, they began to call me and write questions, sending orders to my email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Well, my business began to improve, and it turned out to earn very good money.

My undertaking was very supported by my husband, he went to the store to buy fabric or some other details for products. For this, of course, I am very grateful to him. Everything is going so well that in the future my dream is to open a small sewing factory or open an atelier for sewing educational toys to please little children. For me, this type of activity is a hobby and a type of main income, since before that I had never worked anywhere.

Naturally, at first I was very worried that nothing would work out, that no one would be interested in my products. But, all this is just excitement, so you don’t need to doubt your abilities, always go forward and are not afraid of anything. But what feelings of joy and pride will overwhelm you when your native and beloved business of sewing and selling educational rugs and books develops and flourishes. It certainly is something!

I won’t hide it, at first I wasn’t very good - I had enough time, I tried to do everything while my daughter was sleeping. When she got a little older, her sleep time decreased, and she naturally began to demand more attention. This is where our grandmothers came to the rescue, who spent time with their beloved granddaughter with great pleasure when I needed to fulfill some order. And then the daughter, and she herself began to help me in something. She is so interesting! It was hard, tired. At times, she simply did not have enough strength, then again she gathered her spirit and went to work. But everything was worth it, the more I like to do it.

Therefore, young businesswomen, I want to say that at first glance it is very difficult to take the first step towards your business and career. There are many concerns. It seems that nothing will work. Before us, a lot of questions immediately arise, where to start, and whether it will work out, whether I can handle it, whether I can combine business and a child. But, you should never doubt yourself.

Starting to choose