Dubai Forums Dubai Business Dubai Business Talk

Hello Forum Members,

I was looking into starting up a custom furniture business in dubai and wanted a few of your thoughts on the idea.

I was proposing to offer clients hand made one off, custom designed items for there homes, gardens etc. Would there be a market for this? are people willing to spend a bit more and have things made to there exact needs/wants for THERE home? my thought was nobody wants to have the same as everybody else!.

Example- When you have friends around and they say "I have the same table in my house"

I have years of experience as a workshop carpenter making doors,tables,chairs,beds,bars,kitchens,garden furniture etc

Give me you ideas people is this a good or bad idea for a business here?

Thanks,
Darren

Generally the idea sucks but if you can make good contacts you could literally make a fortune. My brother used to work for a design comapny and you'd be gobsmacked at the prices they would pay for single custom made pieces.

For example around 30k for a desk at one of the police chiefs offices and that just for the design which I saw the CAD drawings wasn't that great at all. Also some stuff for the rulers office shooting gallery, yes the office also had a shooting range built into it, go figure.

But your work has to be top notch plus top notch presentation etc etc, i.e catering to mostly the rich and VIPs to really the money.

For the average joe, times are tough most people packing and leaving and dumping whole villa full of furniture at cheap prices plus no one really wants to spend on "custom pieces" nowadays with the economic downturn and all, specially when there is a huge variety of ready made ready to install stores here, like Ikea etc etc.

Also not to forget there is already industry doing this specially in places like sharjah where you can anything bulit to your liking.

So unless your willing to spend major money is setting up a top shelf bussiness i.e snazzy office/showroom and workshop its not going to make enough money for you to survive on. Maybe an odd order here and there but not enough to make a decent living on.

In the gulf you cannot compete with the cheap south asian labour in tradesman fields likes welders, masons, bricklayers, carpenters, painters, garderners etc etc.

^^^ That's pretty much spot on really DDS, @ UKD, aren't you the fellow who wanted to set up a window tinting business earlier this Year?

Regards

Well spotted ! Seems like our friend is desperate to either come to dubai or get the hell out of UK or maybe bothe so giving a try to almost everything he can think off.

Mate like I said forget about all tradesman fields unless your willing to invest big money and set up a top class bussiness. On a day to day basis nothing is going to work specially with the with overhead costs here ( trade licenses, sponsorship fees, visas, rents etc etc which are increasing day by day) and the readily avaliable cheap personel across the gulf, not much scope left here for the small independant bussiness/trades or craft man.

Iam currently working here, but i was always told "you wont make real money working for somebody as all your doing is making them money"

Well that what every employee anywhere in the world does doesn't it ? Makes money for the employer. Sometimes according to ones job there are added benefits like commissions, incentives, bonuses etc etc i.e the more money you make for the employer the employer rewards you for your hardwork. If I were a bussiness owner I hate to have people working for me and not making any money for me, right ?

I don't see what the qualm is all about. Maybe your talking about savings then thats a different story althoghter