Daily News
Last updated 09:59 03/08/2013
Dallas Barnes business called Pure- in the range includes home made candles, reed burners and soaps
It all happens in the sleepout. As well as a bed there is a computer
and some stuff jammed onto shelves. Just like sleepouts all over the
country. The difference is this sleepout is the
hub of a new online
business and the items on the shelves are stock.
Claire Ongley always wanted to work for herself. So when she moved
back to New Zealand a few months ago, after six years in Sydney, she
decided it was now or never.
IzzyandJean.co.nz has been up and running for a month, selling unusual home wares and accessories imported from overseas.
"I've always had an interest in finding things you can't find
anywhere else. I wanted to import everything because there's not a lot
of really different, unusual stuff from overseas."
Ongley spent ages
trawling the internet looking for interesting
products. "In an ideal world I'd go to these exotic countries and do
buying trips, but I'm not in any position to do that."
She has gone directly to the manufacturer to avoid buying anything mass-produced.
And this has meant talking to small cottage industries that have
never had calls from far-flung places before, wanting their wares.
"They're pretty excited that people want to buy it - some of them
took a few months from the first email to have them arrive on the
doorstep. I do have other things I really want to get in. It's all sort
of working with
budget constraints now - if people buy things I'll be
able to order more in. I've started out just getting in things that I
love. It is an eclectic mix."
The products Ongley sells include cotton fouta towels, which come in
all different colours and are like Turkish bath towels, coats for dogs,
neck ties from a New York designer and boots from Morocco.
Her first task was to get the website up and running. She used Shopify, an e-commerce platform.
"You can set up your online store quite easily without having any
technical knowledge. So that's allowed me to do it all myself, except
the logo that was designed by a friend of mine."
Once she had built the website she thought it was all sorted, but then she realised she had only just begun, she says.
She had to work out what mark- up to put on her stock and learn about importing.
"When I first started I had shipments coming in and they'd get stuck
in customs. I didn't know you had to have a customs broker to clear
your shipments, so I was sitting there thinking 'what's a customs
broker'?"
And that was another cost. While her venture is now her fulltime
job, Ongley doesn't expect to make any money for about a year and is
living on her savings. Her partner, who is living on his
redundancy, is
also in the process of starting a business, she says.
"It's exciting and terrifying."
While Ongley is just starting out, Steve Phelps has been running his framing business from his home for more than 20 years.
He started picture framing as his hobby, to frame his wife's needlework.
"She had a bad framing job, which happens. Anyone can make mistakes,
including me. When she took it back they wouldn't fix it. She took it
back about three times, then she came home and said, 'it can't be that
hard to do'."
He soon discovered there was more to it than he thought, he laughs.
After being unemployed for most of 1990 he decided to turn the hobby into a business.
Since then he has only once thought about going and getting a "real
job" because the workload had gone down, but that lasted only for a
month.
He has also considered moving into town and opening a gallery, but decided he was happy where he was.
Phelps will frame anything, including needlework and lace. However,
he draws the line at pornography and extremely violent images, both of
which he has been asked to frame over the years.
The bulk of his work comes from artists, galleries, museums, council, and corporations.
People come in with various items - a signed All Blacks jersey,
newly framed, sits waiting to be collected - but he isn't often asked to
frame family photos.
"Fifteen years ago, maybe more, the Warehouse and Briscoes started
stocking good-quality cheap frames. People can just get a ready made
frame and stick it in there. I can't compete with their prices."
When he started his business Phelps went to a six-week workshop that covered everything from bookkeeping to marketing.
"At the end you had to produce a business plan. It was run by
Venture Taranaki, though I don't think it was called Venture Taranaki
back then. It was really excellent. It gave you backup later and had a
mentoring scheme. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't have known a thing
and I would have stumbled along in the dark."
Venture Taranaki doesn't run a six-week course, but it has a
mentoring programme available to businesses that are up and running.
There is a registration fee but the mentoring is free, says Venture
Taranaki general manager economic development Michelle Jordan.
Clients stay on the books for two years and can have more than one
mentor during that time as they progress and grow their business.
"The programme caters for general support and specific
expertise. It's quite popular."
For those thinking of starting a business or who are in their first
year and need assistance, Venture Taranaki runs free start-up clinics.
"We consistently get more than 200 start-up clients coming through a
year. We don't mind if they don't go on with [their business], as long
as they are making informed decisions."
Every couple of years Venture Taranaki surveys clients to see how
they are going. The latest survey talked to 120 people, half of whom
decided not to start up their business. Of the 60 people who did, 62 per
cent of them said their business was growing. Only five had stopped
trading.
"That's very good," Jordan says. "There are lots of stats out of
there about the sustainability of businesses and those figures are quite
high compared to the stats."
When Dallas Barnes set up her candle-making business she got advice
from a different quarter. Her family have been involved in retail in
Taranaki for years, so when she came to setting prices and sorting out
the finances, dad Paul Clarke and brother Matthew sat down with her, to
keep her on track. And two friends have stepped up as mentors.
She also did a short online course on running a small business through Aoraki Polytech.
"It went through the GST, everything you needed to know, including
the marketing side of it. I wanted to be prepared before I went in."
Barnes first went online to learn how to make candles while she was
planning her wedding. She put them in old agee jars to add to the
country theme.
They went down a treat.
Later, her sister roped her into making some candles and natural
soaps to sell at a children's market in Merrilands. She sold the lot.
Her business, Pure, grew from there. She started a Facebook page last August and in January a website, www.pure-made.com.
She now supplies four shops in New Plymouth, two in Christchurch and an online store in Auckland.
"The last few weeks have been full-on. It's turning into a fulltime
business, which is exciting. I also have a few products lined up for the
future."
And the house she is building will have a separate area for candle- making.
"I order the soy wax in, along with essential oil
fragrance and
whack it all on the stove, get it to the right temperature and then add
bits and pieces. Heat the jars up in the oven, pour the wax in. Piece of
cake."
Soy wax is a non-toxic, renewable resource derived from soya beans.
It's biodegradable and has a cleaner burn than paraffin wax, which
leaves a black sooty residue. And soy wax has a longer-lasting burn.
As well as the candles, she makes natural soaps, soy wax melts and also sells reed diffusers.
"I love it working from home and people are welcome to come here."
It fits in well with looking after her nine-month-old baby.
Barnes has also joined a New Plymouth professional women's network.
Another networking group is Biz@home, which is for people working from home or who run their businesses on their own.
It's very casual, organiser Ruth Pfister says. They meet in the cafe
at Salt restaurant every Thursday and have a coffee and chat.
Occasionally they have a speaker.
"What makes it work is it is not dependent on a committee. It's
voluntary and people just come along when they feel like it."
It's a social group, but because of the amount of business experience the group has, it's a good network, she says.
"It has been very helpful to people over the years. Some quite important
sponsorships have come out of it."
The group, which has been going for "donkey's years", has no membership fee.
While many people turn their small home business into fulltime
employment, Barbara Richards is happy to stay low-key. It supplements
the income from her part-time job.
Richards used her sewing skills to start making cushions. That was
six months ago and Lillymay & Co now has its own Facebook page.
Friends source fabric for her, as does her sister in Australia.
Business is picking up, she says.
"It took me a little bit to get started fabric-wise, but now I'm looking at getting some things such as zips in bulk."
She makes only one or two of each cushion, and has styles such as retro, French chic and kiwiana.
"The retro look is very popular at the moment - '60s and '70s. Oranges, bright yellow, mustard."
She has sold some through Trade Me, she says.
"But people just want a
bargain. I have spent time trying to get it to look nice, so I don't want to give it away."
All her cushions are the same price, whatever their size.
"And I sometimes sell the covers without the inners."
Richards is now looking at other options to add to her cushions, such as footstools.
"I've been getting good feedback. I've been enjoying it."
