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I received this question from a subscriber to our Choose Your Opportunity mailing list.

“How do I begin a home-based scrapbook business (sell products online)? Where do I get products at wholesale so I can sell them at retail?”

The first step is to determine who you are going to sell to and what they want to buy. This recent post offers tips on defining your niche: Not Sure How to Find Your Niche Market? It’s not specific to scrapbooking, but will give you a good idea of how to narrow in on a market.

Sell a popular product to an underserved market or sell a unique product to a market that is spending money.

For information more specific to scrapbooking, check out How to Turn Your Love of Scrapbooking into a Profitable Business. Even though it’s a couple years old, the information is still current.

Wholesale is not my area of expertise so I can’t be any help there. Sorry. Perhaps becoming a direct sales consultant would suit you. Find information on various scrapbook direct sales companies at ScrapbookingBusinessOpportunity.com

If anyone can suggest a good wholesale resource, please post the information in a comment.

The Special Report Club is a private label rights (PLR) membership site offering access to one special report each month. It’s an affordable alternative to hiring a writer or writing the reports yourself.

Special reports contain more information than a simple article, but are not as big and detailed as an ebook. They are great to give away as bonuses to get people to sign up for your list or as add-ons to products and services you offer.

What I like about the Special Report Club:

1. While these special reports are written to cover many areas of Internet business content, they can be easily edited to suit my market and to express my own style and viewpoint.
2. They can be broken up into articles, blog posts, or emails. Or I can add to a report or combine two or more to make a bigger report or ebook.
3. I can add my own web site links, affiliate links, or even paid advertising to the reports.
4. While I prefer editing or adding to the reports, they are very well written and can be used as is for quick incentive when needed.
5. The reports save me time and money. I don’t have to look for, hire, and pay content writers to produce reports for me or take the time to research and write all of my own reports.
6. I can sell the reports.

What I’m not sure I like about the Special Report Club:

1. I can add my own name as author and claim the reports as my own. I almost added this feature to the “what I like” section above as well. I have other private label rights memberships that don’t permit me to put claim the content as my own, making it a bit awkward to figure out how to add a byline that doesn’t make it sound like I wrote it. The thing that worries me about claiming the reports as my own is the potential for confusion if readers see the same report with different marketers names on it. It’s probably not worth worrying about though; what are the chances that one person will see a report multiple times?
2. While much less saturated than free content, PLR content is not unique content. I have to be sure and continue to provide a good deal of original content and not be tempted to rely to heavily on PLR.

Overall the Special Report Club gets an unconditional, 5-star rating and recommendation. It’s a very high quality, affordable content source.

There are also a limited number of reports available separately, without having to sign up for the monthly membership.

Grab a single special report or claim your membership today.

News of direct sales companies closing or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy understandably causes worry for direct sales consultants, including those that aren’t directly associated with the companies.

One of the risks of doing business as a consultant for a direct sales company is that many major business decisions are completely out of your control. Company leadership, finances, product choices, policy changes, daily operations, and many other decisions that impact your business are made without your input. At the same time, having that established, knowledgeable infrastructure is one of the attractions of going into direct sales, and it frees up consultants to concentrate their efforts on earning commissions. The benefits usually outweigh the risk.

To reduce the risks associated with the lack of control over many major business decisions, be a truly independent direct sales consultant and build your business so it doesn’t completely rely on the company for long-term success.
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Many people think that if a company files bankruptcy it means they are going out of business. Often that is not the case. If fact, certain types of bankruptcy filings serve the opposite purpose – to keep a company in business.

On April 29, 2008, Home Interiors voluntarily filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States bankruptcy code. The Texas based direct sales party plan company has been selling home decor products for more than 50 years. They currently operate in the United States, Canada, and Mexico and the bankruptcy filing involves only their US operations.

This type of filing allows the company to continue to operate the business in much the same way as they did before the filing. In public information on their website, Home Interiors states that their intention is to “use the protections afforded by Chapter 11 to restructure our debt and restore our financial health and profitability.” In their FAQ for consultants they ask their representatives to continue to sell product and recruit new consultants.

The company clearly has a plan to come out financially secure and with a successful future. In my opinion, their willingness to publicly address some of the many questions consultants have is an indication of their confidence in the restructuring plan. And most important for consultants who may be making decisions about their future with the company, it provides accurate information on which to base decisions rather than forcing them to try and determine whether outside sources have all the facts.

Update: In 2009 Home Interiors and Home & Garden Party merged to become Celebrating Home.

For more information about the Home Interiors consultant opportunity, visit HomeDecorBusiness.com’s Home Interiors information page.