Anyone here have a profitable woodworking business?

[Bob10]

Since I have started beekeeping and making much of my own equipment.  I have had people ask for custom construction of hive boxes, not that I want to make a business or will it appears to be an underserved market then again it might just be in areas that have that kind of money to waste.

[lincmercguy]

"Ive had to turn down some new customers because I didnt want to over extend myself and get pinched on lumber availability."

Are they still looking for small orders? I made a couple of urns to try to sell on Etsy, but no luck. It was more of an experiment than a real commercial venture.

[packerguy®]

"Ive had to turn down some new customers because I didnt want to over extend myself and get pinched on lumber availability."

Are they still looking for small orders? I made a couple of urns to try to sell on Etsy, but no luck. It was more of an experiment than a real commercial venture.

Doing one off retail urns is hard because you need to be in front of someone that just had a death....ie a funeral home....and that darn near impossible to do. The vast majority of people that buy on ebay and etsy are buying for themselves (pre planning) or the rare few that were disappointed with the selection at the funeral home. I was even on amazon for years and trying to get favored on their algorithm is harder than winning the lottery.....and thats everything there. 

I sell wholesale directly to the funeral homes and pet crematoriums. Its hard work to make them in volume, but orders are consistent. Its a much better business model to serve them, get paid 40% of retail, and sell hundreds of urns every week, than hold out for higher prices with retail and sell 3-4 retail urns a week and maybe have weeks were you get 1 or none. Cost of getting that customer is everything. Ive actually take down my website recently to have it rebuilt with only one or two pages as a to drive email contacts and not a direct sales tool. 

So most people that approach me recently are funeral homes, and want to bring in 4-6 urns to "be a stop gap" until they get the cheap Chinese crap. Most funeral homes seem to be of the "this is how weve done it" mindset and dont wanna change. I was in one locally here where I only got a foot in the door because of the director was hired from another home I dealt with. They brought in 12 urns, turned them in 6 weeks and she told me the owner didnt want them because they make the other urns look bad. Common sense would say maybe have one or two of those and offer more of mine 
 Thats not how it works. They buy $25 urns from china and sell them for hundreds. 
 I think some places are really poorly managed.....but then again I guess thats why I make urns and dont run a funeral home.......I dont know their innerworkings. 

If you want to sell on etsy or ebay (or even amazon) pet urns are much easier because 95% of vets return cremains in a cardboard box then people go looking. But again with so many cheap POS chineese stapled together and painted fiberboard out there for $20 an urn, its hard to educate people why a $40-50 solid wood urn is better. Its the ikea furniture mentality in peoples minds.

[barnowl]

I had the idea of starting my own company when I was tired of moving from place to place. And as the years go by, it becomes more and more challenging to work. I decided to do woodworking because many people saw and cut wood, but not many companies or small firms process wood. By the way, I know that the situation is similar in the oil industry.
However, the most challenging thing was the paperwork. Then I paid taxes as a sole proprietor. Registration of various documents lasted several months. It is very tiring. So I advise you to go (DELETED)

BAM !!

[Halfathumb]

I make hundreds of dollars every year!

I make hundreds of dollars every 10 years 
. When I retired from the Army in 1988 (long story leading up to this) I made stuff for a crafts show the weekend after Thanksgiving on the Air Force base in Ak. I made moose planters and other stuff. I almost sold out the first day. The stuff was unique but I wouldn't want this stuff in my home but lots of other people did.


I don't like making the mundane things. To boring!

[John Mihich]

My brother does and he does quite well.  He has a target customer base - 500k + homes.  His main focus is cabinets - from kitchen to entertainment centers.  I do a good job finishing but he is just about perfect.  He will do remodeling jobs - again high end homes.  One thing was when he was starting out he had a full time job and he did all his WW in the evenings and w/es.  He worked hard and he still does.  It's hard for me to arrange a lunch with him. 

I have helped him on several projects - he doesn't slow down.   BUT - he takes time to go to church every Sunday and spend time with his family.  He's retiring in 3 years - he's only going to build furniture at that time.

[barnowl]

Woodworking is a perfect activity if you look at it as just a hobby and as a business.

SPAMMER

[2Goober]

I tried woodworking as a business about 30 years ago and was shocked how little people thought your time was worth. That coupled with a VERY short temper fuse made my business not worth going to jail for. Some people do well and and do excellent work, some don't. Then I tried a working for a large cabinet shop. It was very enjoyable at first then I got tired of deadlines and demanding customers. Nearly ruined a wonderful hobby. I just don't think I'm cut out for the stress of it.

[mr_skittle]

I tried woodworking as a business about 30 years ago and was shocked how little people thought your time was worth. That coupled with a VERY short temper fuse made my business not worth going to jail for. Some people do well and and do excellent work, some don't.  Then I tried a working for a large cabinet shop. It was very enjoyable at first then I got tired of deadlines and demanding customers. Nearly ruined a wonderful hobby. I just don't think I'm cut out for the stress of it.

I took the plunge to self-employed a few months ago and I think that cheap people are the biggest challenge. Yes, there are lots of other tracks to keep up on like marketing and paperwork, but that's all predictable and straightforward. Dealing with ill-informed, or straigh-up dumb people is much harder. They love to share with you where they saw a piece for $200 and ask, "why do you want to charge over $500?" Or the person who is totally clueless and whose first call is to a custom builder. You spend time putting together an estimate and they are so shocked by the price they won't even respond. I've quicky learned to ask about budget in the first 5 minutes so as not to waste both our time.

[MauleSkinner]

I've quicky learned to ask about budget in the first 5 minutes so as not to waste both our time.

I had a kitchen remodel shop basically stop talking to me because he demanded that I give him a budget number, even though I told him I had no idea what the project would cost, when I pulled a number from my butt, it was too low.

We found another contractor who was willing to educate us. Maybe people who can be educated about such things are few and far between.