Thanks Bizdev and Vangogh for your kind remarks.

A further point. There's gift wrapping and then there's superior high-class gift wrapping. I wouldn't bother with the ordinary thing. It's too competitive, everyone is doing it and there's nothing available apart from location and price to differentiate your ordinary gift wrapping business from the others in the same business.

The wholesaling of high-class materials is probably the best option allowing bigger margins with higher volumes without the high labor content that is inherent in having one or two people per desk to do wrapping.

I lived in Japan for a while and was quite surprised at how most things are wrapped or boxed. People even pay money to have an extensive hand-painted print made to wrap around a gift.

I happened to buy 3 of those prints for $50 each and much later sold them for $4000 framed. They were superb and very impressive when framed.

Another Australian in Japan was buying old silk kimonos and cutting them up to make beautiful scarves. She made an absolute fortune from it. The kimonos, worn only once, were largely discarded due to minor stains or being unfashionable. Typical original cost was around $5000 to $25,000 per kimono (some were more) and she bought them for just a few dollars at markets. She cut around the stains and made scarves.

An advantage to the wholesaling angle is that all travel is tax-deductible... yippeeeee, as you'd need to travel to discover materials and methods.

A photo essay also would be smart to do if you are going to do that.