How To Start A Gift Shop Business For Christmas

By Ayoola Olaitan

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Buying gifts for friends and family is an activity that millions of people undertake every year. Gift shops create huge amounts of revenue, especially at Christmas time.

Gifts are a good business to get into because they are purchased by every group in society. They also cover an endless range of sectors, including toys, cards, home decor and jewelry.

Intending to venture into a gift shop business in Nigeria, and you do not know how to go about it? With this article on gift shop business, you will get to know the business structure and functions of gift shop business. also, you will discover the financial profits and implications required for this business. So, first what is a gift shop?

What Is A Gift Shop, And How Profitable Is It?

A gift shop is a place where people buy different kinds of gifts for their loved ones, friends and family members. Gift shop business booms more during festive seasons like Christmas, Salah, Easter, etc. and during celebration times such as valentine’s day Christmas, children’s’ day celebrations, Workers’ day, mothers’ day fathers’ day etc.

It is, however, a seasonal business. Gift shop business has a good profit margin and it sells best in locations and amongst people with a great inkling for celebrations. With this business, you can creatively put a smile on people’s faces, while returning home daily with huge amounts of money in profits. It is, therefore, such a business with a high level of lucrativeness.

Types Of Gift Shops

There are many kinds of gift shops in town you can choose from. We have the artisan gift shop, a souvenir shop, sports gift store as well as the personalized gift shop.

Choosing Your Products

Whether you’re creating your own gifts or stocking a range of goods, you will need a range of products to sell. Try visiting local trade fairs for ideas of products to stock. Focus on creating a range of products that complement each other and offer a suitable variety and keep a solid vision.

Personalized Goods

Gifts that can be personalized for the recipient of the gift are popular as they make people feel special. The ability to change a name and add a message will help increase your gift shop sales. Some ideas for personalized gifts are:

Engraved jewelry

Drinks glasses and mugs

Phone cases

Coasters

Cushions

Engraved jewelry box

Engraved hip flask

Popular Items

There are plenty of other popular items to stock that sell time and time again in gift shops. Keep things fresh and look out for the latest trends. Below are some ideas of classic items to include in your gift shop.

Flowers

Cool gadgets

Luxury chocolates

Cards

Gifts for Special Occasions

Take note of all the dates throughout the year where people buy presents for special occasions such as Mother’s Day, a university graduation and Christmas. These are all opportunities to stock themed gifts for people to buy. Other themed gifts that you can stock all year round are birthday presents, wedding presents and anniversary presents. See ideas for themed gifts below.

Birthday gifts

Christmas presents

Graduation

Valentines Day

Wedding presents

Anniversary presents

Mother’s Day gifts

Father’s Day gifts

Where to Sell Your Gifts

Selling Gifts on Other Websites

If you’re creating your own gifts — you can promote them by selling them on popular websites whilst you save up to build your own website. Amazon, eBay and Etsy are all great popular marketplaces for selling gifts. Particularly Etsy for unique handmade gifts.

If you’re creating gifts for kids you can also reach out to popular blogs that recommend gifts to try and get your product featured. Websites like Good Old Gifts review suggestions from retailers about which gifts to feature for children of different ages.

What Next?

Business Location

While choosing a location or a place to site your gift shop business in Nigeria, ensure that you rent or build such a place in town with high population density.

If you don’t have much money, you can start with a small gift shop, which is strategically located in town to drive attention and patronage of passersby easily.

I advise that you start small and scale up with time. Your business premises should, also, have sufficient parking space for your customers and clients to park their vehicles

Business Registration
The first place to go as per business name registration in Nigeria is the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria (CAC).

You should also register with other appropriate agencies of government as well as trade unions within the gift shop business niche in your locality. With simple research and visibility study, you will be able to know how to go about this.

Funding And Capital
You cannot run a gift shop business without sufficient capital. But that does not necessarily mean that you must empty the bank to start this business.

I cannot really say the exact amount for now but starting a gift shop business in Nigeria depends on you and your pocket.

It also depends on where you want to site the business, the volume of stock you want to start with and the size of the shop you want to rent.

This is where proper market feasibility study comes in to ascertain what it entails to start and run this business successfully.

Sustainability Tips For Running This Business In Nigeria:

Try to be dynamic and innovative. Formulate new approaches to advertisements and publicity of your business. You must not necessarily do what every other person is doing. Even if you should incorporate some of their techniques, try to add value to what they already have.

For example, you can choose to offer gift wrapping service for free or for a fee. Try to go the extra mile by combining different gift items to create a gift store hamper which will catch customers interest.

So as not to lose out in the gift shop market in Nigeria, you need to understand and determine the kind of gift shop that best suits a given location so try to know what kind of gift items works best during a given season and what sells better at other times.

Licensing & Certification

Gift shop business does not require any special Licensing or certification. However, you may decide to get legalized by the government by getting your business registered by the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria, CAC.

Equipment Needed:

To run a successful gift shop business in Nigeria, you need to purchase a few pieces of equipment. This includes but not limited to office supplies, wrapping materials, souvenirs, shipping supplies, display shelves, table decorating materials, a personal website etc. You can always get these materials locally and easily in the open markets here in Nigeria.

Profitability and Sustainability Strategies, Marketing

Choose A Niche

As already stated, there are different kinds of gift shops possible in Nigeria. Decide on the exact niche you want to focus on so as to know your kind of customers.

That is, the kind of customers you expect to patronize your business. There are two kinds of customers in this business and they are the individual buyers and the corporate clients.

The corporate clients include companies with purchase gift items for their customers during the festive season such as anniversaries, birthday etc.

The individual buyers, on the other hand, are simply individuals who just walk into a gift store at any time and buy items off the shelves.

A choice of your niche determines the kind of customers you expect at your shop. You can choose to stick to one niche or target several niches and customer base.

Choice Of Supplier

Who you buy from determines how you are going to sell your goods. This, of course, determines how long you are going to be in business.

If you buy from sellers of good quality gift items, then you are going to attract the who’s who in a society and this, of course, is going to raise your capital base and keep the patronage coming.

Also, when you buy at a cheaper rate, chances are, you are going to sell off at cheaper rates too. As much as possible, try to keep your prices moderate enough and favorable to every person in the society.

Advertise & Conclusion

If you’re thinking about starting up your own business, then a gift shop is a great option to choose that can be very profitable, especially if there isn’t already gift shops in your local area.

There are many ways you can advertise gift shop in Nigeria. You can choose to go online and run adverts on some website and the social media.