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Old 11-05-2009, 04:44 PM   #60
Clodfobble
UNDER CONDITIONAL MITIGATION
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 20,012
There's a woman in town with a pretty solid purse-making home business, case (except I like your designs a lot better, she's kind of more into the chic clutch purse thing rather than the useful shoulder bag.) What she's found to be the most successful business model is to get her happy customers to host "purse parties" at their house. The host gets a bag for half-off, and all the guests get $5 off or whatever. She brings a huge array of fabric swatches and some basic designs, and lets the guests custom-build while they get drunk on wine the hostess supplies. Then she delivers them to the hostess for distribution to her friends a week or two later.

I got my favorite purse ever from her, and even got some of the customizations named after me in her design books (all her purse models get names, like "The Anna") because I wanted so many she'd never been asked to do before, like a little 3" by 4" pocket sewn near the top on the inside for my cellphone. And it was so much fun to mix and match all these funky fabrics she had.
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