Building dollhouses for sale?
 

Is there any money to be made by building dollhouses for sale? From
the looks of things from eBay, no. But I could be wrong?

Cathy Weeks

On 1 Feb 2004 19:12:25 -0800, (Cathy Weeks)
wrote:

Is there any money to be made by building dollhouses for sale? From
the looks of things from eBay, no. But I could be wrong?

Cathy Weeks
Your best plan would be to work with a store who sell kits and do
building for customers who prefer not to.
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada

Cathy Weeks wrote:

Is there any money to be made by building dollhouses for sale? From
the looks of things from eBay, no. But I could be wrong?


Are you talking about assembling kit houses, or doing custom woodworking
for the discerning collector?

I think the problem with trying to sell them on eBay is the shipping.
People there are looking for a deal, and freight and insurance can be a
real killer.

Start looking around now for a place to work with, and around the end of
summer start advertising to your target market. If you are finishing
kits for the holiday gift season you'll want to have plenty of time to
do the work. As Gerry says, you can get customers by working with a shop
that sells kits.

If you were planning to do custom woodwork, then I think building a
portfolio of pieces and going through IGMA and the show scene is the way
to find the collector market. Local shops can help by displaying samples
of your work and selling smaller pieces between shows.



Dawn

I would LOVE to find someone who would be interested in building me a
dollhouse. Does anyone know any good sources/names, etc...? I made a huge kit
house years ago. It was spectacular but I swore I'd never make one again and I
mean it!

Anne :)

On 1 Feb 2004 19:12:25 -0800, (Cathy Weeks)
wrote:

Is there any money to be made by building dollhouses for sale? From
the looks of things from eBay, no. But I could be wrong?

There appears to be somewhat of a market for people who build custom
houses. There are a number of artisans who build dollhouses which are
1:12 models of the owner's homes. Perhaps you could go that route,
depending on your tooling, skills and experience.


--
Chuck *#:^)
chaz3913(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
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Sorry for the delay in responding but I was out of town and for some reason
I couldn't post to the newsgroups through the laptop I took with me.

Custom builders do fairly well in that their work is usually expensive.
However, I don't know how much of a market there is for them. Putting
together kits and painting, shingling, electrifying is very time consuming
and you'd probably end up working for less than the minimum wage.

I've seen some very expensive, custom made and finished dollhouses at shows
and I rarely see them sold. They may sell at the very big shows such as
Chicago and Philly but not at the smaller shows. A woman with a table
across from me at a show had some fairly pricey dollhouses and she didn't
sell any and frankly I thought they were overpriced. She had 2 tables at
the show and at $185 a table plus hotel that's a costly investment.

The problem with completed houses is the high cost of shipping and it might
have to be crated. This could limit your market to a small geographical
radius.

Your best bet would be to try and work with a local dollhouse shop but then
you'd have to give the owner a commission.

Another possibility is to do small, theme houses or shops.

Carol
S P Miniatures
http://www.spminiatures.com


"Cathy Weeks" wrote in message
om...
Is there any money to be made by building dollhouses for sale? From
the looks of things from eBay, no. But I could be wrong?

Cathy Weeks

Carol is so-o-o right. I build the small dh kits to a price for the people
who ask who live in this economically poor rural county. I do it for the
children who will play with them and I won't make money from it :- )
"Carol" wrote in message
Custom builders do fairly well in that their work is usually expensive.
However, I don't know how much of a market there is for them. Putting
together kits and painting, shingling, electrifying is very time consuming
and you'd probably end up working for less than the minimum wage.

I've seen some very expensive, custom made and finished dollhouses at
shows
and I rarely see them sold. They may sell at the very big shows such as
Chicago and Philly but not at the smaller shows. A woman with a table
across from me at a show had some fairly pricey dollhouses and she didn't
sell any and frankly I thought they were overpriced. She had 2 tables at
the show and at $185 a table plus hotel that's a costly investment.

The problem with completed houses is the high cost of shipping and it
might
have to be crated. This could limit your market to a small geographical
radius.

Your best bet would be to try and work with a local dollhouse shop but
then
you'd have to give the owner a commission.

Another possibility is to do small, theme houses or shops.

Carol
S P Miniatures
http://www.spminiatures.com


"Cathy Weeks" wrote in message
om...
Is there any money to be made by building dollhouses for sale? From
the looks of things from eBay, no. But I could be wrong?

Cathy Weeks