Furniture for animals. Business idea No. 112

Today, business ideas for the production and sale of various products for animals are in a stage of rapid growth.

Their advantage is high profitability and relatively short payback periods.

Many dog and cat owners are willing to pay good money not only for clothes, but also for furniture for their pets.

You can build a highly profitable business in the production and sale of furniture for animals.

An entrepreneur can start working in this direction right in his own apartment.

How to start a pet furniture business

Furniture for animals is not large in size, so one spacious room will be enough to accommodate the necessary materials and tools.

At the initial stage of development of such a business, it is necessary to purchase consumables and tools.

In fact, the entrepreneur will need the same devices and devices that are used in the manufacture of furniture for people (drill, jigsaw, saw, hacksaw, screwdriver).

Drawings for the manufacture of such products can be found on the Internet. If desired, a businessman will be able to develop his own models of furniture for animals.

If an entrepreneur has no desire to master this field of activity, he can hire a carpenter. Before launching a business, an entrepreneur should decide on its specialization.

For example, you can make exclusively houses for cats or beds for dogs.

These pieces of furniture are gaining widespread popularity. To understand which products are in greatest demand, you can talk to pet store owners.

In addition to cat houses and beds, you can master making ottomans, sofas, scratching posts, and various climbing structures (for cats).

When running a business like this, you need to be aware of the latest fashion trends in the world of pet furniture. At the initial stage, it is recommended to release a small batch of goods to understand how much demand there is in the market.

You can sell finished products to pet stores. If you wish, you can open your own retail outlet or start selling products on the Internet.

The market price of furniture for animals, as a rule, is many times higher than its cost.

That is why doing such a business is very profitable, especially in large cities, where wealthy people are willing to pay a lot of money to provide comfortable conditions for their pets.

Features of doing business

The modern market for the production of furniture for pets has already been well mastered by entrepreneurs, certain trends have formed, even fashion trends have appeared. Interesting and original designer furniture for animals is in great demand among those who are used to pampering their cats and dogs in a variety of ways. But the main criterion when choosing it is comfort, versatility, and acceptable design solutions.

For the manufacture of such furniture, soft-touch materials are usually used. If exclusive furniture is created, you need to pay special attention to its special shapes, upholstery materials, and fittings. Under the outer upholstery you also need to put foam rubber folded in several layers. This makes the surface warmer and softer. It will be much more comfortable for your pet to lie or sit on such a flooring.

Even before production begins, a novice entrepreneur needs to study the question of how to make furniture for animals with his own hands. This information can be obtained from the Internet. In addition, you will have to conduct design research and apply all your skills to select the shape of the furniture and its color in such variations that will allow it to be used in any apartment or house. It is necessary to ensure that each manufactured product is appropriate in any home environment. You can choose several stylistic directions and make “antique” furniture, high-tech, furniture from pallets, etc.

Furniture for pets can be produced in several types. You can choose one of them, or make several varieties. This will make the assortment more diverse and the range of consumers wider. In addition to mattresses and bedding for animals, you can make:

sofas;
play complexes for jumping and climbing;
houses for cats, booths for dogs;
sunbeds;
sets consisting of several of the above products.

A variety of choices will allow us to satisfy the needs of a wider range of consumers of such products. You can develop travel furniture options so that you can go on a trip with your favorite cat or dog and create the necessary conditions for them along the way. The more diverse the products in the manufacturer’s catalog, the wider the opportunities for his business open up.

When developing the design of this type of product - houses, claw boards, playgrounds, it is advisable to consider the possibility of disassembling these structures. If the owner can disassemble the product, rearrange its parts. This will allow you to most effectively adapt such a design to specific home conditions.

How much money do you need to start a business?

To start making furniture for animals you will need a room. It can be rented, but it is better if it is a garage or at least a room in your residential building, since in this case there will be no rental costs. You will need to purchase hand tools and materials for manufacturing. The cost of one set of furniture is 250-400 rubles, which guarantees 200%-300% profitability. In total, the starting investment is at the level of 5-20 thousand rubles, and apart from materials and tools, no additional expenses will be required.

Me and my cat business

What I like most about my business is financial freedom and complete freedom of time. If you wanted to earn more, you put in some effort, thought, worked hard for several months, and here’s your additional income.

The same situation with time. What I didn’t like most about regular work was that you only have 28 days of vacation a year, and you can’t have any more.

When you have your own business, you decide when to rest.

You shouldn’t and can’t dislike your job if you try and achieve success in it. A business becomes annoying when it stops making a profit, but requires costs, both monetary and time. But this is the fault of the entrepreneur himself.

Which equipment to choose

A novice entrepreneur can probably find most of the tools he needs in his closet or garage. You will need:

Hacksaws for wood and metal (with large and fine teeth).
Electric jigsaw.
Hammers.
Electric drill and screwdriver.
Stamestka.
A set of Phillips and straight screwdrivers of different sizes.
Stapler.
Chisel, etc.

In addition to tools, you will also need consumables: boards, bars, chipboard sheets, fiberboard, upholstery fabrics, hardware, fittings, etc.

A place for a friend: how to make money on dog beds

A large number of interesting business projects were born because their founders at some point were unable to find the product or service they needed on the market. This is exactly what happened with Victoria Trofimova: when she moved, she wanted to equip a sleeping place for her beloved dog, she could not buy a high-quality and beautiful bed - and as a result, she launched the production of her own beds. Victoria Trofimova, founder of the Bedfor project, told the Biz360.ru portal about how to enter the pet products market and how to establish sales through large online platforms.

Dossier

Victoria Trofimova

, 32 years old, entrepreneur from Moscow, founder of a project (production of beds and other accessories for dogs). He has two higher educations: organizational management and English translator in the field of professional communication - both received from Samara State Aerospace University named after Korolev. She worked as a buyer in online clothing stores for more than 10 years. The Bedfor project was founded in 2020.

How it all began

In 2020, Victoria Trofimova moved from a rented apartment in Moscow to her own. For the first time in many years, she had the opportunity to organize the space around her at her own discretion. For her new home, she began to select furniture, accessories, and textiles.

Then Victoria decided to arrange a comfortable sleeping place for the family’s pet, the dog Plush. The owner came up with the image of an “ideal bed” for her dog, which should have been located next to the bed. But the offers on the Internet and in pet stores did not meet Victoria’s requirements either in appearance or quality.

“I was simply horrified by what I saw. The products presented had nothing in common with my ideal image of a bed. There were some disposable options made of plush, short-lived fabric, stuffed with who knows what. There was no need to talk about interesting colors or designs. There was no desire to buy this for the house,” recalls Victoria Trofimova.

In addition to the appearance and quality of the products, she noticed several serious shortcomings in this market. One of them was that the beds were only offered in small sizes. The second serious disadvantage is the shortage of beds with replaceable covers. They could only be found in foreign stores or from private manufacturers. “Ordinary” beds had to be washed entirely, and after one such wash their shape was lost.

Then Victoria decided to make a bed for her dog herself. She selected the most suitable wear-resistant material for the bed - microvelor furniture fabric. Then I decided on the filler and agreed on the design with a seamstress I found on the Internet. The new bed was ready just in time for the dog's birthday.

“When I was doing these things, I thought: other owners probably also face a similar problem when organizing their pet’s sleeping place. Then it would be a truly in-demand product. So why not do it? I love animals, design, creativity – all of this comes together perfectly when creating furniture for animals,” says Victoria.

Demand research

The idea of producing comfortable and stylish dog beds had to be postponed for three years. Victoria's employment in paid work prevented her from starting to implement it. Time for this project appeared in May 2020, when she went on maternity leave.

The first step was testing demand. To do this, Victoria decided to make about 30 beds of different colors and sizes, put them in online stores and see how popular they would be.

The initial investment at that time amounted to about 100,000 rubles. They were needed to sew the first batch. Most of these funds were spent on the purchase of materials - Victoria chose them herself. The entrepreneur understood this issue: before that, she had been purchasing fashionable clothes for online stores for more than 10 years, and also placed orders for clothing production in China.

“I went to various stores that sell furniture fabrics, bought cuts, studied the properties of the fabrics: I washed them several times, looked at how many washing cycles they could withstand. Only after testing did I decide on the final materials and their colors. Then I looked in magazines and on the Internet to see what are now fashionable colors in the interior, styles, designs, lines. Based on this, prints and colors were selected for the trial collection,” says Victoria.

After that, she began to search for a sewing production that could sew the first batch with high quality. The task turned out to be difficult. Some potential contractors were only interested in large volumes, others set exorbitant prices.

As a result, the founder of Bedfor managed to select six production facilities that were ready to work with small batches. She ordered one sample each as a test. A small Moscow production company managed to cope with the task best of all, which received an order for the production of the first batch. It is with this company that Bedfor is still working.

The patterns were made by Victoria’s friend, a technologist at one of the clothing brands. Victoria created the final design of the beds together with a seamstress. Together they determined where the zipper would be located to make it easier to change the covers. They decided to make the covers completely removable - both on the inner pillow and on the sides. The entire production process of the first batch took about 3 months.

Victoria was completely satisfied with the quality of the product. She took photos of the products and sent them to one of the online stores to test demand. The result was encouraging: in the first month we bought five beds.

Marketing and promotion

The first sales came from Instagram. Victoria has been helping homeless animals for several years. Among her friends there were many volunteers who support animals in shelters. She told them about her Bedfor project, and they posted information about it on their social networks. At that time, they already had accounts with a large number of subscribers. The first buyers came from these accounts.

Then Victoria launched the project and channel in, created accounts in and. So far, Instagram brings the most clients, recommendations come in second, and VKontakte comes in third.

“We tested contextual advertising. I can’t say that it proved to be very effective. At the moment, promotion on social networks is more developed in our country. Competitions on social networks or placement with bloggers work better than launching contextual advertising,” analyzes Victoria Trofimova.

The main audience of the Bedfor project is women aged 26-40 years. But, according to Victoria, these statistics may change - recently more and more men are ordering goods. The entrepreneur notes that she sees a reserve among older audiences, but they still use online shopping less often.

“One of the important promotion channels that supports the project from the very beginning is reviews and recommendations. And here we are talking not only about the financial side in the form of attracting new clients, but also about the emotional one. When sales were low and the project was unprofitable, rave reviews from clients gave confidence. For example: “It feels like they bought the dog a new Mercedes with the maximum configuration,” or “Our children sleep on this lounger, it’s so comfortable.” Well, photos of dogs in beds sent by clients are generally my main “driver,” admits Victoria.

Costs more, lasts longer

In addition to sales through social networks, Victoria has been developing sales through online stores since its launch. The largest among them are Ozon and Wildberries. Since spring 2020, Bedfor is also represented offline - the brand’s beds and bowls are now sold in Moscow in the Milord and Monica grooming salons.

Victoria knew how to work with online stores from her previous work. She was aware of all the requirements that large online platforms place on their suppliers. Therefore, concluding an agreement with online platforms and working with them did not present any particular difficulties for her (more on this at the end of the article).

According to Victoria, one of the main problems of online sales is to convey to the audience all the advantages of Bedfor in terms of product quality. This is not easy to do only with the help of photos and descriptions, without the opportunity to see and touch the product in person. At the same time, the average price for a dog bed on the market is two to three times lower than that of Bedfor products. But Victoria is sure that this pays off with a longer service life of her products.

“I believe that today the market for high-quality designer products for animals in Russia is very poorly developed. Mostly low-quality goods are on sale, most often made in China. Therefore, there is virtually no direct competition in this segment. You have to compete with cheaper but lower quality products. Our products are more expensive than the market average. But when buying a more expensive stylish item for their pet, the client saves due to its high quality and durability,” explains Victoria Trofimova.

Production and work with orders

Bedfor positions itself as a manufacturer of quality furniture and accessories for dogs. The material of the removable covers is furniture microvelor, which can be machine washed at a temperature of 30 degrees. Hypoallergenic holofiber is used as a filler, which does not wrinkle and holds its shape well.

One of the main difficulties of the project in the first months of work was the high purchase prices for materials. Buying it in small quantities was very expensive. Many suppliers did not want to work with small volumes, and materials and accessories were expensive at retail.

After a few months, this problem was resolved. The batches became larger, and Victoria Trofimova began working with wholesale suppliers. She now purchases materials at wholesale prices, which has reduced purchasing costs by about 30%. All purchased materials are stored in production. This eliminates the need to think through logistics between production and warehouse.

The goods are delivered to the buyer using two courier services. About 95% of orders come from Moscow and the Moscow region. But orders from other regions are gradually increasing. “They learn about us in the regions through the same online platforms. For example, someone went to Ozon, saw our dog bed, liked it, but didn’t have the right size for his dog. This person contacts us directly, we sew and send the products to the region,” Victoria gives an example.

The project has no employees hired on staff. Victoria regularly attracts people through various portals for selecting the right specialists - fl.ru, YouDo, Avito, Yula and others. This way she finds photographers, online promotion specialists, and couriers. If cooperation with one of the performers goes well, he is involved in the work in the future.

Victoria manages social networks, promotion and communication with clients herself. “I don’t want to delegate this area of work at all. It is important for me to receive feedback first-hand. That’s why my number is listed on the website, and I answer on social networks myself,” she explains.

Economics and life

On average, about 30 Bedfor beds are sold every month. The cost of a bed depends on its size and starts from 3990 rubles. The average cost of the project is approximately 90,000 rubles per month. Materials account for about 50% of the cost structure, 30% goes to pay for the services of performers, 15% goes to promotion, and the rest goes to other expenses.

About six months after the start of sales, Bedfor received its first small profit at the end of the month. After another six months, the project fully recouped all costs and investments.

“In the first six months we worked at a loss, but progress was made month after month. Sales were growing, I just had to invest more and more of my personal funds, because the turnover was increasing. We began connecting online platforms almost simultaneously. To do this, we had to sew several batches at once, which required increased costs,” says the founder of the project.

Victoria donates part of the proceeds from sales to homeless animal shelters or volunteers helping dogs find loving homes. She sends funds exclusively to trusted people and organizations that really help animals.

“I have long dreamed of helping homeless dogs. And we managed to combine this with our project. I myself periodically went to shelters and saw the condition of the animals there. I understand how important it is to help them,” explains Victoria.

Expansion of the range

After the first sales, a serious problem was discovered. The client bought a Bedfor bed and did not return for a second purchase: he simply did not need to buy a second same thing. Victoria Trofimova decided that in order to create a loyal customer base, it was necessary to expand the range.

In March 2020, she launched a new product - wooden pet bowl stands made from natural beech wood. Victoria's husband Sergei is a co-owner of a carpentry workshop, and together with his friend he took over the entire production part. The couple developed the design of the stands together.

The bowl stands are made of beech wood, which is coated with moisture-resistant oil. This ensures long service life. According to Victoria, she has not yet seen beech stands on the market: usually pine or plywood is used for such products. Now stands are sold both through social networks and through online stores. The first sales have already been made, but it is too early to talk about any results.

What's next

Bedfor's main task for the coming months is to expand its range. There will be new designs of beds and stands, as well as new products. Among them are bandanas and neckerchiefs for dogs.

Another important area of development is connecting new sales channels with the prospect of entering foreign markets. Two weeks ago, Victoria registered her project in an international online store.

“I am pleased with the results to date, although I have not yet managed to reach the income that I had when working for hire. We can say that during my maternity leave I had another “brainchild”. It combines everything I love - family, animals, design, beauty and communication with interesting people. I see demand - this motivates me to work and expand the range,” says Victoria.

Now the entrepreneur combines running a business with caring for her baby. Therefore, she can only work on the Bedfor project for a few hours a day, when the child is sleeping. “If I had more time, a lot of new range, interesting designs would be released. But for now, the child comes first in my priorities, so I’m not chasing quick results,” emphasizes Victoria Trofimova.

She admits that she misses her job in hiring. But at the same time, the Bedfor project has become too dear to her to abandon it after the end of her maternity leave. Therefore, the entrepreneur expects to automate business processes in the next year and a half to combine her business with the work of a buyer. “But I still have time to think,” Victoria notes.

Victoria Trofimova's advice to those who want to cooperate with large online stores

The minimum conditions for starting cooperation with such sites are to have a legal entity and an in-demand product

. It is necessary to send a commercial proposal with your assortment. Contacts of the required department or online store specialist can be found on the site’s website.

Each site has its own requirements and must be followed.

. The main ones are self-packaging of goods, their labeling, barcoding, correct execution of documents and filling out templates for establishing an item.

Need to be flexible

, since the requirements of online stores change quite often. For example, changing paper document flow to electronic, changing the warehouse address, changing packaging from bags to boxes, etc.

When selling your products on large sites, you must take into account that the site’s markup is quite high

(reaches up to 40%, and often higher). Therefore, you will have to provide large discounts in order to offer an interesting price for the end client. Since the product is sold on a sales (commission) basis, there is a risk that the product will not sell and will be returned to you at the end of the season.

Houses for cats step by step: main recipes

Making a cat house with your own hands is more fun with your children. Just give preference to safe materials. So, the simplest and cheapest option for arranging a hut is the following:

You need to take a large corrugated cardboard box. It is better that the box has dimensions of at least 35 by 50 cm in width and up to 50 cm in height.
Now you need to prepare the available tools: scissors, glue, a stationery knife, fine sandpaper, tape, pencil, colored paper, upholstery material and more.
For the internal frame (laying on the floor), you can use foam rubber. But if it is not available, an unnecessary blouse or a piece of an old blanket will do. For the exterior decoration of the house, you can use colored paper. But it is more relevant to use boucle fabric or fur.
Now let's start preparing the box itself. To do this, remove the stickers from it, glue the places where there are cracks with tape, cut off the burrs, and sand the roughness with sandpaper.

The creative process brings joy not only to children

Draw a hole on the end of the box. To do this, place a saucer with a diameter of at least 20 cm on it and circle it around the edges. Then we cut out a hole using a stationery knife. Gently sand the edges with sandpaper.
Once again we seal all the joints with tape or glue. The house should be durable so that the cat feels comfortable and calm in it. Dry the product before starting exterior finishing.
Now we cover the house with colored paper or textiles. For the second option, silicone quick-drying glue is suitable. In this case, you cannot use a furniture stapler, as the cat may be injured from the inside of the staples.
To match the size of the floor in the house, sew a small pad made of foam rubber and upholstery fabric.

Make it as easy as shelling pears

Now the house is ready for use. And you can let your pet into this cozy nest. It can be supplemented with glued toys, hanging threads, and sparkles.

Business prospects at home

The production of such products, if you can make it with your own hands, will not cause you any difficulties. The cost of the materials required for manufacturing is not high, but the price for the finished product can be quite impressive!

You will need virtually no investment, and you can probably find all the necessary tools in your pantry today.

You can rest assured that there will always be a demand for such products. People will always keep cats at home, cats will always sharpen their claws, cat owners are quite fond of their pets, as well as their own furniture, and will buy “scratching posts” that will eventually become unusable or simply tire of their owners. In this business you will be able to show your creativity, imagination and ingenuity.

If you love cats and crafting with your hands, this could very well become your life's work, from which you will truly enjoy.

If you really like it, this business has the potential to grow into a big deal. If your product is of very high quality and interesting, with the right approach you can make it popular and get really good money for it.