The Gift Baskets Business: Could it Be For You?

If you are creative, one of the best home business ideas and opportunities is a gift basket business.  There are few other gifts that allow as much room for customization and originality as a basket of goodies. 

What You Will Need

This is a business that is easily run from home.  You will need room in a basement, garage or extra bedroom for your supplies.  You will also need a desk or small office space to organize your billing and invoicing, as well as a separate phone line and computer to take orders.  You may want to secure some capital in advance, to make sure you have enough money to cover supplies until your customers start paying you.  If you take orders by computer, customers can pay you using online payment services like PayPal, which allows them to use a credit card.  Otherwise, you will have to accept checks and money orders by mail, which can be risky if the customers are not trustworthy.

Finding Materials

Good baskets are easy to find.  Garage sales, thrift stores and estate sales are great places to get baskets, often for pennies.  Whenever you see a decent-sized basket, go ahead and buy it.  Shop basket sales at craft stores as well.  Keep the baskets in storage until you need one.

Then, consider filler materials.  Plastic "easter basket" grass, shredded newspaper, crumpled tissue paper: they are all good materials for filling up the bottoms of gift baskets.  Depending on what else you are putting in there, you may need a lot of filler material, or just a handful.  If you plan to wrap your gift basket in colored cellophane, you can crumple up some of that for a base as well.