This is How to Find Wood Projects that Make Money. This is not a list, but a framework that you can use to identify the hottest money making woodworking projects in a given marketplace and then start making them yourself. Enjoy.

Wood Projects That Make Money

Many woodworkers dream about turning their hobby into a an income stream, and some of them do follow through and actually get there. There’s a lot of things that go into making woodworking projects for money, more than most people think.

For example, it’s more than just making a bunch of stuff and turning around and selling it. Though that’s how most people start, eventually you have to do a little bit more research, and figure out what actually sells.

This is where you combine a little bit of marketing with your woodworking skills. After all, if you really enjoy woodworking for the sake of making things and enjoying the time in your shop, then it probably doesn’t matter what you make.

Here is a reliable way of figuring out what sells, and what will make you some money from your woodworking hobby. I’ll go into each one of these items farther down in the post so that way you’ll know exactly what you need to do.

• Visit the Marketplace Before Making Anything
• Ask People What They Sell Well
• Look at Trends on Pinterest
• Create a Profitable Way to Make The Items
• Make a Small Batch for Testing
• Sell Them and Look at the Results
• Tips on Making Wood Projects for Money

See Also: A Beginners Guide to Woodworking

Visit the Marketplace Before Making Anything

The very first thing that you need to do before you make one single scrap of sawdust is actually take a look at the existing marketplace for wooden items. Depending on where you live, the demand is going to be different.

Also, depending on what platform you use to sell your products, the demand is very different there as well. This is totally fine though, because the point of this section is to get you to do a little bit of a reconnaissance mission.

The point here is to visit the places, whether they are real life or online that you plan on selling your products, and woodworking projects, and see what’s out there. See what people are making and selling, more importantly, see what sells.

This is a pinch easier to do in a live marketplace, because you can show up in the morning and take a lap, and then later on in the day you should notice a difference in how beat up the booths are. At that point, you’ll know who is turning product.

You’ll also be able to tell by the crowd. Popular woodworking projects that make money typically have a crowd around them as they’re being sold. This is also a good indicator for online sites, especially if you can see how many have sold already.

See Also: Make What You Like and Sell What You Make

Ask People What They Sell Well

While you’re at these events, or you’re checking out things online, just go ahead and start asking people what tends to sell really well in this market. You be surprised how many people will just tell you exactly what works.

People in general enjoy helping other people, and they also enjoy sharing their successes. In cases like this, it’s not uncommon at all to share some of the things that they made that work better than others.

People that you meet also share some failures to. This can be some really good information to help you avoid making the same mistake. Listen to as many people, and make notes if you need to.

It’s important to get all of the stuff organized, because you want to look for trends. If one person tells you that tobacco pipes don’t sell at all, and four other people tell you that that’s all they sell, and they do well, then you found a trend.

See Also: Make and Sell Wooden Rings

Look at Trends on Pinterest

Another fun place to look for trends is on Pinterest. This is an online picture based website where people share pictures of all the things that they love. You can join if you want to, but you can also browse without needing to join.

If you search for a particular term, like woodworking projects, you’ll get tons and tons of visual feedback, and a lot of inspiration. You can also, over time start to get a feeling for where the trend in homemade woodworking project is going.

At this point, you can intercept that trend and modify the way that you make your current projects to suit that particular style. After all, it may not be that your projects aren’t any good, it might just mean that they’re not hitting the right trend.

For example, there is a huge movement for rustic furniture and rustic decour right now. You may have excellent looking wall decorations, but they might sell a lot better if you intentionally made them look a little bit more rustic.

See Also: Make and Sell Cutting Boards

Create a Profitable Way to Make The Items

Once you know what you want to make, and you’ve done your research really well, it’s time to come up with a profitable way to make those items. After all, if someone is selling the same thing for $20, and you can’t even make it for that, then you need to continue looking.

In most cases, if you spend a little bit of time thinking about it, and figuring out your process, you’ll be able to make your wooden items in a profitable way. This way, you can guarantee that these high velocity products will actually make money.

Also too, remember that it’s not just your cost versus what you sell it for. It’s also your time commitment. If it takes you five hours to make a $10 profit, it’s probably not going to be worth your time after a while.

See Also: How to Pick the Best Dust Mask for Woodworking

Make a Small Batch for Testing

Before you go all in and sell the farm to buy a big pile of wood to make rustic ashtrays, you need to do a small test batch. This is where you will streamline your process for profitability, and actually prove that you can sell the stuff.

The most important part here is focusing on the actual construction process. Anytime you do something for the first time, it’s a lot more difficult to understand where the kinks are, and this is your time to find them.

Find them, and remove them. Do everything you can to streamline your process, and figure out the way to make these items for the absolute lowest cost, and the absolute fastest way that you can safely make them.

See Also: 20 Easy DIY Woodworking Projects With Tutorials

Make Sure You Can Sell Your Projects

In the end, it doesn’t mean a darn thing if you can actually sell the stuff. Not only will this part of the process help you get your building process figured out, but it will also establish whether or not you can actually sell.

In general, if you come up with a really good process, and you make it as profitable as possible, and you actually sell your first test batch, you should consider moving forward with that item and making possibly a larger quantity.

You may want to do one more test batch just to be sure that you weren’t lucky, or that someone else didn’t show up at the same show who normally owns the marketplace. At that point, you may be even more comfortable to move forward.

See Also: 8 Reasons I love Woodworking

Tips on Making Wood Projects for Money

Here are a few more tips on making wooden projects that you can sell from your woodworking shop:

• You sell with your brain, not with your heart. If you really want to sell a lot of product, make sure that the market has a demand for it.
• When you do make things to sell, put forth your best effort, and make sure that they look good enough that the buyer doesn’t regret it down the road.
• Your process has to be good, so make sure you figure out ways to eliminate unnecessary time, and eliminate unnecessary expenses for materials.
• Don’t make a ton of these on the first round, the test phase is very important.
• After at least one or two successful tests, you should feel better about making a larger run.
• To add more products to your line, simply start this process over, and study the market for your next working project.

See Also: A Woodworking Notebook

Your Action Assignment

Now that you have a reliable way of figuring out what type of woodworking projects you can make and sell for money, it’s time to get out into your shop and take action. Actually, it’s time to get out into the marketplace.

Take a little time and do some research. The funny thing is that research can actually just be walking around the swap meet that sells a lot of woodworking stuff. Learn what they sell, learn what works, and learn what doesn’t.

Over time, you’ll start a spot trends, and figure out what type of projects are really moving, and which projects gather and dust. Once you identify a couple of good ones, move forward in your process.

If you have any questions on how to find woodworking projects that make money, please post a question I’ll be glad to help. Happy building.

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