Investing in tailoring industry could be a rewarding business adventure as clothing plays very unique role in human life. Humans from all walks of life have a cloth to cover their nudity, hence, tailors or fashion designers play a vital role in this life. Thus, going into embroidery and by extension monogramming will certainly create wealth for investors.
Embroidery and monogramming seems to be the same but embroidery is a bit different from monogram because embroidery is pure artistic designs while monogram could lead to print of names, or any image on clothes.
In this business, one needs rich contacts to survive. Hence, an investor needs high networth companies and individuals in their contact lists that can provide them customers from time to time.
Profitability
On the average, a company should make a minimum of N1million to N3 million annually, or as much as N10 million and more during the peak of the business, I gathered .
In a chat with me, an Ikeja-based tailor in Lagos, Mr Sunday Ogunlode described the tailoring business as encouraging and will definitely yield results if and when an investor is ready to take the pain to understudy and understand the business.
According to Ogunlode, who is an expert in tailoring and embroidery business, said: “a simple embroidery can cost N800 per cloth while thick or heavy embroidery cost N3,000. And the ability to do more of such embroidery per day will determine the profitability of the investor.
“Interested person may not necessarily be the one to operate in the shop, he or she can employ hands to do the job while he or she is into other business or office work. But it more advisable for investor to stay around within the shop to guard against unfaithful workers who may use the absence of the owner to exploit the investor.
“The training in the basics use of monogram and embroidery machine, which is using your embroidery machine interface and stitching your first built-in design, takes at least three to six hours.
“The training is a journey because you learn new things in it as you keep doing the job, in fact, it is a work in progress. This means that, it is not learnt in one day nor is it a theoretical thing. It requires practice. One continues to grow by using the machine until one becomes more proficient,” he said.
Business Capital
My investigations also shows that an investor needs a minimum of N500,000 investment to start this business, as the cost of purchasing the machines have gone up in recent time.