Business

Five Things You Need to Start a Sewing Business

Published

6 years ago

June 1, 2020

If sewing has been your passionate hobby for years, and people are constantly telling you that you are so good at it you should start your own business, then maybe it’s time you stop dreaming about it and take the leap into small business ownership!

But once the decision is made, there are some things that you need to do to get started on the right foot—or maybe, you could say, get started on the right presser foot!

The First Step Toward The Big Opening of Your Business

Make a plan. Before you begin, it’s important to map out an entire plan of action. This will give you a step by step plan to follow so that you can check off goals you meet as you go.

First, choose your specialty, and decide on your target market. Do you want to focus on alterations and repairs? Custom sewing jobs? Designing? Creating women’s wear or children’s clothing? Do you want to be a custom bridal shop? Bridal shops are almost always immediately profitable. Brides enjoy being able to collaborate with a great seamstress in order to design their dream dress and have it be one of a kind. Having a single success with your first bridal party can get your business off to a booming start.

Decide how much money you will need upfront in order to get started, and then estimate your ongoing costs. Estimate how long it will be before you should begin breaking even on your expenses and income.

The Second Step Toward Your New Business

Decide how you will make money. The most common way that sewing businesses make money is in alterations. This can be for everyday clothing, but for the most part the big business will be alterations for formal events such as weddings and proms. Money can also be made by custom designing clothing. You will have to decide if you want to focus on one area of sewing, or several areas. Do you want to alter wedding and bridesmaid gowns? Or are you willing to design and make wedding and bridesmaid gowns? Is custom baby and children clothing your passion?

The cost of materials and the amount of time necessary for each project will have to be estimated in order for you to set a price that will cover both and encourage a profit. A small sewing business with a single employee can make anywhere from $20,000 per year to $60,000 or more. If you exceed $60,000, you could consider adding an employee and growing your business enough to make a great deal more.

Profit increasing plans can include such additions to your business as adding a quilting club, or sewing classes.

The Third Step Toward Your Successful Sewing Business

Choose a location. Most startup sewing businesses begin in the owner’s home. Once profits are established, you could consider renting a space. Spaces close to a laundromat or specialty clothing shops such as those for formal wear are ideal.

To start your business in your own home, you will need a dedicated space that can be made to look professional. A spare bedroom, or enclosed porch works well. In rural areas, a climate-controlled shed, barn, or garage may also be suitable. You will need plenty of room for tables, equipment, shelves and racks for fabrics, and possibly a dressing area for clients to try on items or be measured for alterations.

The Fourth Step Toward Super Successful Sewing

Gather your equipment. You will need a very good, dependable sewing machine. If you already have one that works well for you and you are comfortable with, it may be all you need to get going. However, if you are expecting a booming business, or when your small business grows, you should consider a commercial—or industrial—sewing machine. These are very heavy-duty machines that can run for long periods of time and function highly efficiently and rarely need maintenance.

You will require a large supply of needles and pins, and that means in nearly every size and variety. Keeping these on hand will save time-consuming trips to the store to get the ones you need for different projects.

You will need a good serger for cutting and surging seams on tailored pants, dresses, and other items. A serger prevents fraying, which is essential when dealing with clientele.

You will need a great clothing steamer, an iron, and an ironing board. Nothing looks less professional than delivering wrinkled items to a customer.

Your new business will require a wide range of cutting tools, including scissors, cutting wheels, and rotary cutters to allow you to cut multiples of the same items in stacks to save time.

Rulers and measuring devices are also critical. A measuring board can be beneficial for sewing business owners.

Basic business supplies such a paper, pens, business cards, staplers, etc. will all have to be on hand and ready before you begin your business.

The Fifth Step Toward Successful Sewing

Advertise! Putting up flyers in places like laundromats, dry cleaners, and fabric shops is extremely helpful. Further, you should have a logo designed and be sure to mark your flyers and business cards with the same logo. You could consider getting your business off to a booming start by adding a coupon deal to your first flyers.

A website is also critical. Having a website designed and set up, with relevant information on your flyers and business cards, allows people to get all of the information they need about your business quickly and easily.

Place ads in local newspapers and get involved in community projects so people know your name and can start recommending you to friends. This is the best way to spread awareness of your business through word of mouth. Some ideas are helping to alter costumes for local school or church plays and getting involved in costumes for your local community theater.

Once you’ve gotten these five critical steps checked off of your list, your brand-new sewing business should be up and running!\. The sewing machine will be whirring away and your brand new customers will soon be ringing your bell and setting up appointments. And you can finally live your dream! Chances are that you’ve always loved sewing, and nothing thrills a sewing enthusiast more than new projects. With your own sewing business, you no longer have to try to tame your desire to sew because you can indulge in your passion for profit!

Business

Ipsos Helps Brands Understand How They Get Customer Experience Wrong & Why It’s Costing Them Millions

Published

4 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Matthew Wiles

For brands looking to succeed in the modern business ecosystem, the customer experience (CX) is not something companies can afford to ignore. CX is a direct driver of revenue, loyalty, and growth for organizations.

Ipsos, one of the world’s leading market research firms, helps brands understand that failing to focus on the customer experience can lead to lost sales, which in turn can translate to not only millions in lost revenue but also lost trust and credibility in the market.

How brands still get CX wrong

“The customer decision and desire to do business with brands directly affect the bottom line,” says Brad Christian, Chief Commercial Officer at Ipsos – Experience Practice.

Customer experience may sound like a simple concept, but many brands still get it wrong. CX goes beyond surveys and feedback. Leaders who fail to connect feedback in a meaningful way to goals such as retention, repeat visits or purchases, advocacy, and operational performance fail to deliver on their service promises. The emotional and functional disconnect can spell trouble for brands. The most polished advertising campaigns cannot make up for a frustrating customer interaction or a promise that a business cannot fulfill.

According to Ipsos’s internal research, many customers today see service as too automated and impersonal. More than half report that their experience is worse than promised.

These findings don’t just result in disappointed buyers. They result in lost customers, negative feedback, and a long-term impact on the business as a whole.

“Brands have to manage the entire customer experience across each and every touchpoint,” explains Christian.

Poor CX can be expensive

Executives can often underestimate how expensive a history of poor CX can be. Global losses can reach into the billions while leaders wonder what went wrong. In an age of rapid social media communication, a single negative interaction can spell disaster for a company, leading to reduced customer spending or the entire loss of its most loyal customers.

Those losses are not just reflected in lost revenue, however. Customer acquisition and marketing dollars can also be lost as companies continue to spend money trying to retain their customer base, often skipping right over the experience part of retention.

Poor customer experience can be a deep operating problem that creates a domino effect, decimating businesses from the inside out. These poor experiences can impact not only present and future customer acquisition but also business leaders and employees.

CX matters more in today’s business landscape

The customer experience has always mattered, but it may matter more to brands trying to make it in a modern, ultra-competitive, digitally-driven business landscape. Good experiences encourage repeat purchases, boost loyalty, and increase the likelihood that customers will go online and recommend a brand to others.

“Customer experience isn’t an isolated function,” says Christian. “It’s ‌part of a larger system that ensures that brands measure and manage customer experience data and then act on that data to drive action where customer experience gaps exist.”

Brands also have to seek to understand today’s customers, who expect experiences that are seamless, authentic, and relevant. As more and more companies hop on the automation train, they will want to reassure their customers that the human element that many people consider important still exists.

At Ipsos, six drivers of strong customer relationships form the bedrock of the company’s CX platform, something that they refer to as the “Forces of CX”: certainty, fair treatment, control, status, belonging, and enjoyment.

Customers want to feel that if they have an issue with a brand, it will be handled and that their concerns will be understood. They don’t want the customer experience to feel like a battleground; they want it to feel fair and human.

“Customer experience isn’t just a nicer experience,” says Christian. “It ties directly to specific financial outcomes, whether that be increased sales, greater market share, or stronger brand loyalty.”

How Ipsos helps businesses deliver customer experiences that matter

Ipsos turns customer feedback into reliable, actionable, decision-ready information. The company goes beyond simple satisfaction metrics and implements voice-of-the-customer programs, journey analytics, relationship feedback, and quality research.

“Brands don’t just need data,” Christian says. “They need measurements as to how they are delivering on their brand promise and predictive modeling to tie financial performance measures to those measures to help them determine where to invest to maximize the customer experience and understand what financial impact those investments might deliver for the business.”

Ipsos measures the interactions that matter ‌most and shows brands how each interaction can affect retention, share of spend, and efficiency. For brands that are trying to reduce the guesswork behind CX, Ipsos helps them move beyond cosmetic fixes to achieve real, meaningful change.

Customer expectations can shift on a dime, influenced by society, social media, and even changing trends. Ipsos helps brands meet those rapidly changing customer expectations with hard evidence and comprehensive metrics.

Today’s brands need to understand how to get the customer experience right. Ipsos has the insights needed to drive home the deep importance of CX in today’s marketplace.