Are you a housewife in an Indian City (Delhi, Chennai, Kerala)? If YES, here are 50 best home based small business ideas for housewives in India with low cash.
There are a lot of business ideas for housewives depending on their skills set. Even housewives with little or no skills can learn a skill or two and make a living while taking care of their families. Home based jobs and businesses are becoming increasingly popular with growing opportunities daily.
With the required skills and expertise, housewives can successfully work or do business from their homes while having enough time for their families. Depending on the job or business, some other elements aside skills and expertise housewives need to consider before starting a job or business from home are:
- Space required and space available
- How much time they can spare
- Cost
- The location of their homes
- Planning and marketing requirements
Are you an Indian housewife that wants to work or do business from home? Then check out these interesting business ideas below.
50 Best Home Based Business ideas for Housewives in India With Low Cash
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Basket Making:
Basket weaving is a very profitable business for housewives. Like any other business, it needs to be properly planned, and it needs some space. The success of the basket weaving business relies heavily on knowing the craft well enough and on creativity.
If you enjoy making good food and sharing it with people, a restaurant business might just be the best idea for you. You can start a restaurant within your house. If you do not have the space or if you worry about your household’s privacy, then you could start a food vendor business where you make the food in your house and your customers either pick the meals up, or you have someone deliver it to them.
Baking is something that can be done completely in the comfort of one’s home. Housewives can bake cake or make different snacks. These items can be sold to local stores, or housewives can make a business arrangement with store owners who have shelves or stands where they can display and sell their goods, although this would require hiring someone to man the products. Housewives can also decide to bake only for specific occasions like making birthday cakes, wedding cakes, etc.
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Blogging
With blogging, you don’t just make money writing or talking about things you love, you do it at your convenience and pace, which makes it suitable for housewives and stay-at-home moms too. You can start a blog on housekeeping, food, even child care.
Blogs today are perhaps the most popular and most powerful tools through which businesses and individuals reach their audience. You can make millions from blogging in the comfort of your bedroom. You might need to learn social media skills if you do not know how to use social media networks. It isn’t time or money consuming; you can a get a friend or family to take you through how to use the social media.
Making candles at home doesn’t require a large budget to start a small scale candle making business. If you live in an urban area where electricity is not a problem, then it is advisable to make only decorated and scented candles. You need some training on how to make these candles. However, the training for small scale home based candle making does not take too long.
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Card Making
For creative and craft loving housewives, greeting card making is a perfect home based business idea. You need very little capital to start, and you can get your first set of customers among friends and family. You need referrals to grow a card making business, and to ensure its continuity you have to bring your creativity A-game on with every card you make. Also note that you have to make the cards more attractive than the ones on shelves at stores, they have to be customized. This gives your cards an edge above the ones in stores.
Housewives and full-time moms who are experts in some fields can easily turn their knowledge and expertise into a money making avenue. You can start out with a virtual office, connect with clients online and communicate through telephone, emails, etc. You can leverage on social media platforms to market your services. This is one business you would most likely need little or no capital to start.
Content writing is one, if not the most sought after online jobs right now. The demand for content writers is very high, and even large multinationals often request the services of content writers. You can choose to work full time remotely as a content writer or become a full-fledged entrepreneur by working as a freelance writer for as many clients as you can handle.
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Homemade Candy and Chocolate
Making candy and chocolates at home is quite easy and lucrative also. Both children and adults are consumers of candy. If you are a stay home mom, you can liaise with schools, other parents, and children event planners to let you supply candies for their children’s parties and events. You can learn how to make homemade chocolate and candies through instructional videos online.
Homemade cookies never go out of trend and demand. Even if cookies are the only things you know how to bake, you can still turn them into business for yourself. You can supply special cookies for different occasions, or you can make them for stores to resell. The holiday periods are cookie gift-baskets best seasons.
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Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing works by leveraging on your website traffic to market another business. It involves advertising other websites or businesses on your website. These advert materials often contain links to the websites you are marketing, and you earn a commission for every purchase made by a link from your website.
Even if you do not have any knowledge or experience, you can take some short-term lessons on jewelry making add you own creativity and style. You can start making jewelry from home. You can sell to local jewelry stores around you, or you can just sell your creations online.
Every small or big company needs business accounting services like bank reconciliation, e-filling, service tax, sales tax, payroll, etc. One can start this home based part time business by giving this services freelance to the businesses who can’t afford a full-time professional.
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Copywriting
The media never runs out of adverts, advertisers often require the services of copywriters to create dynamic and unique contents for adverts on different mass media. You can write from your homes while communicating with your employer virtually. One thing you need to keep in mind is that you have to always meet deadlines.
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Clixsense
With Clixsence you can make some money by spending some hours on your internet enabled device daily.
For women who love craft making, turning their hobbies into a business is as easy as its gets. You can create fashion and decorative items with your crafts.
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Image Consultancy
If you love fashion and grooming, image consultancy jobs might just be good for you. It is fun doing what you enjoy and earning money from it.
This is a very profitable service that will always be in demand. There are many families where both parents have day jobs. You can start a crèche or day care center in your home. You do not need much capital to start this business as all of the babies’ things are brought by the parents. You can even offer late hours or overnight care services for a parent who works late or overnight sometimes. Your hygiene level and supervision has to be impeccable.
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Knitting
Housewives who already know how to knit can take their knitting skills beyond making sweaters for their family and turn their hobbies into a money making enterprise.
Demand for honey is always on the rise due to the growing awareness about its health benefits. All over the world, many people are ditching sugar for honey. Bee keeping business is a good business venture but it requires daily monitoring which makes it time-consuming and tasking.
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Writing E-books
E-book writing is just a perfect way of converting a hobby into a business, for those housewives who love to write and know how to make an e-book.
For housewives who have creative arts talent, one perfect way to make money with your talent during your free time at home is through graphic designing. There is never a dearth of job openings for a graphic artist. Our world consumes visuals a lot and the opportunities for graphic designers are vast. You can simply make a business card or create an Online business profile for yourself on a professional and business website or on social media. You can also signup on freelance hiring websites where you can get jobs online even from continents away from yours and get paid in the comfort of your home.
A virtual assistant is one of the available online jobs today. It involves creating schedules, answering and sending emails, etc.
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Pay to Click Ads
There are websites or digital marketing companies that pay users money to click and view adverts. Earning from PTC can be tricky as some sites might not pay even after you have delivered the required advert views. Therefore, before you start PTC, search online, ask on online forums and from people around you about genuine pay to click arrangements.
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Feature Agency
With simply a telephone connection and a personal computer, you can start your own feature agency.
There is never a shortage of customers for a female fashion store that is positioned rightly. For those housewives who live in urban areas and have enough space in their houses, starting a fashion boutique is a good business idea. You do not need to limit your sales to female fashion items only, and you can include men and children items.
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Glass Etching
This is a good business idea that can be fully done from home. Glass etching is however suitable for creative individuals who can make unique and attractive art on glassware.
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Online Photo Selling
Any housewife that is passionate about photography and can take clear and creative photographs can start selling photos online simply by uploading the most beautiful photos online and selling them to websites that buy photos.
Planning events for corporate organizations is a great business opportunity that is easy to begin, highly profitable and fun.
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Micro Internet Jobs
There are organizations who hire interns, students and other less busy individuals to do minor tasks like commenting on blogs, writing answers FAQs on blogs and websites, etc. This is one of the simplest ways to earn some money for housewives with no skills. Anyone who can read and write on a basic level can get this job done. The employer provides the needed information for the job.
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Research
Whether one is starting a big or small business, conducting market research is a compulsory exercise for the success of such business. Market research is not limited to new businesses, already established businesses do require market research data for various reasons. Housewives who have the necessary expertise can make a living from conducting market researches. They can hire individuals to do the bulk of the field work and data gathering.
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Sewing
Housewives who can sew can turn it into a profit making idea. Housewives who do not know how to sew can learn in months. This business does not necessarily need so much space which makes it perfect for housewives and full time moms who do not have much space in their houses. It is not too expensive to start, once you have the sewing machine, other sewing items are very cheap to procure.
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Spa Parlour
This is ideal for women who have some extra space in their houses that they can convert into a small or medium size spa. Prior expertise is not very necessary once there is interest, there are many spa studios/parlors that offer short training or crash courses for anyone who wants to be a professional in the business.
This is a luxury service that can be very profitable when placed in the right location with the right marketing efforts. It is also highly reliant on referrals, therefore housewives going into this business have to be sure their houses are situated in the perfect environment and make sure to deliver exceptional service to get high referrals.
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Interior Designing
Interior designing requires a great deal of creativity and knowledge about the art.
The advantage of starting a hair salon business is that those who are specialists in this profession can be employed while the housewife manages the business. However, as the business grows, it is advisable to get some training for days you might need to fill in for an absent staff.
Hair salon business could be done on a small scale or large scale depending on how much space you have in your compound. For housewives who do not have much or any extra space in their houses, nor enough capital to get tools and pay employees, the small scale salon can even be so small that you may not require any staff, just you making hair for individuals in your community.
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Nail Art
Nail art is different, involves more creativity and more financially rewarding than the regular nail painting jobs. It is also easier to start this business in a limited space and under a small budget than a full nail care studio. With the nail art business, you do not need much equipment to get the job done. It is all about creating amazing designs for your clients, most wouldn’t mind going to nail salons for mani-pedis and then coming to you for head-turning art on their nails.
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Online Selling
A housewife can start her own business without even opening a store, thanks to websites like eBay. You can register with such online market place, get items from the manufacturers at low wholesale prices, upload a photo of your items along with full details of the items and cost and start selling. The exciting thing about this is that the website does all the advertising and handles deliveries to your buyers. However, you need to know that these websites have a commission for every sale you make, but it is a very nice way to sell products and services right from your bedroom.
Housewives with an extra room or rooms with the necessary amenities to make a guest comfort can short-let such rooms as paid accommodation. You can add extra charges if you would provide meals for the guest. If preferred, you can let it out to females only or families. For housewives that are very concerned about safety, such rooms may be let out only to guests referred by family members, friends or other trusted individuals. Though this is a way of making some extra cash, it may not be regular depending on where your house is located.
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Data entry jobs
There are many data entry jobs both online and offline. An amount of money is paid for each form you handle, and you get your pay according to the number of forms filled/entered.
This is for housewives with the relevant skills and have once been employed in a corporate organization. You can simply start this business by writing, rewriting and reviewing resumes for jobseekers. This can be done completely online, and it costs almost no cash to start.
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Scrapbooking
There are a lot of people who would love to have their own scrapbooks but do not enough time to go through with it. Housewives often have more time on their hands, and you can use some of your free time to make money by writing creative and interesting scrapbooks for people.
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Art Sale
This a profitable business for housewives that can make artworks such as sculptures, paintings, drawings, etc. You can liaise with art galleries and art stores to showcase and sell your art pieces. You could even organize your own art show.
Almost every business and organization has at least one social media account. Right now we live in a world where social media marketing is every organization’s major business marketing tool, which has made the demand for social media account managers to be on the rise. Becoming a social media manager is an easy way for housewives to generate regular income without leaving their homes everyday. It can also be learned.
A housewife can begin tax consulting at home with very little among of money after going through certain accounting courses or certifications.
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Online Survey
This is also one way of making money during your free time at home. All you have to do is answer some questions online about selected products and services. All you need is an internet connection and internet enabled device.
Tutoring is also one of the ways to start a business with almost no cost. Full-time moms can start tutoring children in subjects or areas they are good at.
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Translating
Language translation online is gradually becoming one of the most popular online jobs. You can translate books, web pages and more to other languages. You may have to research websites that require this service and how they pay.
Home based soap making is a business that is now popular even among working moms who want to make extra income. You can learn simple home based soap making in a few days, and it doesn’t require much capital to start. You can sell to local stores in your community, families, including members of any social, or religious group you might belong to.
This is also a skill based job, and it is suitable for housewives who are skilled in coding, HTML, website designing etc. Interested housewives can also attend training on website creation.
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Broom Making
This is another great business for housewives in india to do from home. The skills required can be learned with ease. With the appropriate customer base, this is certain to bring in lots of resources.