A billion-dollar industry, fashion accessories offer a world of business possibilities for stylish entrepreneurs like you! From jewelry and handbags to scarves and hats, Entrepreneur covers the hottest accessories businesses within the flourishing fashion industry.

Learn how to create and sell your own accessories, buy wholesale accessories for resale, or establish your own online or traditional store! Providing insider advice, tips, and tricks along the way, our expert fashionistas take you step by step and show you how to discover your specialty, establish your business, set up your home workshop and office, manage your finances, and much more!

• Choose from popular fashion accessory niches— handcrafted jewelry, handbags, belts, scarves, and hats
• Discover the right sales avenue for your products
• Outfit your home workshop and office with the right tools and supplies
• Partner with retailers and designers to boost brand recognition
• Efficiently manage inventory and supplies for easy order fulfillment
• Boost profits by expanding and cross-marketing your product line
• And more

Turn your passion for fashion into a successful business today!

ALL THAT GLITTERS

Fashion accessories command 10 percent of the overall fashion market, or $30 billion, according to the Accessories Council, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of and demand for fashion accessories. Fashion accessories include everything from footwear and handbags to jewelry and watches, gloves and scarves, hats and headbands, belts and ties, wraps and anything else people use to polish their look and create their own style.

This book provides the advice and background you need to start a hip and trendy fashion accessories business. The businesses featured in this book are grouped into three categories: handcrafted jewelry; handbags and tote bags; and belts, scarves and hats. But it’s not unusual in this industry to find accessories businesses that carry a mix of products, particularly when they're sold in a brick-and-mortar or virtual store. However, because it's hard work launching a new business and because product categories have their own unique characteristics, demands and sources, it's really recommended that you initially focus on a single product line. As you become more familiar with business operations like production, inventory management and sales, you can entertain the idea of expanding and cross-marketing your product line.

While this book covers advice on how to start a brick-and-mortar retail operation, it's recommended at this stage of your fashion career that you start your business as a homebased virtual or wholesale operation. When you’re trying to adjust to a new career with its unfamiliar demands, it's important to keep things as simple as possible, and running a retail store, overseeing employees and managing vast inventories while still trying to have a personal life is a tall order.

There's another important reason to start as a homebased business: You can get underway with a fairly low investment of capital. Since low and unpredictable cash flow are major challenges faced by new business owners, challenges that have been known to sink even the most intrepid entrepreneur, keeping your expenses as low as possible improves your chances of success.

Click Here to Download Chapter One