Detailed Cost Of Starting a Tailoring Business In Nigeria(2022)

Cost Of Starting a Tailoring Business

Tailoring is one of the numerous businesses tagged as a small-scale industry in Nigeria. Many Nigerians are into it, making a good fortune from the business.

Despite negligence of the business by those who know nothing or little about it, some have become millionaires through tailoring.

Though local tailors may not be as rich as fashion designers, they also take care of their families and meet other responsibilities through the business.

While those making huge money in this business are fashion designers that make expensive fabrics and other material designs for Nollywood stars, musicians, politicians, and other prominent people in the country.

Tailoring creates personal satisfaction for those in it. This is because designing and making the design suits your customers’ demands will always boost the confidence to do more. Therefore tailors tend to be innovative all the time.

THINGS YOU NEED TO BECOME A TAILOR

To become a professional tailor and make a good fortune out of it you need to first; know how to sew clothes with different types of sewing machines both the manual type and electrical type.

Secondly; you must have good knowledge of measurements and be able to transfer drawn designs made on paper into plain clothes by cutting the clothes into pieces according to the sizes each measurement gives in that drawing.

Afterward, you must be able to sew the measured pieces of clothes into the various specified area in the drawing thereby making complete sewing of the design sent to you as a tailor.

Once this is done perfectly without mistake/s you are qualified to be called a professional tailor, hence your customers will be satisfied with your job and your great work will always bring more jobs to you.

Thirdly; to go further in the profession you may consider being a fashion designer and a tailor at the same time. If that is your goal, then consider learning how to design clothes for your customers or for sale.

A professional fashion designer can carry out designs of clothes for different sizes of people and will be able to create designs that never exist anywhere in the country or in the world yet such may still look great after the final sewing of the design.

Hence; tailors aiming to be great in this field should consider having designing and tailoring skills together.

Fourthly, you need:

A sewing machine (or machines) either manual or electric type or both at a time.

A weaving machine.

A store or office.

A 3 feet by 6 feet table.

Measuring tapes (cm, mm, yards, inches, etc.).

Pencil/biro, writing books.

Drawing sheets.

Fashion calendars and magazines.

Comfortable chairs.

Steel welded standing hangers for finished clothes.

One or more dozens of original plastic hangers.

One or two thick 2 feet by 4 feet wall mirrors (mirrors).

Charcoal and electric pressing iron.

A cupboard for packing all your tailoring accessories such as; (threads, needles, papers, pencils, biro, books, tags, etc.).

and any other minor items you may need based on your preference. With all that, the business can function effectively.

ALSO READ: HOW TO START A FASHION AND TAILORING BUSINESS IN NIGERIA 

HOW TO BECOME RICH THROUGH TAILORING

How To Make Money in Tailoring Business

The summarized explanations of how to become rich through tailoring are:

• Do your job perfectly without mistake/s to make your customers look great when they wear your products, hence others will ask them how and where they got the product they are wearing and you will be having such people interested as another customer.
• Never forget to have complementary cards usually shared with your customers and fabrics tags with your business name and contact fixed at the inner collar of your sewed fabrics.
• Try to be attending social gatherings such as weddings, birthdays, churches, burials, carnivals, etc. so you can be able to see the designs of others and know the defects in them and how best to create yours, also such gatherings enable you to share your contacts to those you see wearing sewed fabrics from other designers.
• You may make a catalog of all your previous products and use it to cajole them to patronize you. Remember, you need many customers when you are sure of your handwork.
• Meet designed fabrics’ high selling boutiques and discuss prices they sell and adjust yours so you can be making some designs they may or may not send to you and send them to their boutique for sales, you may receive your money immediately or wait till your products are sold, everything will depend on the agreement both of you reached.
• Better still; you may consider having your own fashion room or boutique to display your products if you can afford it, that will make your business name great and look more professional.

THE TOTAL COST OF STARTING A TAILORING BUSINESS

The cost of starting a tailoring business may differ greatly or slightly based on the following factors:

The location (whether urban or rural area),

The site (whether on expressway or street),

The state (whether a highly populated state like Lagos or a less populated state),

The size of the business (number of workers needed),

How professional you need it to be,

And other minor factors, etc.

All these factors are what determine how much to be put into setting up the business.

Basically, for any business to be recognized officially in Nigeria you need to register it with the Nigeria Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and that can take between N30,000 to N50,000 to obtain a registration number and other official data. Note that the money is a one-time payment but not refundable.

So besides the business name registration, let us go further to consider the cost of other materials needed to set up this business on a one-man or small-scale basis. The materials listed and the cost quoted is for a single individual who wishes to set up a tailoring workshop.

A sewing machine (or machines) either manual or electric type or both at a time,

A brand new manual sewing machine costs between N60,000 to N100,000 depending on the brand name which also signifies its quality.

While electric sewing can be obtained by having a small electric motor attached to the flywheel of the manual sewing machine and such motor costs between N20,000 to N40,000 depending on the RPM of the electric motor.

However, there are complete electric sewing machines having an in-built electric motor, one can purchase them in electronics markets like; Electromats in Onitsha or Alaba International in Lagos at the cost of N100,000 and above.

A weaving machine

Weaving machines are used in sealing up the edges of the two sides of clothes joined together by a sewing machine.

They run zigzag lines of threads to seal up the sewed edges thereby making it impossible for the cloth to develop problems through the sewed edges or joints.

The machine usually comes in electric and manual. And the cost differs depending on the type, the electric type is costlier than sewing machines the cost starts from N200,000 and above.

While the manual type is rare and requires a highly experienced individual to operate it, though the price is not specific it would not cost up to N80,000.

 A store or an office

The cost of obtaining an office differs from place to place, you can have an office as low as N24,000 per in rural areas or as high as N280,000 per year in urban areas.

Note that the site of these offices in each location will always affect the cost irrespective of the place i.e. whether urban or rural area.

3 feet by 6 feet table

A table like this one can be made by a carpenter or furniture maker and would not cost more than N10,000. If it is to be bought from a showroom or imported then it can cost up to N50, 000.

 Measuring tapes (cm, mm, yards, inches, etc.)  =N50-N200.

Pencil/biro =N20 –N50

Writing books =N50-N100

Drawing sheets =N20- N40 each.

Fashion calendars and magazines = N200 – N500 each.

Comfortable chairs

Fancy metallic office chairs cost from N5000 to N20,000 each, while plastic chairs cost from N2000 to N5000 each, and locally made wooden chairs cost from N2000 to N3000 based on the maker’s price. All these prices depend on the features and ranges in each of the types of chairs.

Steel welded standing hangers for finished clothes

This can be made by a welder and would not cost more than N10,000 depending on the size of the steel beam or rod to be used and the total length of the hanger.

One or more dozens of original plastic hangers = N200 – N400 each.

One or two thick 2 feet by 4 feet wall mirrors (mirrors)

The mirror can be cut by mirror dealers or purchased directly from the market and has it attached with wooden frames. The budget would be N8000 for each mirror.

A charcoal and electric pressing iron

Charcoal pressing iron costs from N1500 to N2000, while electric pressing iron costs from N3000 to N7000. All the prices depend on the quality, features, sizes, etc.

A cupboard for packing all your tailoring accessories such as; (threads, needles, papers, pencils, biro, books, tags, etc.)

Such a cupboard can be made by a carpenter or furniture maker and would cost no more than N20,000 depending on the size and quality of wood to be used.

The above items and prices mentioned are things needed by anyone intending to start a professional tailoring busibusiness in Nigeria.

However, if you wish to set up this business but don’t have enough money to purchase all the listed items, you can cut costs by leaving some behind and going for more relevant items & also going cheaper brands in the market.

But know for sure that your office appearance can affect your customer’s confidence in terms of delivering satisfying jobs.

The above post is based on personal research and analyses, if you have an additional contribution please drop it using the comment form.