Doll Houses
When we visited the UK last year we went to Cheddar Gorge. In amongst the tourist shops is a little place that sells doll houses. It’s been there forever, I remember it from visits as a child. The houses themselves are quite ambitious and of course they also sell the furniture and fittings to go inside.
It doesn’t matter how old you are the detail of these miniatures is fascinating, and whilst I would never buy one and can see the appeal, particularly to children of a certain age. I think they also probably appeal to nostalgia in the adults who buy them for their WII/Playstation oriented kids.
A quick look at www.dollhousecollectibles.com tells me that there is an entire industry dedicated to this business. Not just the houses and accessories, but magazines, clubs for enthusiasts, websites (obviously) the whole works. There are even sections here for wallpaper and electrics!
Having understood that there is clearly a market for doll house related items you will need to work out how best to market your products. Despite the longevity of the little shop in Cheddar Gorge I suspect that this may not be the most effective marketing strategy. I would suggest some of the following: -
Ebay
Website
Advertise
Trade shows
Public Speaking
Ebay has 2700 items listed under “Doll House” and a further 5000 items listed under “Doll House Miniatures”. Clearly there is competition here. Looking for “hand made doll house” brings a more manageable list of results as would looking for “doll house chair” or “doll house wardrobe”. You should aim to list these kinds of additional keywords in all of your adverts. I would also look at setting up an Ebay store to bring down the cost of advertising and to increase your online credibility.
Building a website will be equally competitive. A simple search for “doll house” gives almost 5 million results. Getting onto Google’s first page of results will be tough as there appears to be a number of “male interest” categories that use “doll house” as keywords. A good SEO partner and some offline promotion will help.
Given that there are magazines available there are obvious places to advertise. You may also want to try some less specific targets such as children’s supplements in newspapers, or even gift catalogues.
Trade shows are a great place to find individual buyers and potential business to business opportunities. If you are manufacturing your own scale models (or having them manufactured) you may be able to adapt this to developing architects models etc. You may also be able to supply to toy shops and even people who work with children.
Once you get to a certain level of business you can offer to speak at local events on how you built your business. How you came to choose doll houses, what makes your products unique, who buys them etc. Events such as the Women’s Institute and local business men’s groups are good targets and you may find that the extra interest you generate not only sends more visitors to your website, but you may get press coverage and sales can be as simple as someone thinking your product is a good idea for their children or grandchildren.
There are plenty of other ways that you can market this product line if you think about it. Despite the large web presence; quality doll houses are not something that we see on every high street. The nostalgia value and scarcity of the product will allow you plenty of profit margin and some entertaining conversations with customers.
If you are a model maker then this is a natural sideline for you. You could also try learning to make your own models if you are creative and the idea appeals to you, but it is a lot of work and makes scalability difficult.
The next step on the creative ladder might be to design doll houses and have them manufactured. You can do this in developing countries such as China with little difficulty and work with the manufacturers to produce one off models, or a line of products that you have designed. This gives you scale but you will have to work hard on the promotion side to build a sizeable business. www.alibaba.com can help you to find these kinds of manufacturers.
Another approach might be to buy “quality” doll houses from Europe, suppliers in the UK, Germany, Switzerland will be expensive but this level of house can be marked up a lot and generate significant profits. Trade from Europe may be less difficult than from China in the present climate. Have a look at www.esources.co.uk/international-suppliers/381 for more information.
Be careful when researching this idea, I didn’t enter the site but dollhouse.com looks as though it may be an adult themed site.